UK Strategic Planning

[villa4europe]

HS2 isn't about a quicker train...

I'm sure it's a Chinese saying that i stumbled across at uni that you build a road out of a recession, HS2 is about economic stimulus and if you see what's happening in brum then it has worked, the construction industry is booming, so much so that my last company made the decision to stay out of the city because it was too competitive 

If / when it ever finishes they should move on to the next one

Whether or not it succeeds as a useful train line its easy to lean towards probably not

And going OT...I find it mad that the government and politicians in general has got everyone looking at HS2 and frothing with rage while being very quiet about the £7bn refurb of the houses of Parliament that getting, that project is absolutely **** outrageous, its the 3rd most expensive commercial construction project in history anywhere in the world (the 2 in mecca being more) if you want to talk about London hoarding the money for themselves 

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, KentVillan said:

The problem with HS2 is that it is genuinely a shitstorm, but also most of its most vocal opponents are completely disingenuous NIMBYs.

The thing its proponents never seem to have been able to explain effectively is that more rail capacity has knock on positive effects on other lines, on roads, airports, etc. The more options you have to travel between two places, the easier it is to travel by any of those, and that’s why more capacity is a good thing…

The only way the media ever portray it is "controversial" 

I've never seen a single news report explain it's purpose. 

It's probably bona fide evidence that this is NOT in fact about London because if it was the press coverage would be favourable, mention but not really go on about the cost/increases. They would kick up a massive fuss about it not going directly into Euston and would constantly bang on about how vital it was and how the rest of the country would benefit. 

Funny that for once a project will actually benefit the rest of the country and they never mention it. 

Edited March 9, 2023 by sidcow

[Mandy Lifeboats]

12 minutes ago, sidcow said:

If we're not keeping it then Nukecastle

That's already how they pronounce. 

[chrisp65]

7 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

 

If / when it ever finishes they should move on to the next one

It’s due to finish at some point in the 2040’s presuming there are no further delays in the next two decades.

What’s the bet that at some point in the next 20 years something else in London or the south east will need an upgrade? Why because everything is concentrated on London so its incredibly heavy use means they need to keep feeding the beast.

There simply will not come a point when government and 9 million Londoners announce they are done and its time to invest in Belfast.

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

HS2 is like Brexit, it never goes away because it’s not a particularly good idea.

If it was, someone would have been able to put the arguments of cost versus benefit to bed a long time ago.

It's more like the Immigration debate that's raged on here over the last 2 days. 

You can throw every logical argument into the mix. Explain the enormous benefits it will bring. Ask naysayers to provide alternative options to solve the problem which genuinely exists. And in return all you get is. 

 

[KentVillan]

25 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Do we see traffic jams on roads during rail strikes?

The differences in the numbers don't make a lot of difference to the roads - I think rail accounts for about 5% of commutes locally.

Yes, in areas where rail usage is higher (eg anywhere in London and its commuter belt). The roads become unusable during rail strikes (ok advance warning and remote working ease this load a little, but it’s still very much the case).

In Birmingham / West Mids, the argument is a bit different I guess, which is that the road network has become this vast sprawl that has nearly reached its limits, and the only way to ease the load is with other modes of transport.

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Are roads actually free to use?

You pay Road Tax and huge amounts of tax on the fuel you put in the car to use the road. 

(OK, you can use a bicycle but that's just piggybacking on the back of someone else's payments) 

Surely a better system would be some kind of small reasonable payment for the use of the service which is low enough to pay for regular use and tempts people out of cars.  Maybe if you are a frequent user some kind of reasonable price for all use of the system. Let's call it a season ticket. 

They’re free at the point of use, but are obviously paid for out of taxation generally. It’s not a perfect analogy I concede. It was a flippant, slightly jocular point.

There is no such thing as “road tax”. It’s vehicle excise duty, I think. Paid based on emissions. Cyclists don’t burn fossil fuels to power their efforts. They’re not piggybacking.  I cycle. I pay VED, too, but when I’m cycling I don’t drive the car, obviously. Roads aren’t funded from hypothecated “road tax”.

You are right I think to point out, though, that some cost is pre-accrued before most folks use the roads. For trains, it wouldn’t work to make it a total, unconstrained free for all , you’d get massive overcrowding sometimes and so on. You’d still need ticketing and seat numbers and bookings and so on.

But it’s not beyond the wit of man to have some kind of system whereby people could pay for a (say) annual travel pass and then be free to book train travel. There are already free transit systems across Europe and the wider world, sometimes just in city centres and CBDs, sometimes around ticketing for events, sometimes nationwide. It works.

[blandy]

10 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

There simply will not come a point when government and 9 million Londoners announce they are done and its time to invest in Belfast.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/northern-irelands-first-city-deal-signed-today-unlocking1-billion-of-co-investment-for-the-belfast-region
 

Quote

UK Government and NI Executive Ministers gathered at the ICC Belfast to sign the first ever City Deal for Northern Ireland.

The Belfast Region City Deal unlocks £1 billion of transformative co-investment which will deliver more than 20 highly ambitious projects and programmes, create up to 20,000 new and better jobs and help make the region a global investment destination over the next decade.

 

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, tinker said:

The argument it will free up local trains is also misleading,  it will free up lines on the London bound trains from smaller towns , benefitting....London.

That's just bollocks. 

Masses of extra routes into New Street are released. 

We can build new stations north and south of Wolverhampton to improve suburban Wolverhampton connections into Wolverhampton (which has literally 1 railway station) and Birmingham. 

We could build new stations south of Birmingham and in Coventry suburbs to improve suburban Coventry connections into Coventry (which has literally 4 railway stations) and between Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton suburbs and Coventry and Coventry suburbs. 

All those suburbs are then instantly linked nationally via New Street and internationally via Birmingham International. 

We can massively increase the number of slow services between Crewe and Milton Keynes delivering millions of extra journeys and interconnectivity annually. 

It can open up routes into East West Rail meaning new direct links to East Anglia and Oxford and beyond. 

There are limitless opportunities which don't involve London at all. 

But people are 

 

[sidcow]

14 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s due to finish at some point in the 2040’s presuming there are no further delays in the next two decades.

What’s the bet that at some point in the next 20 years something else in London or the south east will need an upgrade? Why because everything is concentrated on London so its incredibly heavy use means they need to keep feeding the beast.

There simply will not come a point when government and 9 million Londoners announce they are done and its time to invest in Belfast.

But we can't move major infrastructure out of London till we've got something leaving London. 

Hopefully in 20 years time there is more money around (wooohohoo the Brexit bonus) and a more innovative Government who can build spurs off HS2 to all corners of The UK.  You've got to have a spine in place to do this. 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

spurs

You’ve lost my vote there, Sid. Wockney cankers.

[KentVillan]

Found a couple of interesting pieces on these questions. One from the FT in 2017, and one on Substack last year by an ex-Adam Smith Institute (ultra free market economics "think tank").

What's interesting is anyone who looks at these issues from left or right in any depth seems to arrive at similar conclusions on most points, but just highlighting different angles.

https://www.ft.com/content/c907081e-80c7-11e7-94e2-c5b903247afd

Quote

Why the UK is struggling with poor infrastructure

A lack of political vision and funds are holding back a much-needed overhaul

The World Economic Forum last year ranked the quality of Britain’s infrastructure 24th in the world, down from 19th in 2006. This puts Britain mid-table among industrialised countries, and towards the bottom of the group of G7 nations.

One problem holding back comprehensive infrastructure improvement, which would boost the economy, notably in productivity terms, is politicians’ apparent infatuation with mega projects. Successive governments have scrapped smaller schemes while pressing ahead with huge programmes such as the £56bn HS2 railway line between London and northern England, and the £20bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

 

“It’s monument building,” says Bent Flyvbjerg, professor at the Saïd Business School at Oxford university. “Politicians like big projects because they are more spectacular, and they need that to get re-elected. They could spend £1bn on mending potholes, but it would be quickly forgotten.”

But the biggest single issue is lack of funds. Following the financial crisis, David Cameron’s coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats embarked on an austerity programme that involved slashing investment spending to help reduce public borrowing.

 

...

Chancellor Philip Hammond’s strict fiscal rules, which require the government to cut borrowing to zero by the middle of the next decade, provide a strong incentive to prefer private over public financing. “The Treasury has a clear preference for privately financing infrastructure projects,” says Nick Davies of the Institute for Government. “But their reasons for that are not well-evidenced and they could and should do more to gather evidence on the costs and benefits of different forms of financing.”

And https://samdumitriu.substack.com/p/why-britain-struggles-to-build-infrastructure

Quote

Many of Britain’s most pressing economic problems can be linked to our collective inability to build.

• Housing shortages in the UK’s most productive places have led to low rates of home-ownership, a higher cost of living, and slower rates of productivity growth. 

• It is harder to capitalise on the UK’s world-class research universities because of a shortage of commercial lab space. 

• Many parts of South-East England were hit hard by droughts this year in part because of a failure to build new reservoirs. 

• Large cities outside of the South East such as Birmingham and Leeds are unable to capitalise the productivity benefits of being big due to a failure to build more tram and metro lines (and in turn to build enough houses near them). 

• There is a genuine risk of blackouts this Winter and energy bills have hit record levels in large part because not enough wind, solar, nuclear, and grid infrastructure has been built.

Basically to summarise, the key issues are:

• During a decade of record low interest rates we had a Govt committed to "balancing books" which meant they rejected the cheapest form of financing (govt borrowing) in favour of private financing which required projects to be profitable for the investors (= more expensive for wider economy / end users).
• Planning laws / Nimbyism in London / SE
• Obsession with what the French call "Grands Projets" - i.e. monumental vanity projects which will be a glorious ruler's legacy - instead of low-level building and fixing.
• Lack of long-term thinking on local / regional transport infrastructure, leaving big cities outside London underperforming.

Think you can explain pretty much everything with some combination of these factors.

[chrisp65]

10 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It's more like the Immigration debate that's raged on here over the last 2 days. 

You can throw every logical argument into the mix. Explain the enormous benefits it will bring. Ask naysayers to provide alternative options to solve the problem which genuinely exists. And in return all you get is. 

 

I’m not sure that’s fair. It’s been pointed out what the pro HS2 people see as the advantage, I can see that too. It’ll be great for people from Aberystwyth that regularly are in a rush to get passed Wolverhampton and on to London, but didn’t want to get up earlier.

Can you see (forgive me here its the bit I know about), that the £5 billion taken from Wales transport budgets might have benefitted Aberystwyth more if it was spent, for instance, in West Wales? On trains and docks and WiFi and energy. As opposed to involving a giant new hub… in London.

Where its a given that ideally we would do both the London thing, and the dock thing. But we never do both, we always do the London one.

I think it’s a bit off to compare this with the small boat argument.

[KentVillan]

25 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

There simply will not come a point when government and 9 million Londoners announce they are done and its time to invest in Belfast.

I'm biased, but I don't actually think London is the problem.

I think it's actually Middle England. Londoners are in general somewhat more high tax / high investment / internationalist / progressive in their mindset than average.

It's Middle England that wants the government to spend absolutely nothing, keep taxes to a bare minimum, and **** rebalancing and lifting regional cities.

[chrisp65]

12 minutes ago, sidcow said:

But we can't move major infrastructure out of London till we've got something leaving London. 

Hopefully in 20 years time there is more money around (wooohohoo the Brexit bonus) and a more innovative Government who can build spurs off HS2 to all corners of The UK.  You've got to have a spine in place to do this. 

Come on, wasn’t that the reason all motorways lead ‘out of’ London?

Spurs off HS2 will… lead to London.

What would be the problem with connecting Plymouth, Portsmouth, Exeter and Bristol? Peterborough, Coventry, Cambridge.

I’m not anti London, I love the place. People all around the UK voted Brexit to get rid of central control, let’s learn a lesson and invest something more than the bullshit levelling up fund.  

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I'm biased, but I don't actually think London is the problem.

I think it's actually Middle England. Londoners are in general somewhat more high tax / high investment / internationalist / progressive in their mindset than average.

It's Middle England that wants the government to spend absolutely nothing, keep taxes to a bare minimum, and **** rebalancing and lifting regional cities.

But that’s not what they are getting. They are getting the worst of that, they pay the tax and see London boom. I can see how that might irritate the good people of Brexit Britain.

[bickster]

22 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Come on, wasn’t that the reason all motorways lead ‘out of’ London?

Newsflash: They don’t 

[sidcow]

36 minutes ago, Genie said:

I’m ok with widening motorways that everyone can use and be far cheaper

Depends what you mean by cheaper. Destroying the planet is fairly costly. 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Newsflash: They don’t 

I appreciate I wasn’t being 100% literal. 1958 they opened a few miles of the Preston bypass. 1959 they started the M4 and the M1, London end.

London now has 9 motorways that either go in to London or connect to the M25.

How many motorway miles connect Colchester, Ipswich, Felixstowe, Norwich? None.

[KentVillan]

Just looking at infrastructure spend as % of GDP.

I'll ignore a few smaller countries here, but a few interesting ones:

• China 5.80%
• Hungary 1.86%
• Australia 1.69%
• Norway 1.58%
• South Korea 1.32%
• Switzerland 1.18%
• Japan 1.10%
• India 1.08%
• Sweden 1.06%
• UK 0.89%
• France 0.88%
• New Zealand 0.82%
• Denmark 0.81%
• Germany 0.80%
• Canada 0.57%
• USA 0.55%

From https://www.statista.com/statistics/566787/average-yearly-expenditure-on-economic-infrastructure-as-percent-of-gdp-worldwide-by-country/

Very surprised by some of the countries below the UK.

Suggests our problems are a mix of weak GDP growth since 2007, poor decision making with the investments we do make, and maybe also we just aren't as bad as we think we are.