Vocal Voices

We need more schools, hospitals and reservoirs. HS2 is a mess, the trains are chock-a-block and the roads need repairing So what are we going to do?

We are going to build another runway at Heathrow with a shiny new Terminal. The starting gun cost is £49 bn but nobody know what it will be as the finishing line is crossed - double, treble? Then there are the additional costs over and above the expansion plans. The aim is to increase annual passenger numbers from 84 million to 150 million; that's an increase of 80%. Getting all those extra passengers in and out of Heathrow will need massive changes to the transport system. Roads will have to be widened or new ones built, and there will probably have to be a new underground spur or maybe an overground line to this massive new terminal. Piccadilly station will need a revamp.

Most of these new passengers and flights will not be business or cargo, they will be us flying off on our holidays. That flies in the face of the current advice that we should all take fewer flights to reduce aviation's carbon footprint. I just do not get it, it is madness.

Politicians and planning? Which planet? Pluto?

You just make sweeping grand statements and someone else will do all the work right?

Even with another spur a new doubling of traffic on the lines is going to break things down, although the Elizabeth line will help there. They will also need to increase parking and interconnects for the other airports. A good proportion of these people will be transiting between airports.

It is another "we're doing something" decision without the thought behind it.

I'm more with Boris's preferred plan which was a new airport in the Thames estuary. Given the costs of HS2 with activists buying up plots of land, it might actually be cheaper even with a higher up front sticker price. If we really wanted to go fast we could simply commission the Chinese to build it for us. Give them the Visas and just let them get on with it. They could even ship all the materials from China for all I care, make it an open port.

They would however have to leverage the King to get a writ to ignore the environ"mental"ists. They could barrier the whole thing off and bring in everything by water.

But of course we're British. That would never do....

A man-made island blocking the estuary of a major river. What a good idea... NOT.

OK for those from East Anglia, Essex and Kent, but not much use for those of us in the Midlands, South West, Wales, The North, Scotland. North East. You know, the whole country.

Millions of us already have to travel hundreds of miles to get to London just to go on holiday. Stupid when there are perfectly usable regional airports on our doorsteps. I don't count the dump that is Manchester airport in my list.

The HS2 thing annoys me intensely. What about improving existing railway structure?

The railway down here (Waterloo - Salisbury - Exeter) was built in the mid 19th century. In certain locations around here, the embankments were primarily constructed from clay.
Clay dries out. Railway lines laid on clay dip and buckle. This spring and summer, the dry / hot weather conditions have done their worst.
It's not as if Network Rail hasn't known about the problem - it's happened before.
Trains can no longer run at 75/85mph. They have now put a blanket restriction of 40 mph for swathes of track west of Salisbury.
Because the line was "singled" under Beeching with only a few passing places, we now have timetable chaos - the existing, heavily choreographed, hourly service is unworkable.
Services are being restricted to 2-hourly, and at least one station has lost its services altogether (Crewkerne).

This is a major cross-country route, used by many London commuters as well as leisure tourists, and parts of Dorset, Somerset and Devon have no alternative long-distance public transport links.

What it would cost to secure these shrinking embankments, I have no idea. I don't even know if it's feasible. But it certainly would be only a fraction of what they have spent on HS2.