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Sam Shead
Reporter
The rail thing
According to Gil Howarth, project director of the Channel Tunnel rail link (CTRL) or HS1 as it has come to be known, all big rail projects need to be championed by a prominent figure in Westminster, City Hall, or both.
Howarth told The Engineer that a political champion in his mind is responsible for, ‘gaining cross-party support and backing from the Treasury, while publicly promoting the scheme and helping to secure support from all stakeholders.
‘The person who got the Jubilee Line extension built was Steve Norris when he was minister for transport and minister for London,’ said Howarth. ‘If you look at Crossrail then that’s been Boris Johnson, and Ken Livingstone before that. HS1 was originally Michael Heseltine and then taken over by John Prescott.’
‘There isn’t a champion for HS2,’ claimed Howarth at the HS2 press briefing London this week.
Meanwhile, Lord Adonis, secretary of state for transport from 2009-2010, told The Engineer that he believes both the current transport secretary, Justine Greening, and David Cameron are acting as HS2 champions.
However, he also claimed: ‘They need to get a move on in introducing the legislation for HS2. It is not scheduled to be introduced into Parliament until the end of 2013, which is nearly four years after I published the plan for HS2.’
But the prime minister and his transport secretary aren’t the only two dilly-dallying on HS2.
Elsewhere, Boris Johnson, the current mayor of London and the favourite to remain in power at City Hall, revealed to Camden voters that he is yet to be convinced by HS2; a statement likely to appease the residents who will be inconvenienced to one degree or another over the course of a decade due to Euston Station’s whole-scale demolition.
So why the hesitation and reluctancy to commit? Part of the reason HS2 is without a key backer at this stage is likely to be because it’s still early days. Even though a plan has been put forward and approved, no one wants to be seen ‘championing’ HS2 as there are still many concerns relating to the route, the trains, the cost, the integration with other lines, and the time frame it will all be completed in.
‘That’s why we need to get the debate properly matured because the worst possible outcome is that this could become political football in the next general election,’ said Jeremy Acklam, member of the Transport Policy Panel at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
‘We need to have a key supporter on side from each party by the time we get towards our next election,’ he stressed.
The IET is getting the debate started at the National Railway Museum in York on 7th June where the discussion will focus on what aspects of the proposals for HS2 could be changed so that the benefits of the population north of Birmingham can be significantly improved.
Projects of this magnitude are key to UK growth but without a committed champion they can also be susceptible to setbacks and delays. With the backing of the engineering sector and arguably more importantly, the British public, I’m optimistic a champion or two could emerge from under the covers in the near future.
An interview with the technical director of HS2, Prof Andrew McNaughton, will appear in the 28th May issue of The Engineer.
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Readers' comments (32)
Anonymous | 4 May 2012 12:32 pm
HS2 is a basket case and should be dumped.
What we need is a champion for common sense to stop those with vested interests in pushing HS2 when the public don't want it, need it and can't afford it
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Anonymous | 4 May 2012 1:00 pm
With the daily demolition of every single aspect of the HS2 project, critical mass, the tipping point, will soon will reached, and the whole HS2 fantasy, like an oddity in outer space, will suddenly disappear down a black hole, for eternity.
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Anonymous | 4 May 2012 1:31 pm
What is needed is the championing of alternative technology to bring business people together. ie: Internet conferencing. If the budget for HS2 was used to install super fast broadband for everyone, particularly businesses, then not only would the British public benefit as a whole rather than a minority it would also be much more environmentally friendly and ultimately it would not be a the huge 'white elephant' that HS2 will undoubtedly be!
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Stephen Green | 4 May 2012 2:03 pm
With a rapidly worsening cost benefit ratio (half the initial guestimate of 2.4) it is already looking like a very poor investment. By the end of the Y route, the cost is predicted by some to exceed £90,000,000,000, an unbelievably huge amount of money that begs the question, who will benefit from it, other than the developers themselves?
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Paul Armstrong | 4 May 2012 2:51 pm
Instead of a fast link to favour a few, why not put more, longer and more frequent trains on the existing tracks. Also make the ticket cost a lot less than the petrol cost. Surely this would cost a lot less than 90 billion pounds, would get a lot of people out of their cars and be advantageous to everyone.
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Anonymous | 4 May 2012 3:01 pm
We can only hope that this dying elephant will be swiftly put out of its misery. No one in their right mind would want to be seen as a champion for lost causes as this one certainly is.
FTTC, broadband fibre to every road in the built up areas and to the more rural parts would achieve so much more.
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John Killip | 4 May 2012 3:04 pm
Stop HS2, HS2 Action Alliance, 51M and many other groups have been saying all along 'No Business Case, No Environmental Case and No Money to Pay for it' for years but the government won't listen.
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Rob Hill | 4 May 2012 3:15 pm
As others have stated the problem with HS2 is the complete lack of a business case. The days of throwing lots of public money and extra energy consumption at a prestige project so that a few can travel faster have surely passed. If we really want to spend £34Billion on a rail infrastructure project (and there are good arguments to do that) then there are much better ways to spend it so that more people benefit. Why not improve local services so more of the general population can get to work by train?
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Anonymous | 4 May 2012 3:20 pm
HS2 is a chronic waste of taxpayers' money, an environmental travesty, is completely unnecessary as there is plenty of capacity on the West Coast Main Line now and 30 years down the line. It is utterly unjustifiable and should not be built!
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Steve Gardner | 4 May 2012 4:11 pm
Perhaps this project should be totally privately funded with the investors gaining their returns directly from "bums on seats".
All land required should be purchased at the going rate, once planning permission has been granted for each parcel! That should kill it!
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