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HS2


Sugar Ape
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Seems ridiculous this is allowed to carry on. Needs fucking off.

 

 

 

Birmingham-and-Fazeley-vi-009.jpg
The HS2 network is scheduled for full completion in 2033 at a cost of £42.6bn, including £14bn in contingencies. Photograph: HS2/PA
 

The Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd should have raised serious concerns about the methodology in a report claiming the high-speed rail project would bring £15bn in additional benefits to the UK, one of HS2's former advisers has told MPs.

 

A panel of academic experts told the Treasury select committee that a KMPG report into HS2's regional economic impacts published in September overstated the benefits by six to eight times.

 

The findings, widely cited by the government – including in the new strategic case for HS2 published last week – used a procedure that was "essentially made up", said Henry Overman, professor of economic geography at the LSE.

 

Overman, who was an adviser to HS2 Ltd until 2012, said: "At some point HS2, DfT and the peer review should have pointed out that parts of the report were problematic … I don't understand why the £15bn figure was allowed to go out."

 

He said that even the reduced figure should not be presented as additional to the benefit cost ratio with wider economic benefits published by the DfT, which was revised downward to 2.3:1 last week.

 

Dan Graham, professor of statistical modelling at Imperial College, told the committee he shared that view. He said of the KPMG work: "I don't think the statistical work is reliable."

 

Earlier, the KMPG partners who produced the report defended their work as robust as MPs queried the scale and viability of the report, which was produced over four months for a total fee of £242,000.

 

Committee chair Andrew Tyrie asked: "You don't normally do work of this scale for a couple of hundred thousand do you?"

 

KPMG's Richard Threlfall replied: "We didn't quite anticipate the degree of debate the report would create."

Tyrie asked KPMG to explain a line in the report admitting: "We recognise that this approach does not have a firm statistical foundation."

 

The consultants said they had been transparent about their workings. KPMG's Lewis Atter said he believed the work was a "reasonable, probably conservative approach". He said: "There is no perfect way of answering the exam question we are posed."

 

He said that they stood by the £15bn figure as a forecast, despite a disclaimer that the findings should be regarded only as an estimate. Atter said it was a standard disclaimer.

 

The KPMG pair denied cherrypicking figures, after a Newsnight freedom of information request showed that cities and towns which would lose out economically from the creation of the HS2 network were omitted from a table in the report which showed only potential gains.

 

Threlfall pointed to a map included in the report marking with red dots places that would be negatively affected in 2037. He said he thought that a map was more illustrative than a table.

 

Asked their opinion of the HS2 project, Threlfall said: "Based on the work we've done HS2 is a good thing and we should get on with it."

 

Atter, who said he started in the sceptical camp, said he now believed HS2 should be built, especially in the context of the wider transport and infrastructure spending ahead.

 

He said: "The question is not is it the very best thing to do, but would you find space for it in your £1.2tn [spending] over 20 years."

 

Meanwhile, the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, was speaking at a supply chain conference in Birmingham attended by over 800 companies looking to win contracts totalling more than £10bn.

 

McLoughlin said businesses from across the UK could be part of building HS2, saying the project would bring jobs and growth to communities across the country for generations to come.

 

The HS2 network linking London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds is scheduled for full completion in 2033 at a cost of £42.6bn, including £14bn in contingencies.

 

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The principle of high speed rail links between the nation's major cities has to be right. Our city has suffered more than most with the decline of the significance of Liverpool as a port and declining communication links compared to rival cities.

 

Our existing rail network was established over a century ago. At some point that has to be modernised, and urban creep means that each year it becomes that little bit more complicated.

 

Cost is an issue. At some point it does become too expensive, where that point is I am unsure. But this country has suffered from too little in the way of national infrastructure projects post war, not too many. HS2 to Brum should herald a roll out which will offer significant benefits to the provinces, over time.

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The whole country (bar a few select/elite cunts) will lose out.

 

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

That's my take on it too. Something has to be done with the rail network, but I don't think this is the answer. Will your average person even be able to afford a seat on it?

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There are no plans to take it into Liverpool. It increases the inequality between Liverpool and Manchester (and Leeds and Birmingham )

Short term you are right. But it has to start somewhere (economically that means London)and if successful, Merseyside is likely to see the benefits in the future.

 

In terms of communications we are already disadvantaged.

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The whole country (bar a few select/elite cunts) will lose out.

 

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

High speed rail has hardly been a disaster elsewhere, and major infrastructure projects provide significant boosts to the construction economy.

 

A hundred years plus on, we are hardly rushing into this..............

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Another thing is omitting data that paints it in a bad light from a report they released. Totally fucking dishonest.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24589652

 

_70578709_dft.jpg

 

The potential losses to some regional economies from the HS2 high-speed rail link have been revealed.

 

HS2 would make more than 50 places across the UK worse off - such as Aberdeen, Bristol and Cardiff - research by KPMG suggested.

 

The government said HS2's £17bn cost is part of a £73bn package of transport improvements in the next parliament.

 

It claimed the measures would benefit areas which HS2 will not serve, long before the high-speed line opens.

 

The 92-page KPMG report was released in September.

 

Hailed by the government, it said the line could boost the UK economy by £15bn a year.

 

It listed the regions it said would benefit, with Greater London (£2.8bn) and West Midlands (£1.5bn) the biggest winners.

 

But, the extent to which regions not on the proposed line would be affected was only revealed following a freedom of information request passed to BBC Two's Newsnight programme.

 

HS2 Ltd's chief executive has called the figures "unsurprising".

 

Economic output would be worst affected, according to the research, in:

  • Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City and Moray (-£220m)
  • Norfolk East (-£164m)
  • Dundee and Angus (-£96m)
  • Cardiff (-£68m)
  • Norfolk West (-£56m)

James Bream, policy director of Aberdeen's Chamber of Commerce, said it was "really disappointing" that such a huge number was left out of the original report.

 

He added the negative impact for the whole north-east of Scotland could be "significant to say the least."

 

Dundee and Angus could lose as much as 2% of its annual GDP, KPMG found.

 

Kettering, Suffolk West and Cambridgeshire East are all listed as zones that could see a 1% drop in GDP.

 

The accountants used data from HS2 Ltd's assessment of the direct transport impacts of the scheme, which would connect London to Birmingham and to Manchester and Leeds.

 

The Department for Transport said HS2 was vital to "rebalance the economy".

 

A spokesman said: "These figures show it boosts the north overall more than the south.

 

"Of course the line does not serve every city and region and these figures reflect that."

 

The DfT say ultimately the line would reduce journey times to Edinburgh and Glasgow by an hour.

 

KPMG said its report clearly shows the benefits of HS2 for some regions and the negative impacts it might have on others.

 

A spokesman said: "Maps in the report show potential productivity gains would outweigh the potential losses and the benefits to the UK economy would be far greater than the negative impacts.

 

"Newsnight did not contact KPMG prior to its programme.

 

"If they had, we could have helped them understand how the underlying data is represented in the report we have produced."

 

Professor Henry Overman from the London School of Economics - formerly an expert adviser to HS2 Ltd - told the BBC it was obvious that, as some cities, towns and regions reap the benefits of being better connected, other places away from the line will pay a price.

 

"When a firm is thinking of where to locate, it thinks about the relative productivity of different places, and the relative wages etc," he said.

 

"HS2 shifts that around. So if you are on the line that makes you a better place that hasn't had that productivity improvement."

But Newsnight's political correspondent David Grossman said there were "questions about the robustness" of the data.

 

The chief executive of HS2 Ltd, Alison Munro, said: "What this is showing is that the places that are on the high-speed network... those are the places that will benefit most from high-speed two.

 

"But high-speed two isn't the only investment that the government is making. Over the next five years it is planning to spend £73bn on transport infrastructure."

 

Richard Houghton, from campaign group HS2 Action Alliance, claimed the whole project is based on "voodoo economics".

 

He said: "If I was sitting in one of the 50 areas set to lose out to the tune of millions of pounds, I would be asking very clear questions."

 

_69782013_hs2_journey_624.jpg

 

 

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The Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd should have raised serious concerns about the methodology in a report claiming the high-speed rail project would bring £15bn in additional benefits to the UK, one of HS2's former advisers has told MPs.

 

A panel of academic experts told the Treasury select committee that a KMPG report into HS2's regional economic impacts published in September overstated the benefits by six to eight times.

 

The findings, widely cited by the government – including in the new strategic case for HS2 published last week – used a procedure that was "essentially made up", said Henry Overman, professor of economic geography at the LSE.

 

Overman, who was an adviser to HS2 Ltd until 2012, said: "At some point HS2, DfT and the peer review should have pointed out that parts of the report were problematic … I don't understand why the £15bn figure was allowed to go out."

 

He said that even the reduced figure should not be presented as additional to the benefit cost ratio with wider economic benefits published by the DfT, which was revised downward to 2.3:1 last week.

 

Dan Graham, professor of statistical modelling at Imperial College, told the committee he shared that view. He said of the KPMG work: "I don't think the statistical work is reliable."

Hmm, there's a surprise!
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Another thing is omitting data that paints it in a bad light from a report they released. Totally fucking dishonest.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24589652

It appears that these "losses" relate to investment which may opt for HS2 corridors rather than elsewherein the future. Not doing something because there is a benefit seems a pretty poor reason.

 

An unjustifiably high cost IS a reason to bin the project,but current costs contain a third contingency provision. I would rather we were spending the money on public infrastructure than two grotesquely overpriced aircraft carriers.

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  • 6 years later...

This is fucking arl-arse. It will cost far too much. You can get to London in 2 hours from Liverpool or Manchester anyway for fuck sake. Its easier than getting from Manchester to Liverpool. The negative impact on peoples lives as well far outweighs the benefits. Selfish twats. Oh and that money tree has appeared as well. 

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I watched it today, and saw just about every MP from the Greater Manchester area pushing the importance of Manchester. The only Merseyside MP who promoted the area was Alison McGovern, and she was only talking about the Wrexham/ Bidston line.

 

There were also pitches from Hull, Goole, Huddersfield etc, but Merseyside didn't appear to have a horse in the race.

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As with most things in this country (Wembley Stadium , Millennium  Dome) it will cost am incredible amount more than what is being promised and will probably stop at Birmingham anyway due to spiralling costs which is probably the plan anyway

And 2033 to be finished , fuck me China built a hospital in 6 days...
 

We really are a shit country !

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