Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
“Put it this way,” said my pal after his rail journey to a football match last Saturday; “if the human passengers crushed into two inadequate carriages had been animals, the RSPCA would surely have intervened.”
It was one of the lesser railway lines up north, as you might have guessed. I doubt it will see any of the £36bn promised by Rishi Sunak to be channelled into northern rail projects following the scrapping of the Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2.
There may be some merit in Rishi Sunak’s scheme to provide better value for smaller projects. But the reality is the Government, like others before it, is notorious for short termism. The voting public of the north is rightly sceptical about these latest promises.
As for HS2, Isambard Kingdom Brunel would probably have done a more efficient and less costly job of designing and building the railway. In the 1800s he was one of Britain’s most ingenious and prolific figures in our engineering history. The Great Western Railway set the standards for a well-built railway, a scheme Brunel surveyed personally every inch of the route.
I’m not losing too much sleep over the scrapping of all but the first phase of HS2. I never really believed it would stimulate business and tourism in the north. More likely it was aimed at getting folk from the north into London as quickly as possible.
HS2 is not dissimilar to problems that plagued previous major infrastructure projects in the UK. Over optimistic cost estimates and no plans for when costs spiralled.
They come with a blaze of announcements. But in HS2’s case a £55bn budget set in 2015 rose to over £100bn. Ministers with responsibility for transport have come and gone at an alarming rate — 10 of them since 2010. First they told us the line was to produce faster journey times between major cities and the capital. More recently the justification was greater capacity freed up for the West Coast mainline.
The Prime Minister assures us that every single penny saved will be aimed at new transport projects for the North, Midlands and across the country. It actually leaves us with more questions than answers. It’s as if ideas were cobbled up on the back of the proverbial fag packet the night before the PM’s announcement. A few ideas re-hashed. Some schemes already completed.
Transport Minister Mark Harper spoke of a list of “examples” money could be spent on rather than anything definite. So there is no plan as such then.
No wonder us simple folk up north have our doubts about the Government’s ability to plan for the long term, or how much of this £36bn will be channelled into rail projects in our part of the world.
I bet the ghost of Isambard Kingdom Brunel is looking upon the HS2 fiasco with horror.
Given cattle class travel and endless strikes, our love of the railways is diminishing. To expect us to bung them £100bn for a high speed line most of us are never likely to use, dream on.
Barriers to the countryside
When I go on the fells, or for a lakeside ramble, I don’t see any signs and notices telling me non-Cumbrian natives are unwelcome. Or, for that matter, walkers of any age or ethnicity. They even allow pensioners on Latrigg.
In fact the countryside, provided it’s treated with respect, remains one of the last great free shows. It’s for everyone. As yet there is no entrance gate on Catbells. No charging booths at Seathwaite for the thousands who make their way to Scafell Pike.
I don’t get the complaint from Haroon Mota, the founder of a Muslim walking group, that minority communities are “edged out” of rural spaces.
I’d be interested to know his evidence for such a sweeping statement which rather implies that ramblers are racist. If Alfred Wainwright, author of the celebrated guide books, had a tendency to being “ist” then it was his preference for Herdwicks over other breeds.
I’d be very sorry if the claims were true. But I know of no “barriers to the countryside”. This Guardian correspondent suggests there are “huge racial disparities in access to the outdoors”. It’s a very strange complaint.
