I would like to see the detail of this cancellation in terms of what contracts are in place that cant be cancelled without great cost. Also the cancellation (or is it a mothballing) linked to do with the fact there is zero control on the project and it needs a reset. And the cost of borrowing to the government is very high at the moment.
Dont hold your breath about the saving being spent elsewhere in the north/midlands as most will take years to action (probably over another two 5 year parliamentary terms).
Its all bollocks, bullshit and lies as usual.

Contractors will want compensation for the cancellation of their contracts to include materials and plant already purchased. The old Hereema yard was making concrete segment for the tunnels so big loss there.

On the news today they will now start selling the land which was purchased for HS2 I would imagine inflation will be taken into account on the asking price.

I thought Andy Burnham gave a very impassioned speech yesterday on TV.

Andy Burnham is very good at speeches but I prefer actions to words.
I remember somebody saying to Cloughie "that's a great team on paper" the great man replied " aye but the problem is we don't play on paper"

Nothing from Starmer about the cancellation, keeling stum for some reason possibly he agrees with the cancellation but dare not say so ?

He's being ultra cautious with a lot of things is Starmer. If the red wall electorate start believing the Tories just might spend the money on making travel, both road and rail, better in the north, they could turn away from a guy who seems to spend his current day keeping stum. He is hardly on the news lately. A lot of the Labour faithful favour Andy Burnham and Sir Keir won't like the bold Andy stealing any limelight over current affairs like HS2. If Labour don't win the next GE, where does that leave the leader. They say a week is a long time in politics and there are dozens of weeks before we go to the polls.

the bloke is a fence sitter living in the hope of someone else cocking things up to take advantage of it. he seems quite happy to gain power on the back of voting just to keep the tories out and not really for him. be interesting hw he performs at the labour conference.

Reports have it that the land previously acquired is to be flogged off to "developers" in what looks like a scorched earth policy to stop it ever going ahead in the future.

Would be nice just to be able to get a connecting direct train to Darlington to access southbound main line trains instead of having to change at Thornaby

When I used to come to matches regularly by train, most of the time I went straight through to Newcastle and then down to Hartlepool. The Thornaby route is a ball ache. Unless I could get the Grand Central from York or Northallerton. The GC to Sunderland doesn't stop at Donny.

They did that with land at Wynyard for the new hospital, now a housing estate, they lost money on it as they couldn’t reclaim the VAT, I am sure Chris Musgrave was involved in it as well.

Yes i agree. Years ago there was a direct service to Darlo that left from the bay platform at the southern end of the station (platform 3?) and there is some indication that it might be reinstated.
It would really be good as it will reduce the need to be dependent on GC and from Darlington you have access to cross pennine services, midlands via Cross Country, east coast main line stations and Scotland.
Perhaps it will be funded from the HS2 savings

The train to Hartlepool from Darlington didn’t align with other trains, I travelled regularly on the York train which had come from London.The train to Hartlepool left 5/10 minutes before the York train arrived meaning an hours wait for the next one it.

anything to actually avoid changing trains at leeds and .or york would be plus. the rot set in when the line north of harrogate closed that went through ripon and on to the NE.

That hospital was never going to be built. I recall seeing survey teams vehicles up there long before the site was was finally sold and they were from housing developers.
Even the ‘artists’ impressions of the new hospital could have been drawn by the average three year old with a crayon…a more inaccessible place for a patient without a car to access I have yet to imagine.
Was it a diversion to keep us quiet till we accepted we were stuck with North Tees, another unaccessible place for the non car owner unless you like three buses and have time to waste, thank god for my car….although in ten years time when motoring becomes unaffordable we’ll all be getting re-acquainted with the bus timetables and those who can afford a car will have lovely spacious roads to drive on free of us plebs.
We’re going backwards to please the eco loons.

don,t you know you can walk or cycle to these places so we are told anyway. think many of the population are in the same boat regarding the position where new hospitals eventually get built as if its somewhere you actually want to go in the first place.

Judging by the virtual (grudgingly) cross party support there is for the cancellation of HS2 it seems that the project is in a much worse state than previously reported. Lets see what the final bill is but i am sure it will be eyewatering.
Does anyone know whats going on with the concrete tunnel sections plant near Herema?

I believe the sections were for the line into London Euston although that was cancelled initially but is now going ahead.

Cheers i just hope the guys involved in this will still be in employment. With this project i dont think anything is a given but lets see what happens. For it to end (or start) at Old Oak Common is a joke.

In 1948 the government bought the whole of the rail system when it nationalised it for £927million which is £41.5 billion at current day prices.
What HS2 is actually going to cost to Birmingham is still debated and could be anything from £80 billion to £120 billion.
So its possible that one boxy line from the smoke to Brum could be 3 times the cost of buying the whole of the rail network of the UK.
Food for thought (and yes debatable).

Costs are so high because of the number of tunnels required to stop the NIMBYs

They should have extended the underground to Birmingham and pleased everybody …they could have called it the ….’BRUM LINE’.

and if they had ignored the beeching plan what would the losses have been. well into the billions but least the country would have had a better train service which in recent years much of it would have been better used and looking at the future of private motoring it would have been needed.

It’s all about profit not service, it’s been proved since all the utilities have been privatised, I don’t believe any of the EUs public transports systems make a profit.

the way things are going they,ll have to have a big transport re think over the next few years. they cannot have it both ways by trying to get cars off the road and running a total for profit public transport system. this is another reason why people had a down on the EU as we never seemed to get befefits of it like their transport systems for the average man in the street but plenty of what that person never wanted in the first place.

Remember when bus services were reliable, cheap, early morning till late at night, frequent and affordable…..and the buses were clean, comfortable, didn’t rattle when new and not second hand cast offs.

The thing is people like to be dropped off near where ever they are going to and from, it’s not feasible to carry the weekly shop from the supermarket to a bus stop in fact some people shop monthly.The other point is the U.K. weather, who wants to stood in the rain wind and cold waiting for a bus.it’s different in the countries with warmer climates.

People did it for years and still manage to do it no problem….the buses in London aren’t short of passengers….it’s a bit of weather.

I think an R too many

the reason taxi,s are so numerous now and well used. for some of us we never got into one apart from weddings and funerals. know costs vary from town to town but if you get 4 in i,m sure it will be cheaper than 4 on the bus for the same journey. at least you know taxi,s still operate after a certain time.

Covid made people lazy, home deliveries were common as people couldn’t be bothered queuing outside the supermarkets when only a limited number were allowed in. In fact a lot of the taxi who were laid off started as delivery drivers now creating a shortage of taxis.

The facts behind this fiasco are starting to come out and the consequences going forward are a right bastardisation of what was planned.
1. the trains will start at Old oak Common miles from central London and Euston unless the private sector stump up £6.8 billion (4.5 miles). Which if it does will extract a high price from future governments. The land at Euston is worth a fortune as prime development land.
2. HS2 will end in a field near Litchfield.
3. Hs2 services that continue north will be slower and more congested than what we have now.
4. HS2 was all about new capacity for passengers and freight not speed but that now ends at Litchfield.
5. The current tilting trains can travel at 125mph but HS2 trains north of Birmingham will be capped at 110mph as they dont tilt.
6. The Hs2 trains will have to run at half the length as Manchester Piccadilly cannot take two HS2 550 passenger trains as the platform aint long enough.
7. Just to accommodate these changes much track upgrades will be needed costing billions.
8. the DfT will have to renegotiate a £2 billion contract for 54 trains which it wont all need unless they take them and run them elsewhere. The top speed of these trains is 225 mph but will be restricted to 110 mph. Middlesbrough to the Toon?
9. Sunak is pursuing a scorched earth policy of flogging of the land (and planning permission) north of B,Ham so scuppering any possibility of it ever happening. No doubt sold cheaply to "friends".
10. the list of alternative projects from "saving" is pure bollocks as some have already happened (yes) and some are planned anyway in the next 10 years and others not viable.Potholes?
11.the UKs reputation for delivering big projects is destroyed worldwide.
12. it was announced at a party conference not debated in Parliament.
13. as for the final cost no one knows as it was last costed at 2019 prices and no doubt contract variations since then at not included.£100-£150 billion for just the B,Ham bit may not be unrealistic with minimal benefit from what would have come from the original Y routes to Leeds and Manchester.

I hope you enjoy this as bedtime reading and have a restful sleep.

I am very jealous of that farmer who owns the field at Litchfield who is now going to get a real multi billion pound train set. Lucky steward of a bar.

I fear for that train going past Pools at 225 mph..everyone in the Cyril Knowle’s Stand plus the benches will be sucked off…..their seats

I am very jealous of that farmer who owns the field at Litchfield who is now going to get a real multi billion pound train set. Lucky steward of a bar.

Had a business in Lichfield (No T in spelling) at Curborough Hall Farm in Watery Lane (good name with today's weather.)

The farmer did own plenty of land when last there in 2006 (moved business to purpose built factory to Rugeley) and probably some of that would have been purchased by HS2.

I can’t see the point of selling the land, put the project on the back burner and next time try to get it done by private enterprise not our governments cash cow.
Maybe the Chinese might do it under their belt and road initiative ? They have a third share at the new nuclear power station at Hinckley Point and there were plans to allow the Chinese to build one east of London.

Not the Chinese, all the reports surfacing of their grand projects collapsing are alarming…. They’re apparently called ‘tofu dreg’ projects because of widespread shoddy workmanship.

Let’s hope their input at Hinckley Point is minimal then.

Judging by the response from Labour who you would have thought would go apeshit, it may be that there are other issues of such a scale that the project is so out of control it just has to be stopped.
Lets see what emerges.

Too big for the government to keep control off, the private contractors run rings round them. Look at the failed Track and Trace System, the PPE contracts given to friends and the stuff which was not up to spec. all purchased by government departments, they just took the p*** out of the government and we the taxpayer are having to stump up for it in out taxes.

Bite the bullet and nationalise it…..no more subsidies for private operators.

You can’t do that what about shareholders dividends ?

Flip the shareholders….see how I dodged saying fuck…l

whilst i agree 100 per cent we would never had a railway system to nationalise in the first place if it wasn,t for shareholders. saying that there were many lines that were built that never made a profit due to not having any passengers or possible ones in the first place or village stations well over a mile from their centre down a muddy poorly lit road.

Yes i think you have hit the nail on the head, the government just does not have the skills to run big projects.