The Announcement - News - 10-January-2012

Roundup of items related to the announcement today

.. at least, those found online so far..

• DfT Document - HSR - The Government's decisions ( pdf )
• Network Rail - 'Review of Strategic Alternatives to HS2' (pdf)
• Hansard report of the announcement.. ( starts, "column 23" , continues to next page ( 'section' )

  "The changes in the Chilterns that we have made will result in that stretch of the line costing in the region of £250 million to £300 million less, because the engineering solutions we have found will involve less use of deep cutting. That will mean that we have less spoil, and the removal of spoil is often what causes huge expense."

  Doesn't say much for the original design ?? In fact, the saving probably results from reducing the cutting depthn in the upper Misborne Valley, rather than from tunneling further past Amersham - see map comparing the vertical alignment..
  
• Revised maps ( issue 3 - all large pdfs ) - index ;
  • Amersham - Little Missenden
  • Mantles Wood - Wendover Dean
  • Wendover - Stoke Mandeville
• A3 versions of the above ( jpg ) :
  • Amersham - Little Missenden
  • Mantles Wood - Wendover Dean
  • Wendover - Stoke Mandeville

The consultation

Remember that ??

"We wrote to more than 172,000 people living or working near the proposed line from London to the west midlands, visited communities along the 140-mile route and held 41 days of roadshows attended by almost 30,000 people over the five-month consultation period. Almost 55,000 responses were received from individuals, businesses and organisations across the country representing a wide spectrum of views."

.. and over 2/3rds were opposed, so we wont mention it any further. Here is a summary of the results. Thanks to everyone who took part

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& a word from our chairman -

The Government just don’t get it.

Justine Greening’s announcement of her decision is very much like the photographs it includes,
‘touched up’ and ‘photo shopped’. It is beautifully written, extremely well crafted, but I learnt long
ago, as a marketing executive, that you can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse by changing the
packaging. And you definitely can’t buy off the opposition with trinkets (or in this case, a few
tunnels).

As a country we desperately need improved infrastructure but HS2 is, quite simply, a bad idea. The
business case leaks like a sieve, it’s about as green as an unreconstructed oil conglomerate, and it will
please no one, not now and not in years to come. This really is a case of spend now and repent at
leisure (a bit like the hangover we now have from the spending and borrowing binge of the last
decade).

Despite what the national media say, this campaign has not, and will not, be about nimbyism. It is
about the Government wasting unbelievably large amounts of our money on a white elephant, on a
vanity project for David Cameron. This project will not create jobs (except in China perhaps), it won’t
‘shrink’ the country, and if it benefits anywhere, it will be London.

The decision is now out, but it is not the end … It’s not even the beginning of the end, but I do
concede that it is probably the end of the Beginning …

Nigel Shepherd
HS2 Amersham Action Group
Deputy Chair AGAHST