Quote:
Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu
A major problem coming from this news, who will win the contracts to build the trains, stations etc.
Gurranteed it wont be British companies, the one thing that is bad is that the government say it will create 100.000 jobs - who for.
We know what the policies are for this coalition, we will give it to oversea's then we can get more exports/imports, same old story - give the contracts to the British workforce.
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Well, unfortunately for you Arthur, Labour also wants to see this railway built, so you can't blame it on the Coalition. Lord Adonis, the Labour transport secretary in 2010, had already commissioned a lot of the exploratory work.
HS2 is *going* to get built. The last lingering doubt was a rumour that George Osborne had gone cool on the idea, but seeing as he has come out and given it his full backing today, the one and only possibility of this being shelved has now gone.
For me, one of the best things about today's announcement is that it will prevent short-sighted whingers from constantly moaning about all this effort just to cut Birmingham-London journey times by 10 minutes. This isn't about Birmingham and never was. HS2 will eventually be a national high-speed rail backbone connecting central Scotland with London and then on to the continent via HS1 and the Chunnel. Now the route has been published as far as the north of England, perhaps the debate can get off the silly soundbites and onto the detail of how best to do this with minimal environmental impact and maximum economic benefit.