New high speed rail link

Is anybody affected by this? My Oh was looking at the route plans today and its coming near us,we wont be affected but our friends have called in tonight and told us compulsory orders have already been posted and some poor people have 3yrs to leave their homes! i heard on the news 2033? so why 3yrs!?
Im gutted for those affected,all their memories and hard work put into their home over yrs taken away by one letter

 

Hi Joolz, I noticed one of the main stations is going to be at Toton just up the road from us here, we'll be unaffected but I feel for those in Toton as they already have to put up with the new tram lines and station being built there too!!!

The route is going to carve up some stunning Cheshire countryside to get to the proposed station near Manchester airport and Crewe, even potentially cutting one village in half thats 5 mins away from my parents where I used to live.

I just find the whole thing a gigantic waste of money that this country can't afford and destroying our green and pleasant land in the process, maybe some of the MPs that are locked away in their bubble (namely the houses of parliment etc) should get out and visit these areas that are going to be tarnished and destroyed and go and meet these people who's lives they're ruining.

I have heard of a fishery that has been told he'll have to shut because the route comes right past his fishery and there needs to be a certain safe zone either side the track which covers his fishery.

 

I'm going to add a fly into the ointment here.
We had the high speed rail from Folkestone to London Blighting us for years, it carved a line right through Kent and ruined a lot of peoples houses plus looks awful regarding the countryside.
If it never moves further than London, then it was a total waste, as you need long runs to make high speed worth while.
The other point is, and I dont want to upset anyone, but we always get the North/South divide moan.
You cant move jobs etc. further North if you dont keep up with the times.

I hate seeing countryside ruined, but if you want to move on you need to make sacrifices.
The Southeast has taken the main hit for years, its about time the rest of the country had a bit of it.
And lets move the jobs and housing Northwards.

 

Its awful bilbo,i remember the M60 yrs back them taking homes which then laid derelict for 15yrs and after it was finished the houses add to be resold.It must of hurt and frustrated the previous owners to watch the homes they had been forced out of go to rack & ruin on a just maybe we need your land!!

 

I agree that people have more opportunities job wise if its accessable(until it snows)And ive travelled back n forth from manchester by train enough to wish it was quicker and the scenary is second to non
I just feel so bad for people who are being forced out of their homes,i know there is compensation but for example it does not make up Security &Memories for folk that have been in the same home for 30yrs ,they can just take it away with a flick of a pen!

 

Here is a link if anybody wants it,it is a a bit slow loading so bare with for 60 seconds x
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ing-options-report-west-midlands-to-leeds.pdf

 

I thought many people use existing rail lines (and roads) to get to their jobs in the South from their cheaper housing in the North and only see this new rail link increasing the cost of housing in the North without increasing employment there.

 

It is an awful lot of money to see that the same 6000 people arrive at their destination 30 minutes earlier (If they can afford it)

Jack McH

 

Re the north/south divide, while it will benefit some in the north to have this rail link, it has the potential to be detrimental to many more.

This is what will happen (I bet my maximum bet of 50p on it). House prices everywhere within a few miles of each station on the link will rise drastically, because of 'easy commuter access to London'. Then because those houses rise in value, the wave will ripple out to surrounding areas. Result? People with ordinary non-London salaries wont be able to afford to live there any more.

As for tearing up the countryside, well it goes without saying that that's not a very good thing. If there's any tearing up to be done, why not tear up the existing out dated railways and just reusing that same land to build up-to-date railways?

As for compulsory purchase orders on peoples homes. Well unless we are fighting a war or dealing with some other imminent national crisis, then compulsory purchase is a national embarrassment. Here is Britain, regularly boasting about how liberal we are and how fair we are, throwing people off their own property by court order so we can build something that someone else wants. I've seen what compulsory purchase does. We had one here in Redcar a few years ago when the local council decided it wanted to build some more shops to stand empty and re-route a perfectly good road and make it into an unnecessary complicated congested junction in the name of 'redevelopment and amenity enhancement'. 3 or 4 full streets went, probably nothing when compared to the high speed rail link thing. Families were kicked out of their houses that they'd raised their kids in. Kids lost all their friends and had to suffer the turmoil of not only moving house against their will, but starting in a new school. Good buddies lost contact as they were all dispersed. Oh, and guess what, they got offered 'market value' for their homes. At the time, the offer (regardless of condition of the house, because it was set the same for everyone) was £33,000. To put that into perspective, houses independently valued in neighbouring unaffected streets were at the time going for more like £60k. So not only were people forced out, but many of them couldn't afford to buy anywhere else without re-mortgaging and paying much more money. I actually know one family ended up in the nasty council estate just on the edge of town. From own home somewhere settled, to nasty council estate, just because somebody else wanted the land their house stood on.

We here on the news about people being displaced from their homes against their will, in other parts of the world, and we are outraged. Governments, including ours, wave sticks saying its wrong, and yet that's exactly what a compulsory purchase order is.

 

That's basically what I said in post #8 above.

 

Oh well lets just go back to the dark ages.
I'm sure the victorians didn't have the same attitude to deal with when they built our existing rail tracks.
As for ripping out the old track and replacing it.
I'm sure everyone would love the chaos it would cause while this was going on.
Ok so its years before its up and running, the cost will be spread over those years, but if nobody does anything regarding transport the whole country will grind to a halt pretty soon.
High speed rail only works over long distance, Europe already has it.
We are 30yrs behind.

Yes I'd like to see more money being spent on our potholed roads, but that aint going to happen to any extent bearing in mind all the "greens" we have around these days and the "carbon neutral" bunch.

 

HS2 I can not see why they have to compusory purchase and go "Through" a village
why not skirt it like the motorway by-passes ?
Why have HS2 at all, they are talking about a maximum distance of 250 miles saving 20 minutes on a journey, I could see the point if it was from Portsmouth to Inverness
one main line right up the centre of the country, and have feeder trains to East or West
the max distance would be 60 miles either side

As Scrungee and Clueless have said, it will just make oop North cheap accomodation for them as darn Sarf
It would be better to invest in High Speed BROADBAND than have someone commute into London 20 minutes quicker
Think of the money saved on London Weighting allowance alone

I have just left HMRC an office in Dundee, the Gov have many offices in Scotland, all networked into Manchester, the lines are secure (the only reason we could not do the work from home was the problem of trusting an individual employee security wise)
ie who else would the employee let view the files held (Though just as in the office environment, If you accessed even one file that was not to do with the case it was logged, clear your desk and out of the door for you my dear)

Japan and the continent we are talking 400-600 mile journeys

Jack McH