Twitter Poll By Mayor Of Middlesbrough

[mushroom25]

interesting poll by Andy Preston, mayor of Middlesbrough -
https://twitter.com/tees_issues/status/1562842017306378244?s=10&t=GuK3yeZbtkfwxPiqW388MA

would cancelling HS2 be a tangible way of raising money to offset the looming energy crisis?
if yes, should it be cancelled?

[bobbinwales]

Are we comparing like with like.... the HS2 cost is probably due to be spread over many years.. If we spent all £100 billion on subsidising energy bills and 'helping on inflation' it might all go in a year or two- what will happen after that if energy price dont fall... and all the extra money given to families feeds inflation even more

[jourdain2]

No-one I know wants HS2 at all. E. Yorkshire.
It's always been looked on as a vanity project. I can just hear Sir Humphrey going through the stages of planning and ending with 'Well it is a tremendous waste of money, but we didn't know it then and now we've spent so much there is no reason to scrap it really".
Like Blair's Millennium Dome - totally unnecessary. The North could really use the cash that has been spent on it, never mind the cash yet to be splurged.

[bobbinwales]

Another worry I have is that by supporting people with energy bills if we support too much people will keep using high levels when really we need to use less ... not just for enviroment reasons but also to make us less likely to be held to ransom by Putin and gas providers

[ToraToraTora]

no, silly notion.

[bobbinwales]

Must admit I never been convinced by hs2 but I can see our railway systems have fallen well behind those of other countrys and have not changed much in well over 100 years. If people had kept putting off big investments we may never of had the tube lines or motorways or bridges like Clifton suspension or Forth Bridge

[Zacs-Master]

Energy prices aren’t necessarily controlled by British companies. HS2 is a domestic cost. Stupid non sequitur argument.

[Gromit]

It is a stupid poll.
HS2 isn’t going to benefit Middlesborough on iota, so it is easy for their citizens to say don’t build it.
If you had have polled the people of Manchester 20 years ago and proposed not building the M25 motorway and instead give everyone a tax cut, then I am sure the M25 would not have been built.

[jno]

///Like Blair's Millennium Dome - totally unnecessary///

John Major's and Michael Heseltine's, actually. But I suppose you have to find someone in the Labour party to blame for everything.

It's also the world's most popular music venue.

[ToraToraTora]

The problem with HS2 is that the morons and the media focus on the 20min faster feature. That is burger all to do with it. The main function is to take most of the passenger traffic off the existing line which is seriously full of freight and passengers etc.

[mushroom25]

// If you had have polled the people of Manchester 20 years ago and proposed not building the M25 motorway and instead give everyone a tax cut, then I am sure the M25 would not have been built. //

how time gets behind you when you're not looking -
the M25 was completed in 1986......

[Gromit]

After I postered I realised CrossRail would have been a better comparison than the M25. Cost £19 Billion.

[mushroom25]

// I realised CrossRail would have been a better comparison //

in monetary terms. notwithstanding the cost overruns and the delays, crossrail will realise the benefits intended, eg finally solving the chronic congestion on the central line, a problem of long standing that TfL and its predecessors have been wrestling with as far back as 1960. and Londoners, the beneficiaries of this, know it.

like the Borders Line in Scotland, which detractors said was a white elephant and the money would have been better spent dualling the A9 - from its outset the Borders Line has been a runaway success, outstripping all expectations.

[jno]

not trying to read Gromit's mind, but I think the point was that people in Manchester would happily have voted for the Crossrail money to be diverted to taxpayers in general rather than those who actually use Crossrail. It seems to be on the way to success (though there are still finishing touches to be added), but it wouldn't have been built if Manchester or Middleborough had been given a veto.