Author Archives: Penny Gaines

The Independent View: What’s wrong with HS2?

HS2 Brick WallHigh speed 2 easily cleared its first parliamentary hurdle yesterday, with just 34 MPs voting against the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill – 350 voted in favour. Here Penny Gaines argues the case against HS2 is still strong.

High Speed 2 will cost £50bn, including the trains. But it is an environmentally damaging vanity project, with a constantly shifting rationale for building it.

The current argument is that speed is irrelevant for the case for HS2, but that our existing railways are nearly full and the only option is to build a new high speed railway. This argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged | 46 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Rif Winfield
    When the Liberals were at our most successful in the 1970s and 1980s, it was because we were then the insurgent party, taking on both Conservatives and Labour a...
  • Meg Thomas
    We need to be very fearful of unbridled capitalism. I think it has fuelled inequality and been very damaging. Some people in this thread seem like libertarians...
  • expats
    @theakes 8th Jun '26 - 12:20pm... We simple have to accept there will always be a level of inequality, it is in the human psyche.... Most families DON'T have...
  • Peter Davies
    @Peter Wrigley: You will be glad to know that the wealth ratio between the richest and poorest is already much lower than 10:1. It is in fact negative. There wi...
  • Nigel Jones
    @Mick Taylor, I agree we must be concerned about income inequality in current circumstances, though overcoming this is about taxing the rich, better public serv...