UK Strategic Planning

[KentVillan]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

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.

Tbf, why on earth would you want to speed up your journey to Ipswich or Norwich

[tinker]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

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 

 

There's one train line that runs from Birmingham to London at the moment, freeing that up is hardly game changing.(it will make a difference but its not good value for money spent) The money would have been better spent improving local transport links.

Interesting article on the North South divide. 

"Want to properly plug the UK’s north-south divide? Look to Germany

Larry Elliott"

 

 

[bickster]

Just now, tinker said:

There's one train line that runs from Birmingham to London at the moment

No there isn't

[villa4europe]

Widening motorways would not bring investment in to Birmingham, Coventry or Wolverhampton 

Hard to know for sure just how much of brums big city plan and the next phase (bdp 2031?) wouldn't happen if HS2 wasn't happening, I'd guess maybe as much as half would have been binned off

Again, HS2 is not about a quicker train, it's about investment, economic growth and the construction industry 

[tinker]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

No there isn't

OK there's 2.

Edited March 9, 2023 by tinker

[sidcow]

5 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Widening motorways would not bring investment in to Birmingham, Coventry or Wolverhampton 

Hard to know for sure just how much of brums big city plan and the next phase (bdp 2031?) wouldn't happen if HS2 wasn't happening, I'd guess maybe as much as half would have been binned off

Again, HS2 is not about a quicker train, it's about investment, economic growth and the construction industry 

And companies relocating out of London to Brum. 

A lot of software companies and Banking functions are relocating here. Nearly every press release about such move cites HS2. 

Edited March 9, 2023 by sidcow

[chrisp65]

7 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Tbf, why on earth would you want to speed up your journey to Ipswich or Norwich

48% of all the UK’s container trade goes through Felixstowe. Felixstowe is the 8th largest port in Europe.

Felixstowe has less motorway connectivity than Ross On Wye.

Don’t get me wrong, freight should be on rail, but business is massively restricted by a 2 lane A road throughout that whole vast forgotten area of the country whilst London gets another hub.

[villa4europe]

6 minutes ago, tinker said:

There's one train line that runs from Birmingham to London at the moment, freeing that up is hardly game changing.(it will make a difference but its not good value for money spent) The money would have been better spent improving local transport links.

Interesting article on the North South divide. 

"Want to properly plug the UK’s north-south divide? Look to Germany

Larry Elliott"

Germany actually show a really good comparison with just how London centric we are as a country

If you look at the top 20 companies in the UK 16 of them London, 4 locations in total, 19 of them are in the south 

Germany in comparison only 1 is in Berlin, the cities with the highest are Munich and bonn with 2, I think there's 14 locations in total mainly west, south and bayern 

[Genie]

28 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Tbf, why on earth would you want to speed up your journey to Ipswich or Norwich

It’s to speed up the return leg. Maybe a cost save would be to just have the motorway heading out of East Anglia?

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Germany actually show a really good comparison with just how London centric we are as a country

If you look at the top 20 companies in the UK 16 of them London, 4 locations in total, 19 of them are in the south 

Germany in comparison only 1 is in Berlin, the cities with the highest are Munich and bonn with 2, I think there's 14 locations in total mainly west, south and bayern 

That wasn't a conscious political decision, though, but a mix of its relatively late unification in the 19th century (similar to Italy), its natural geography and position in the centre of Europe, and to a lesser extent the Iron Curtain

The issue with the UK is London has been the major city since at least the 10th century, and the south east of England has always been the closest point to mainland Europe, so it's very hard to avoid that geographical pull when it comes to trade and migration and foreign investment.

I'd be interested in any examples of countries where they've managed to rebalance away from an obvious established centre. The French have never done it, and we've never done it. Is there anywhere that has?

[sidcow]

51 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

48% of all the UK’s container trade goes through Felixstowe. Felixstowe is the 8th largest port in Europe.

Felixstowe has less motorway connectivity than Ross On Wye.

Don’t get me wrong, freight should be on rail, but business is massively restricted by a 2 lane A road throughout that whole vast forgotten area of the country whilst London gets another hub.

Guess what.  You won't believe this. 

There is currently a massive railway infrastructure project called East West rail parts of which are under construction and all of which will be finished before HS2. 

It's not in London, it's north of London connecting Oxford and Cambridge and therefore Felixstowe Rail Head. 

It will meet The WCML at Bletchley. Imagine how handy it would be to release a **** ton of capacity on the WCML so that a load of freight trains could thread their way to The Midlands, Scotland and The South from Felixstowe. 

Will also make Ipswich and Norwich almost bearable away days with direct connections from New Street. 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by sidcow

[Lichfield Dean]

57 minutes ago, tinker said:

OK there's 2.

I always used to take the Chiltern service from Moor Street to Marylebone. Sadly that too has gone up in price now so as to make it less worth taking.

[chrisp65]

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Guess what.  You won't believe this. 

There is currently a massive railway infrastructure project called East West rail parts of which are under construction and all of which will be finished before HS2. 

It's not in London, it's north of London connecting Oxford and Cambridge and therefore Felixstowe Rail Head. 

It will meet The WCML at Bletchley. Imagine how handy it would be to release a **** ton of capacity on the WCML so that a load of freight trains could thread their way to The Midlands, Scotland and The South West from Felixstowe. 

Will also make Ipswich and Norwich almost bearable away days with direct connections from New Street. 

 

I will believe it, I’ve listened to a whole 30 minute radio thing about Felixstowe and new deep water ports. By massive, I believe the cost is roughly one eightieth the cost of HS2. Imagine a deep water port that also acts as a vast renewable energy system that also links Lincolnshire to Norfolk slashing travel times increasing business and self sufficient in energy whilst creating a new port. All whilst supplying energy to half a million homes which it also acts as a flood defence for. Providing about 1,000 jobs in a poor area of the country the cost would be (estimated) at £2 Billion. 

Imagine what they could do with £80 billion. This is what I mean, just imagine the infrastructure improvements of tidal lagoons and new deep ports and more connectivity for Ipswich and Plymouth. Eighty different giant projects all away from London for the price of one train track to London.

[OutByEaster?]

From memory didn't they cancel one of those tidal lagoon things around Swansea somewhere due to a lack of cash?

 

[tinker]

11 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

From memory didn't they cancel one of those tidal lagoon things around Swansea somewhere due to a lack of cash?

 

Yea they did, no vision, cheap energy would solve so many problems. 2 tides every 24 hours with some of the highest tidal ranges in the world around our coasts. Building batteries in the UK would be a no brainer once tidal power is harnessed. 

[foreveryoung]

I tend to think HS2 was as much about moving the economy along than actually transport links. I mean the amount of construction workers and equipment being used around the country to build this thing is insane. It might be costing north of 70 bill, but let's not forget the money it must be putting back in. Without it the country would be even more financially dead.

[blandy]

12 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

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.

You make that read like 5 billion was deducted from Wales budget and spent on HS 2 instead. It’s not true is it?

[bickster]

36 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

I tend to think HS2 was as much about moving the economy along than actually transport links. I mean the amount of construction workers and equipment being used around the country to build this thing is insane. It might be costing north of 70 bill, but let's not forget the money it must be putting back in. Without it the country would be even more financially dead.

That is always part of the justification for large capital building projects and it's very true and relevant but this isn't an either or thing. There's no point in having a large scale infrastructure project like this if it isn't going to improve transport links, if it wasn't worthwhile it would be a white elephant, a pointless project. So yes, its about envigorating the economy but its also massively about improving transport infrastructure

[villa4europe]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

That is always part of the justification for large capital building projects and it's very true and relevant but this isn't an either or thing. There's no point in having a large scale infrastructure project like this if it isn't going to improve transport links, if it wasn't worthwhile it would be a white elephant, a pointless project. So yes, its about envigorating the economy but its also massively about improving transport infrastructure

See I'd happily discuss whether or not it is a white elephant, I think they'll price the general public out of it meaning they'll be relying on business trippers which might still work but it won't have the impact on travel that it's supposed to have but I say that as someone who has no knowledge of how busy virgin are on these routes, I'm expecting the media to run riot with stories on how it's cheaper to travel from London to brum via malaga with Ryanair

And I say that as someone who completely agrees with foreveryoung, it's still a worthwhile project

[Panto_Villan]

11 hours ago, KentVillan said:

That wasn't a conscious political decision, though, but a mix of its relatively late unification in the 19th century (similar to Italy), its natural geography and position in the centre of Europe, and to a lesser extent the Iron Curtain

The issue with the UK is London has been the major city since at least the 10th century, and the south east of England has always been the closest point to mainland Europe, so it's very hard to avoid that geographical pull when it comes to trade and migration and foreign investment.

I'd be interested in any examples of countries where they've managed to rebalance away from an obvious established centre. The French have never done it, and we've never done it. Is there anywhere that has?

That’s a really interesting question and I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head.

Maybe America, if you want to stretch the definition of “established”? I wonder if China’s geographical wealth distribution has changed substantially as they’ve industrialised in the last 30 years?