Vocal Voices

And problems for our Cromwell.

A massive new sidings with storage, cleaning, servicing and engineer training facilities for HS2 is now to be built in Leeds and not near Cromwell's neck of the woods south of Wakefield.

Crofton Against HS2 looks to have been so successful with their anti campaign that government have decide to move the whole plan from there to Leeds. The law of unintended consequences?

This has piqued me somewhat, even though I am from Leeds.

We have been pushing for years to get things out of London and share the wealth round the country. That is the right thing to do and must continue. Unfortunately what we appear to have achieved are mini Londons in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. These three cities appear to be getting the lion's share of the opportunities to the detriment of their neighbours and other not so big cities and towns the length and breadth of the country.

The original HS2 plan would have been built in an area devastated by the pit closures and it has never fully recovered. It would have been a huge boost to the locality and also the city of Wakefield and nearby Barnsley. Now there are not even crumbs. Ah well, lads, back to you min wage warehouse fork lift and palletiser jobs.

Very interesting. I've just been on the Crofton Against HS2 Twitter site, and whilst it's difficult to sort out the facts from the rantings, it seems the principle argument was greenfield vs brownfield site. The trouble is that these rolling stock maintenance depots (engine shed in 1950's terminology ) are huge.

I have to "declare an interest" because a similar depot was originally slated for Middleton, Warwickshire, a small hamlet about three miles from where we lived in Brum, and which we used to visit a bit as it had a nice pub and garden centre on its outskirts. The HS2 line-plan ran literally past the eastern end of the village and the adjacent depot, for an allocation of 70 trains, was proposed to be over a mile long and 1/3 mile wide, all on prime farmland. MrsO and I certainly signed one anti-HS2 petition, maintained in the village church. It would have devastated both the community and the local area.

What I am not sure about is whether the protests were successful. It was subsequently announced that there would be a major HS2 depot on a brownfield site in Washwood Heath, Birmingham (the old Metropolitan Cammell works, where the very successful Metrobuses were built backalong) but I'm not sure if this was instead of or additional to the Middleton site. It may be that Crofton has fought a similar battle to Middleton - and won.

Your argument about job creation is an interesting one, WM, and I don't really know the answer to it with regards specifically to the old mining area around Crofton, as I've no knowledge of the area or how the economy works in it. I can only speak for Middleton, and job creation was the last thing on the locals' minds faced with years of upheaval whilst the line was built and the destruction of the countryside next to it.

Ossie, I understand the greenfield v brownfield site argument, but think of this. There is a corridor between the M1 and the A1(M) running from south Leeds all the way down to Leicestershire. At the top end, where most of the pits were, it might be "green belt" but it ain't the Cheviots, Vale of Evesham, Malvern Hills, South Downs sort of greenfield. It is post industrial, reclaimed and pretty poor agricultural land.

What I am trying to get at is that when we spread the load some of it has to go to places like Rotherham, Middlebrough, Coventry, and Stoke etc.

Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, though they could do with beter inter-city transport links, can look after themselves for the most part. The rest of the country needs more help.

Yes, I know where your coming from, but the problem with HS2 is that it's simply a railway line between London / Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds with no (or very few) intermediate stops. And this sort of infrastructure development is by necessity hardly going to directly benefit the Coventry, Stoke and Rotherham's of this world, because it's far cheaper to build in a straight line, as you say, through the countryside and not deviate into the medium-sized conurbations. However, with regard to Coventry, for example, it will get an economic boost in the years to come on the back of its closeness to Birmingham, and in particular the Birmingham International HS2 transport hub roughly halfway between the two cities. Similarly, I would suspect Stoke and the Potteries will benefit from the Crewe HS2 station hub. It's interesting to note that they're trying to build an HS2 depot in the Cheshire countryside rather that at Crewe itself, where they've got existing railway infrastructure they could utilise.

Nottingham, Derby and the East Midlands generally will receive its economic boost from the Toton HS2 station hub, and there's acres of redundant railway sidings at Toton which can be used for a depot, (which I believe may be being mooted anyway). I've totally lost the plot over Rotherham and Sheffield, as at one point HS2 was going to go via central Sheffield, then it wasn't, then it was going to go through a brand new housing estate somewhere near Rotherham; now I don't know what the plan is. But I presume there will be a Sheffield Interchange somewhere.

I've said all that to try and clarify the argument in my mind which is this: these areas like Stoke, Coventry, Sheffield, Nottingham et al will certainly reap economic benefits and job creation from HS2 - but not necessarily in the building phase; the benefits will come after the line is built.

Mind you, I'd still scrap the bleddy anything anyway on cost grounds, but that's an entirely different argument!

Workingman wrote:
Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, though they could do with beter inter-city transport links, can look after themselves for the most part. The rest of the country needs more help.

It certainly does! We need far better transport links across the country, East to West!

HS2 has a meet the people event yesterday in Crofton. it was the same as all the others; staffed with personable young people who were totally unable to answer any question.

It is not going to benefit Crofton or the Wakefield area much. We have a decent service to London from Wakefield as it is. Post HS2 we will have fewer Wakefield to London trains. We will also have years and years of disruption whilst it is built. Closed roads, disrupted traffic, even more HGVs thundering through the village. And after it is built we will have to put up with the noise of the thing. 18 trains an hour are planned and they will be a hell of a lot louder than the current trains.

HS2 is just an extension of the suburbs of London, so far as I can see. To enable people living in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds to commute to London.

As Kaz says, the money would be better spent improving West to East travel, Linking Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Hull.

Cromwell, will those from the Wakefield and Barnsley areas now have to go up to Leeds to get down to London once HS2 begins?

If so it is not going to do much to save them any journey time, is it?

There will be trains to London from Wakey WM, but a lot fewer of them. HS2 is bringing this neck of the woods only negatives.