Boris Island Vs High Speed 2 (HS2)

Is it just me that thinks it’s complete madness that the Government would be willing to spend some £32 Billion on building a high speed rail link from London to Birmingham and eventually, many years later, on to further North in Scotland when for not much money more they could build the 4 runway super Airport that London so desperately needs in the Thames Estuary. Firstly, the UK as a whole needs a new hub airport where you can provide links between long haul and short haul flights and to open up additional routes to most importantly the emerging markets and the BRIC countries. China is opening dozens of new airports with potential new routes and here we are piddling away with our countries main hub airport running at 99.8% capacity! What’s that all about? As the United States prepare to celebrate their countries independence today I start to think no wonder the founding fathers finally flipped their lids and threw all of the tea into the Boston Harbour and started the process that led to the good old US of A being an independent country. It so often feels like elections pass every 4 to 5 years and no matter who wins we are stuck with the same old, stuck in the mud attitude of those days of the Boston Tea Party, where they can’t organise a simple drink up in a brewery. One party authorises a new Runway, another gets in and cancels it! Meanwhile, months, years, decades pass and the country that was pioneer in building great railways is being left behind in the airport stakes! Berlin’s new International Airport is scheduled to open in 2013 adding an additional 27 million passengers per year and we are still stuck with an airport built on the wrong side of London, where noone wants any expansion and yet they all want to fly from there when they need it and yet the same issue at Gatwick and Stansted. (I have yet to see how on earth they can claim that London Southend is anywhere near London!). Typical NIMBYs, wanting them built but not in their back yard. Let’s just suppose that HS2 gets the green light and is built. I can already get to Birmingham in a fast 90 minutes. The fares are reasonable enough and buy in advance and you can often get a first class for less than an economy seat on the day. But HS2! Well for the benefit of knocking a few minutes off your journey tim you will be forced to pay a premium. I imagine, if historical pricing is anything to go by it will be significantly more expensive and what new nett money will it bring our country? None! Where as an airport to new countries, new cities will potentially bring more business, more tourists and increase GDP! Surely the airport will bring Billions more in revenue for our country as a whole and therefore reduce the deficit further. I can appreciate that nobody wants a runway at the end of their garden but at the same time, I, like millions of other Londoners are woken every morning at 530AM by 747s circling endlessly around London waiting for a landing slot. All of which could be solved if we simply built Boris Island. Of course, its never as simple as just what to build and where. We have all the politics of loosing voters in areas not happy about the new runway or new airport. High Speed links are essential to improving any economy but I can not see the domestic need of a high speed link to an area under 90 minutes away presently. Furthermore, would I pay a premium to use it? I don’t believe so. Currently they are constructing London’s Cross Rail project, a High Speed link that will go from Heathrow to Canary Wharf and beyond into Essex. But unlike other projects in the past, the new line will not be part of the London Underground Network. You will not be allowed to use it as part of your annual travel card but at a premium. Now I ask you, if you have to get to LHR for your holiday and your flight leaves at say 10PM. Do you pay £20 each to go one way on Cross Rail or rather let it take slightly longer and go for free on your Oyster? If the recession has taught us all one thing, it’s the knack of being thrift and saving money wherever you can. Much like I can’t see people paying a huge premium to use crossrail, I can’t see them paying to use HS2 and we could end up with another white elephant like the Millenium Dome on our hands. But the circumstances are different when it comes to airports. We all live for our annual summer holiday. They have become part of a national obsession. For businesses needing to travel to sign contracts, they need to fly there to do the deal and it’s these essential international links that we need more than anything Of course you already know how I feel about the lack of airport growth, it’s just a shame we can’t have some people in power that do something about it instead of these ConDems who can’t do anything for fear of tipping the apple cart!