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Campaign grows to switch the building of HS2 station to Sheffield city

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9 minutes ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield is something of a backwater because the Duke of Norfolk refused to have the railway track over his land back in the 1830's the early days of railways. Consequently the line went via Doncaster and all the railway engineering went there. 

Beeching didn't help with all the lines he cut in the 1960's. 

 

It looks like HS2 will never get past Birmingham anyway. If it ever reaches Sheffield (as a continuous line rather than an offshoot) it will take so long it will probably be ancient technology and everyone will have moved onto a hyperloop system or somesuch.....

 

Indeed. What is wrong with this country that everything is hugely priced and  moves at a snails pace? 

I'd rather we did not do business with a country committing genocide personally, even if does cost more money.

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1 hour ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield is something of a backwater because the Duke of Norfolk refused to have the railway track over his land back in the 1830's the early days of railways. Consequently the line went via Doncaster and all the railway engineering went there. 

Beeching didn't help with all the lines he cut in the 1960's. 

 

It looks like HS2 will never get past Birmingham anyway. If it ever reaches Sheffield (as a continuous line rather than an offshoot) it will take so long it will probably be ancient technology and everyone will have moved onto a hyperloop system or somesuch.....

 

Indeed. What is wrong with this country that everything is hugely priced and  moves at a snails pace? 

Doesn't sound too far away from what is happening now with all the NIMBYs and naysayers trying to stall, delay and cancel this project at every single opportunity.  In fact not just this project, these days it seems to be any sort of large-scale projects. It's almost inevitable that as soon as anything gets merely hinted at, it's all suddenly.....      waaaa how many nurses could that pay for.....  waaaaa it's all too expensive......   waaaaa I don't like the look of it...... waaaaa the construction is all too noisy....... waaaaa I don't want it in my neighborhood.......

 

It's no surprise the budget is spiralling out of control because so is the amount of red tape,  legal challenges and litigation.

 

At least back in the day these now revered great innovators that dragged this country into the 20th century could just plough through land, smash down houses and pull-down forestry completely unopposed.  They knew it was for the greater good and necessity.  We also had politicians who are not ashamed to be elitist. They were not ashamed of their educated and quite frankly higher status above others. They brought in laws which they knew would be generally thought unpopular by the masses but plowed on anyway because they knew it was "good for them". That will never happen now because no politician is ever going to risk damaging their public image in the great popularity contest of elections,  which has created this populist sensationalized world of politics we have today.  Something the opposition party still hasn't properly learnt and we will never now get back from.

 

These past-day elitist, often hated leaders of industry built great big things, employed hundreds or thousands of men, with little or no irritation from protesters, disruptors or serial complainers.

 

They got away with it because they had the money. They had the influence. They had the power.

 

Now I'm sure well up for debate is whether that was a good thing. Should it be right for someone or somewhere to simply come along and cause massive disruption to residents, populations and the natural environment??    I'm sure there will be plenty on here who will think of course not and will defend absolutely the right to protest or even totally disrupt.

 

But can't have it both ways.

 

God help anyone trying to do any sort of ambitious,  expensive, controversial but world changingly initiative development these days.  The backlash and criticism is already pre-prepared and ready to go before it even gets off the drawing board.

 

Its an obvious fact that advanced progress, construction, development and infrastructure comes with great sacrifice and turmoil.  But far too many out there wont face up to the realities of that and take some deluded childish view that they can have it both ways.....  They demand these great progresses. They expect it tomorrow. They want urbanisation and mass great housing projects and superior transport infrastructure but seemingly only as long as it isn't visible or audiable from their own personal backyard or god forbid it disrupts countryside or causes problems to the little birdies or hedgehogs....  Oh of course it's not got to cost more than 14 pence and you must not use any cheap foreign labour or unfair wages and all employees must be paid at least a fair rate with 60 days holiday and a free car each.....  

 

Round and round it goes.

Edited by ECCOnoob

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41 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Doesn't sound too far away from what is happening now with all the NIMBYs and naysayers trying to stall, delay and cancel this project at every single opportunity.  In fact not just this project, these days it seems to be any sort of large-scale projects. It's almost inevitable that as soon as anything gets merely hinted at, it's all suddenly.....      waaaa how many nurses could that pay for.....  waaaaa it's all too expensive......   waaaaa I don't like the look of it...... waaaaa the construction is all too noisy....... waaaaa I don't want it in my neighborhood.......

 

It's no surprise the budget is spiralling out of control because so is the amount of red tape,  legal challenges and litigation.

 

At least back in the day these now revered great innovators that dragged this country into the 20th century could just plough through land, smash down houses and pull-down forestry completely unopposed.  They knew it was for the greater good and necessity.  We also had politicians who are not ashamed to be elitist. They were not ashamed of their educated and quite frankly higher status above others. They brought in laws which they knew would be generally thought unpopular by the masses but plowed on anyway because they knew it was "good for them". That will never happen now because no politician is ever going to risk damaging their public image in the great popularity contest of elections,  which has created this populist sensationalized world of politics we have today.  Something the opposition party still hasn't properly learnt and we will never now get back from.

 

These past-day elitist, often hated leaders of industry built great big things, employed hundreds or thousands of men, with little or no irritation from protesters, disruptors or serial complainers.

 

They got away with it because they had the money. They had the influence. They had the power.

 

Now I'm sure well up for debate is whether that was a good thing. Should it be right for someone or somewhere to simply come along and cause massive disruption to residents, populations and the natural environment??    I'm sure there will be plenty on here who will think of course not and will defend absolutely the right to protest or even totally disrupt.

 

But can't have it both ways.

 

God help anyone trying to do any sort of ambitious,  expensive, controversial but world changingly initiative development these days.  The backlash and criticism is already pre-prepared and ready to go before it even gets off the drawing board.

 

Its an obvious fact that advanced progress, construction, development and infrastructure comes with great sacrifice and turmoil.  But far too many out there wont face up to the realities of that and take some deluded childish view that they can have it both ways.....  They demand these great progresses. They expect it tomorrow. They want urbanisation and mass great housing projects and superior transport infrastructure but seemingly only as long as it isn't visible or audiable from their own personal backyard or god forbid it disrupts countryside or causes problems to the little birdies or hedgehogs....  Oh of course it's not got to cost more than 14 pence and you must not use any cheap foreign labour or unfair wages and all employees must be paid at least a fair rate with 60 days holiday and a free car each.....  

 

Round and round it goes.

Of course there were NIMBYs around stopping things getting constructed during the railway boom - Anna B gave an example of one. It wasn't some far sighted visionary MPs that allowed the railways to be built, it was that the people most affected didn't have the vote and so could be safely ignored. That the MPs were making laws that they would personally benefit from didn't hurt either.

 

Whilst I think we can sometimes be a bit too precious about protecting things in this country, those wanting to build things can be too miserly when it comes to compensating those affected. e.g. People would object far less about a project needing to knock their house down if they were offered far above the market rate their house would have had rather than something that barely matches it. The same goes for destroying habitats. Just think how much smoother and quicker projects would go if instead of taking the attitude of 'what's the minimum we can get away with' developers thought 'what can we do to ease/speed the approval'.

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39 minutes ago, altus said:

Of course there were NIMBYs around stopping things getting constructed during the railway boom - Anna B gave an example of one. It wasn't some far sighted visionary MPs that allowed the railways to be built, it was that the people most affected didn't have the vote and so could be safely ignored. That the MPs were making laws that they would personally benefit from didn't hurt either.

 

Whilst I think we can sometimes be a bit too precious about protecting things in this country, those wanting to build things can be too miserly when it comes to compensating those affected. e.g. People would object far less about a project needing to knock their house down if they were offered far above the market rate their house would have had rather than something that barely matches it. The same goes for destroying habitats. Just think how much smoother and quicker projects would go if instead of taking the attitude of 'what's the minimum we can get away with' developers thought 'what can we do to ease/speed the approval'.

That's all well and good, but it comes back to the money problem I referred to earlier.

 

They could pay well above market rate to compensate those losing their homes. They could pay vast amounts of money to find alternatives to minimise disruption to the environment but of course by doing so increases the overall cost. Given that many of these projects are funded solely or a large majority by public purse we can all know what the reaction is going to be by the masses if a project could have been done for X but instead they spend Y.   It's been complained about this very moment.

 

In my opinion just shows another example of people demanding the world and expecting to pay peanuts. Can't have both ways.

Edited by ECCOnoob

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39 minutes ago, altus said:

Of course there were NIMBYs around stopping things getting constructed during the railway boom - Anna B gave an example of one. It wasn't some far sighted visionary MPs that allowed the railways to be built, it was that the people most affected didn't have the vote and so could be safely ignored. That the MPs were making laws that they would personally benefit from didn't hurt either.

 

Whilst I think we can sometimes be a bit too precious about protecting things in this country, those wanting to build things can be too miserly when it comes to compensating those affected. e.g. People would object far less about a project needing to knock their house down if they were offered far above the market rate their house would have had rather than something that barely matches it. The same goes for destroying habitats. Just think how much smoother and quicker projects would go if instead of taking the attitude of 'what's the minimum we can get away with' developers thought 'what can we do to ease/speed the approval'.

In Mexborough, which is set to lose up to 200 homes and businesses, they consistently undervalued properties but kept it secret via non disclosure gagging orders that prevented neighbours from knowing what others had accepted, when the prices were finally shown by The Land Registry , neighbours in identical homes had been pressured to accept differences of over 10k on a 95k townhouse.

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36 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

That's all well and good, but it comes back to the money problem I referred to earlier.

 

They could pay well above market rate to compensate those losing their homes. They could pay vast amounts of money to find alternatives to minimise disruption to the environment but of course by doing so increases the overall cost. Given that many of these projects are funded solely or a large majority by public purse we can all know what the reaction is going to be by the masses if a project could have been done for X but instead they spend Y.   It's been complained about this very moment.

 

In my opinion just shows another example of people demanding the world and expecting to pay peanuts. Can't have both ways.

The railway builders in the 19th century took the attitude that they'd pay what they had to to get the line built. There were railways built in tunnels solely because that's the only way the landowner would only allow it to be built across their land. There were many vanity stations around the network because the landowner said you can only build on my land of you build me a station. e.g. Corrour station is a ten mile walk on a hill track to the nearest public road, although there's a hunting lodge closer, despite being so remote this the station has direct trains to London.

 

In the past they did pay well above the market rate to compensate land owners and they did pay vast amounts of money to find alternatives to minimise the disruption to the environment. Complain all you like about the problems and costs of building projects now but at least try doing a vaguely fair comparison.

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Corrour.

12.20 into clip.

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield is something of a backwater because the Duke of Norfolk refused to have the railway track over his land back in the 1830's the early days of railways. Consequently the line went via Doncaster and all the railway engineering went there. 

Beeching didn't help with all the lines he cut in the 1960's. 

 

It looks like HS2 will never get past Birmingham anyway. If it ever reaches Sheffield (as a continuous line rather than an offshoot) it will take so long it will probably be ancient technology and everyone will have moved onto a hyperloop system or somesuch.....

 

Indeed. What is wrong with this country that everything is hugely priced and  moves at a snails pace? 

It will get past Birmingham. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they by pass Brum in order to make sure it reaches the government's 'pet' city - Manchester.

 

They will move heaven and earth to make sure the line reaches Manchester. To many in governement the Northern Powerhouse is actually seeing Manchester getting all the investment. 

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As to NIMBYs- the problem predated the Great Railways Era. Even canals were resited, a century before that!

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The London-Birmingham section is already under construction and the Birmingham-Manchester section is due to get the go ahead any time soon.

 

On the other hand the Birmingham-Leeds leg appears to have been postponed if not cancelled. The government is due to publish a report later this year regarding investment in the rail network around the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East and they are likely to throw a few crumbs from the table our way but it feels like this is the first big cut in government spending on transport.

 

HS2 eastern leg building a new main line from Birmingham to Leeds would have created valuable extra capacity - the Cross Country trains could run on the new high speed line as well as Leeds-London services freeing up capacity on the existing lines for more regional trains and freight - and it is unlikely we are going to see anything near that benefit with any investment that does happen. I wouldn't be surprised to actually see service cuts and fares increases as the government claws back money spent on Covid funding with any investment in electrification requiring a business case of lowering operating costs.

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2 hours ago, Andy C said:

The London-Birmingham section is already under construction and the Birmingham-Manchester section is due to get the go ahead any time soon.

 

On the other hand the Birmingham-Leeds leg appears to have been postponed if not cancelled. The government is due to publish a report later this year regarding investment in the rail network around the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East and they are likely to throw a few crumbs from the table our way but it feels like this is the first big cut in government spending on transport.

 

HS2 eastern leg building a new main line from Birmingham to Leeds would have created valuable extra capacity - the Cross Country trains could run on the new high speed line as well as Leeds-London services freeing up capacity on the existing lines for more regional trains and freight - and it is unlikely we are going to see anything near that benefit with any investment that does happen. I wouldn't be surprised to actually see service cuts and fares increases as the government claws back money spent on Covid funding with any investment in electrification requiring a business case of lowering operating costs.

The likely announcement will be spun as good news - electrifying the MML to Sheffield by 2030 (meaning  2035, then 2040) and pausing HS2 east until reassessment when Covid outcomes are clearer.

 

Can kicked down the road until next Parliament (filed  with projects like postponed Heathrow 3rd runway). 

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19 hours ago, sadbrewer said:

In Mexborough, which is set to lose up to 200 homes and businesses, they consistently undervalued properties but kept it secret via non disclosure gagging orders that prevented neighbours from knowing what others had accepted, when the prices were finally shown by The Land Registry , neighbours in identical homes had been pressured to accept differences of over 10k on a 95k townhouse.

scandalous there is no way gagging orders should have ever been used

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