this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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32
HS2 is officially ‘unachievable’ after being given red rating (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The headline makes it sound like they have engineering challenges that can't be overcome when actually the classification in this report tells us nothing new.

Here is a link to the report that they are referencing:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1171218/IPA-Annual-report-2022-2023.pdf

It summarizes about 150 projects in about 30 pages, so there is no specific rationale or analysis given for why each project receives the rating that they give it.

The description of the colour ratings says:

Annex A: Explanation of DCA colour ratings

The DCA is an evaluation from the IPA or the SRO of a project’s likelihood of achieving its aims and objectives, and doing so on time and on budget

...

Red: Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.

The HS2 projects are already over-budget (as stated in the article), so it is clear that the likelihood of achieving them on budget is zero, which makes a Red rating inevitable, and not particularly newsworthy.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I try not to be all doom and gloom, but this is the exact sort and scale of project the UK needs to be successfully completing to combat climate change. The fact we can't is legitimately terrifying.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Stuff like this just makes me wonder what’s the point of working and contributing to the country.

Things like this and funding the NHS are what people need, yet apparently it can’t be done.

How can every single thing that benefits regular people be too expensive, what else is there to spend money on??

[–] sijt 4 points 1 year ago

It's not, so far as I can tell, saying that the project cannot be done. The Red rating, equivalent to unachievable, is measuring against the goals set for the project, including financial.

So what this is saying (or rather confirming) is that it's not achievable based on the current project goals. Or to put it another way, it's over budget and cannot be delivered within budget.

So yeah, still not great that we can't deliver something like this on budget, but if you look in to how it was originally costed for the business case there are holes in the logic large enough to drive several high speed trains through. Sideways. Hopefully the benefits are large enough that they still go through with it, but I suspect that's largely dependent on which narratives take hold during the run up to the next election and whether the Tories can gaslight people in to thinking that country finances work the same way as personal finances.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's not exactly the case, your second link even states that HS2 would offset (via modal shift) more carbon than it emits during construction.

That ofcourse isn't to say we should hand wave it away, construction is one of the worst industries when it comes to pollution. But, the problem is we will need to build things, because the structure of society needs to change to stop being so carbon dependant. If we do nothing, then we still have all the structural problems which caused the problem in the first place.

HS2 stops, some, people having to drive. Longer term, it would also help to move business concentration away from the south east. Decentralisation across the entire UK would mean that a lot more things are a lot more local to a lot more people. HS2 doesn't do that alone, but HS2-type projects (my original comment) absolutely do.

Even if you support degrowth as a method, that still requires substantial change, which in turn means construction.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is no way the government pull the plug at this stage. The only course is to shake that magic money tree and get it done at any cost. As usual.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To get things back on track (heh, on track, see what I did there?), I anticipate some especially juicy contracts going to newly forged 'construction' companies set up by Tory donors.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s the problem with estimating the cost of these projects, they never really take into account all the corruption and backhanders.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They will cancel the bit to crewe and the East Midlands and Euston and call a train line from hounslow.to Birmingham as hs2 deliverd missing out on all the vital capacity upgrade to wcml, midland line and eastern that it would actually help.with

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I’m shocked I tell you, shocked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jaysus H Christ. Can we not build any new infrastructure?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

With a government that literally could not organise a piss up in a brewery, the answer has to be no. They are just grifters conning the country out of money for themselves and anyone who will support them. Nothing else has any importance. The covid inquiry outcome will be very telling just how little these scumbags actually wanted to help the people they serve.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The delay and spiralling cost seems to be a mixture of government failure, local issues, national anti HS2 campaigns, poor planning by the contractors building the thing.

What, in your opinion, could this government (or the next Labour government) do to enable 21st century transport infrastructure to be built across the country (north to south, and east to west)?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What, in your opinion, could this government (or the next Labour government) do to enable 21st century transport infrastructure to be built across the country (north to south, and east to west)?

Go back to the drawing board - look at what we need.

A stronger E-W connection - we need one of those fancy drilling machines they buried after Crosstalk and it can dig road and rail tunnels through the Pennines east of Manchester (if you look on the map everything just peters out or has to go up and around). That gives quite and direct links through to the A1 and you can then have a high speed line between Hull and Liverpool (which will cut out a lot of freighter traffic having to go round).

It was always important that our high speed network connected with Europe's in order to cut flights but the end of HS2 comes into the wing side of London. You really want a high speed rail line down the east coast up to Edinburgh and across to Glasgow that continues on to the Channel Tunnel.

You could then put in other lines - Glasgow to Crewe to Birmingham to Bristol and the SW. Cardiff to London. If you must you could then link Birmingham to London but you are only shaving minutes off the journey at that point.

You then end up with a high speed east coast line, a west coast line and Scottish, north and south cross lines. Along with improved road links under the Pennines.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

We used to have a stronger E-W connection, the Woodhead line. It was even electrified before being finally closed, the track lifted, and the tunnels filled in.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The failure of this project is set purely at the heart of government and their steam roller ideology. They miss-read the feeling of the areas they wanted to bulldoze. I doubt any section of the line came in on budget. I would not be surprised if this was just another excuse to fund donors.

How could it be done better? Not waste money in other areas. Claw back that money lost through fraud that no one in government cares about. Take some good non political advice with a proper feasibility study.

I disagreed massively with the HS2 scheme. London has had enough money spent on it. The rest of the country could really use some good transport, and that does not need to be attached to London. This was just another of Johnson's vanity projects. And as we have seen with everything Johnson touches he care nothing about the cost to the tax payers.

Labour will do a better job with any projects they push forward, because the Murdoch media is a lot more critical in their reporting on non Tory governments. Everything is broken in this country now thanks to the current crew. It will be an uphill struggle to fix anything once they are gone. The thing I want to see fixed most is our FPTP voting system. I want to remove this dominance that the two parties have on this country. Johnson was bad, but it just as easily have been Corbyn. We need to remove the ease with which extremists can manipulate the system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing I want to see fixed most is our FPTP voting system. I want to remove this dominance that the two parties have on this country. Johnson was bad, but it just as easily have been Corbyn. We need to remove the ease with which extremists can manipulate the system.

100% agree with this. Not sure how PR in itself will build rail infrastructure 🤷 but I agree with the sentiment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The rail affects a very small part of the country. Both parties have ignored it for decades.

I firmly believe that if we do not plug the gap in our voting system, then the next extremist group to gain power will be very much worse than what we see now. They will take what they have learned to abuse and expand on it. We may never have an election again after that without a civil war. I am not overly confident about Starmer, if I was being honest. He is being more than a little underhanded with the rank and file of the party. I get why he took on the Corbynites, especially with Corbyn being a thorn for his own agenda. But Starmer seems to have taken it upon himself to oust anyone with a different opinion. Removing opposing views is not a good thing for a party. That was exactly how Johnson ran his ship.

So yes the transport system is important. It generates cash for the country after all. I just don't view in the same light as others do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

HS2 is the investment in local transport up and down the country that we need. The point isn't to get people to and from London faster and the fact that you think that is a failure of their marketing.

The point of HS2 is to move all of the longer distance services between the larger cities on to their own line, reducing the effect of mixed traffic and allowing for many more local and freight services on the existing lines. This then lets local councils massively improve their own local systems, such as the plan for a huge increase in transport in the East Midlands that can't happen since the eastern leg of HS2 was cut back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I live in the NE there is zero benefit for our area. No benefit for Scotland, Wales or Ireland come to think of it. I am all for spending on transport. I just think London has had enough in that area. HS2 is not about links to Manchester btw. It is about more links to London so people can commute from further afield.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Did you read my comment? It isn't about links to London. It's about capacity across the network, it just happens that the best way to create that capacity is to build new links to London, because then you can remove all of those fast moving intercity trains off of the existing network and just have the local and freight services that can then bunch up more closely together and run way more frequently. It does have benefits beyond where it runs, for example by releasing capacity in Birmingham New Street, we can run more frequent trains out to Aberystwyth. I'd argue that most of GB does benefit, by getting faster journey times and released capacity when they travel into areas that are affected, but even then, does every project need to benefit everyone? I'm all for more investment beyond the areas that directly benefit on top of this.