CONTENTS 06.12.07
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COVER 22 STORY Vidoria Station
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58 Names & Faces
Bruce Donaldson, WSP
"The success 01 HS1 underlines the lad that extending high speed rail across the UK is the logical next step"
High speed rail: lime for some serious polilical'support
There was something slightly frustrating and ironie in the fact that l managed to read most of The Right Line, a new book catalogu- ing the difficult 30 year birth ofRigh Speed One (HS1), during a seven hour train journey from Edinburgh and London last Sundayo
Rad it not been for the three and a halE hours l had ta spend on a replacement bus service to Newcastle, my journey should have taken four and a halfhours.
But it is ironic because dedicated high speed line between Edinburgh to London -let's Gallit High Speed Two - would have cut the travel time to nearer three hours.
Thebookis by former Sunday Times and Economistjournalist Nicholas Faith and is a recommended text for anyone interested in the bizarre world of the UK infrastructure planning process.
As Lord Heseltine, a key factor in turning the Amp route into reality, pointed out at the House of Commons book launch this
-
week, the story is "an awful indictment of the way that we run this country."
He said: "We don't do vision in this country -we don't think long term and we don't think bigo"And John Prescott, the man who injected public cash to drag the project back from financial collapse in 1.998,agreed.
The real worry is that despite the success story of the RS1 project the next major infra- structure project is politically far, far awayo
For an the recent attempts to streamline the UK planning process - and OK, so far Crossrail seems to be clearing its hurdles, it is a glaring fact that infrastructure develop- ment in the UK cornes clown to one very simple fact: political patronageo
ln short, the UK continues, to muddle through the infrastructure planning processo
But high speed rail works and the recent success ofHS1 underlines the fact that extending high speed rail across the UK is the logical next step that would obviate the
need for carbon hungry short haul air travel.
An extension west to Heathrow then on to Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland is an obvious engineering proposition.
Yet as Arup director Mark Bostock, the man who conceived the HS1 route and then worked hard to convince 331members of par- liament that it was the right line, pointed out this week, the challenge is to work out whieh of our modern politicians will back ito
"The question is very simple," he said.
"Who are the rising stars in government who have the vision to see beyond the four year cycle of government?"
The real problem for UK infrastructure seems to be that, they either don't exist or are yet to stick their heads over the parapet.
And for every person sitting, as l was last weekend, on a train or flying across the UK today, that is a big sharne. The public could so easily have better.
II Antony Oliver is NCEs editor
