Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
No its not chucking money away. I don't think I've said or implied that. I'm merely making the point that at this time the financial implications of this have to be very carefully considered and IMHO they don't add up and there isn't any prospect of a financial surplus to plunder. We all know massive cuts are coming and the electorate won't much like vast sums of money being allocated to this over the years if other budgets are suffering at the same time. If things go wrong I fear we'll wind up with the railway equivalent of funding crisis hit PFI hospitals - great facilities which are rapidly becoming too expensive to run. If we'd won the 2016 or 2020 Olympics instead of 2012, I think the same would be being said about those now such tough financial choices are having to be made.
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I think this is a good time to be making such investments/ It will lead to more jobs and businesses right away amongst those building the new rail line and it may increase confidence amongst foreign firms that the UK will continue to be a good place to do business. Birmingham itself should see a boost from the knowledge that London will soon be closer. I have seen many arguments that infrastructural investments are more effective in times of slow economic growth, likely because of the reasons I mentioned.
Besides, the sooner we get started the sooner it will get completed. The estimates for us finishing just the Birmingham branch are ridiculous enough as it is. At this rate most of us will be dead before they complete the Manchester branch. We spend far too long on these things and think up many reasons why we shouldn't do them, we should be more proactive. A lot of mainland Europe have these trains, America is starting to think about it and parts of Asia just got on with it ages ago. There isn't any point putting it off longer. Let's go.