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Contrapoint to the naysayers: building infrastructure is good actually, and in this specific case, has had the added side benefit of unearthing these cool artif

• ggm 9mo ago
  Sir, this is wimpy's - the confusion of naming cheap housing construction firm, the same as a very old burger chain in the UK which predates Wendy's or McDonald's in the UK by many decades being most apposite.
• techterrier 9mo ago
  On behalf of the Midsomer Historical Society of Bat-Loving Cranks, i'd like to extend a cordial invitation to our Wickerman Festival this year. Perhaps on perusing our good works, you might be persuaded of their merits. Kind regards, Nigel.
• globular-toast 9mo ago
  UK is so densely populated that something like this affects a LOT of people. Also people's "back yards" are tiny enough as it is. Small changes have a big impact and people living in such cramped spaces are living in constant fear of that. If you happen to come across any part of HS2 in some random village you've never heard of it's quite incredible the impact it's having on the locals. Locals who live miles away from the nearest station and therefore unable to use the line, by the way. We also have very little wildlife left and we don't really want to live in concrete jungles. Suffice to say, it's not difficult to see why it's like this in the UK if you actually come and see.
  • energy123 9mo ago
    The taller the concrete jungle, the more spare land there is for people like you outside of it.
    • globular-toast 9mo ago
      I don't live outside it. "People like you" shows that you're no better than the "NIMBYs" you so hate. Just complete refusal to accept that anyone might be different from you or have problems that aren't yours.
      • deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
    • cs02rm0 9mo ago
      HS2 is more sprawl than tall.
      • panick21_ 9mo ago
        Except it isn't, its designed to get people between city centers much faster, making living in cities much more attractive. Often the highest density areas are around train stations.
  • gambiting 9mo ago
    >> If you happen to come across any part of HS2 in some random village you've never heard of it's quite incredible the impact it's having on the locals. Locals who live miles away from the nearest station and therefore unable to use the line, by the way. Because people inherently misunderstand the benefit of HS2, and how could they not if it's constantly being misrepresented by our media and politicians. UK has one of the highest proportion of freight transported by road in Europe. That is fundamentally because our rail infrastructure is overloaded and unable to take any more freight. All non-perishable stuff that in other countries just goes on rail, in the UK is moved by trucks on our roads. Which as you can imagine, is causing tens of billions of pounds worth of damage to our roads, which we - taxpayers - pay for. All of these locals that live miles away from the train station are already affected by the lack of rail infrastructure - because every time they drive somewhere they have to contend with massive potholes and insane amount of heavy cargo traffic anywhere they go. If HS2 is ever finished, it will reduce congestion and our roads and reduce the wear and tear which again, is costing us billions in upkeep every year. But according to our media, it's all about saving london commuters 2 minutes on a train from Birmingham, so every Dick and Harry is against it, because like you said - they live miles from the nearest station, why would they care?
    • xioxox 9mo ago
      Isn't the problem that the requirements for line were "gold plated"? If they'd put in another standard rail line instead, it would have increased capacity, taken up much less space, would have been much cheaper, would have caused less disruption and would have had a clearer business case.
      • 9Mfhf34U 9mo ago
        The high speed lets you build the Y shape to serve London to both north east and north west, as well as cross country journeys from Birmingham to the north east with the minimum amount of new track. With more standard rail lines you'd need to build a lot more. Plus there's many other benefits to high speed.
      • pjc50 9mo ago
        Japan built the first Shinkansen while British Rail was still running steam services. Can't stay on the Victorian era rail constraints forever. (it's very British to say "this is too good, can we have something cheap and nasty instead please?")
  • youngtaff 9mo ago
    Even in the South East, the UK isn’t that densely populated — apparently golf courses take up more space than housing (excluding roads) HS2 benefits pretty my everyone along it’s route path through increases local services as capacity is released from the current lines Midland Connect have a good overview of what it enables them to do – https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/media/1602/hs2-released-capacity-table.pdf https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/media/1602/hs2-released-capac... There’s also a document somewhere that covers how HS2 increases short distance services from Euston somewhere Local rail transport should benefit hugely from HS2
  • panick21_ 9mo ago
    What nonsense. As if there was a desperate need for land in rural Britain. Southern England is densely populated compared to countries, but its still incredibly rural. In most places it barley effects people at all and when it does 99% of the time its a minimal visual impact. > therefore unable to use the line, by the way. This is a complete misunderstanding on the system effects of these lines. The point is that all other train lines can be used much more efficiently because the high-speed trains don't have to use those lines anymore. Making it much easier to run more rural trains. And it will also reduce car use on these routes, meaning the much, much worse highways will be used less. So in actual fact, the new lines are massively positive in terms of overall impact for rural areas. And I say this living in a country with some of the most dense rail networks in the world. > We also have very little wildlife left and we don't really want to live in concrete jungles. Another bunch of nonsense. Rail lines are very small and highly efficient. If you didn't build rail lines, you would almost certainty have to extend highways and those are infinity worse for wildlife. Railways and specially high-speed rail have the best impact vs effect calculation of almost anything you can build.
• ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
  > building infrastructure is good actually It was never about "building infrastructure", though, which is why they used Compulsory Purchase to force farmers to sell their land for pennies. Because obviously "undeveloped" land without any sort of planning consent is worth very little. Now those bits of land, which have been put through the planning system and can now be built on, are not being used for HS2. So, they're being sold back to the farmers, right? No, they're being sold for thousands of times the purchase price to property developers run by the people who donate the most to the government. It's a land grab, same as the "inheritance tax on farms" thing.
  • gambiting 9mo ago
    >>though, which is why they used Compulsory Purchase to force farmers to sell their land for pennies. Because obviously "undeveloped" land without any sort of planning consent is worth very little. Did you ever look into any of it? Because it's 100000% nonsense. One of the reasons why HS2 is over budget so much is because farmers are being paid absolutely through the nose for smallest chunks of land taken for it. Compulsory purchase has to pay the market rate, and in most cases it pays well above that. >>No, they're being sold for thousands of times the purchase price to property developers run by the people who donate the most to the government. I'd love to see an example of any piece of land being sold for "thousands of times the purchase price", it would be quite incredible. And the land goes back to auction, anyone can bid on it so not sure how exactly is it sold to "people who donate the most" - care to explain? Or better yet, give an example? >>It's a land grab, same as the "inheritance tax on farms" thing. Yes, nothing to do with people like the Percy family owning half of Northumerland for the last 700 years and never paying any inheritance tax on it because they farm on some of it. Nuh huh.
  • youngtaff 9mo ago
    Do you know how Compulsory Purchase Orders work? Many people along the HS2 route have been paid double the market price of their house
    • whywhywhywhy 9mo ago
      Doesn’t matter what the price is if you lose your community. Very narrow minded view that doesn’t take into account people over 60
• hdgvhicv 9mo ago
  It’s called the RSPB
• Reason077 9mo ago
  HS2 will be fantastic, transformative infrastructure… decades from now when (or if) it is actually completed. The issue is that the project has been so badly mismanaged and costs have spiralled so far out of control that even the first small, incomplete section of it is now costing us 3X what the ENTIRE project was supposed to cost. It’s also at least 7 years behind schedule: when they started construction, stage 1 was supposed to open in 2026 - this year!! Yes, NIMBYism is part of this, but catastrophic project management failure and a culture where contractors view the public purse as an limitless cash cow to be milked to the maximum extent possible have a lot to do with it too. Bottom line is the UK is not good at building large infrastructure projects, and the bigger they are, the worse it gets. Complete rethink/reboot required.
  • troad 9mo ago
    > Complete rethink/reboot required. Or, instead, keep building, so the UK actually gets experience with large scale projects? Establish an anti-corruption body that retrospectively investigates every pound spent on HS2, and places lifetime public-contract bans on contractors found to have acted dishonestly? If the graft is as extreme and obvious as you say, surely this is no hard task. If the UK has no experience building things, there's only one way to get some, and it's not to stop building for ten years while the government 'rethinks and reboots' (i.e. pays McKinsey for expensive reports exculpating McKinsey for any cost overruns). Ten years during which all the people who were actually involved move on to other roles, often private sector, often overseas. That's how you throw away all the experience accrued during this construction. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. In twenty years, when the HS2 is zipping around, bringing down the cost of logistics, making groceries cheaper, lowering house prices as people can live further out, no one will even remember how it was built.
  • panick21_ 9mo ago
    You will never get better by simply saying lets stop it, cancel the project and 'rethink'. Your not going to find a route that is much better. Your not going to magically find much supplier for your trains and equipment. Also the short section that they are working on is by far the most expensive per kilometer compared to the northern parts. So the cost was always going to be pre-loaded in the early part. Its also the case that this 3x number is not correct when you adjust for inflation. Covid and other stuff has increased because of inflation specially in that sector. Another issue in the UK rail industry is simply that building and investing is so incredibly inconsistent that there isn't the pipeline for training people. And the constant political battle about HS2 also makes companies hesitant to do the needed investments. But bottom line is this, unless you simply continue to work on HS2 and other infrastructure projects (like desperately needed electrification) you simply will never get better at infrastructure. And there are many things to learn and to get better at, on every level from parliament down to individual construction worker. Unfortunately so far the 'reflection' that the UK has done on the issue with HS2 have been extremely disappointing and they have learned very little. But still even so, just by doing it the people and organization have gotten better and are moving increasingly faster. Not doing the next parts of HS2 is hilariously stupid as the larger benefits only happen once the whole thing is complete. The UK has spend likely 50-60% of the total cost and only gets about 20% of the benefits.