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SO now we know, HS2 will only ever reach Staffordshire and the route beyond is not to be safeguarded. All this cost and disruption for so little benefit. How did it come to this? In my view there were two major errors from its inception: wrong route and wrong speed.
Going via the Chilterns was designed to save money by being principally a surface railway, totally undone by later decisions to increase tunnelling to overcome environmental objections. The decision to build a 225mph railway was also fatal, as engineering requirements for this level of speed increase costs exponentially. What was wrong with 150mph for such a relatively short distance to Birmingham and Manchester?
So the future is to be a myriad of smaller rail and road schemes, all of which will command strong local support. We could have adopted all of these 10 years ago, but we were blinded by the vision of a world-class, high-speed railway that a small congested island was never likely to be able to justify, and with the pandemic finally forcing us to confront this reality.
What a shocking waste of time and resources. Barry Deller, Hook
