As reported in ‘they work for you’:

Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North, Conservative)

I think that I am on the slow line, Mr Speaker. I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement today about High Speed 2. As a good northern girl, she will know that the north of England does not start and stop at Leeds and Manchester. On the route map published today, it seems that High Speed 2 on the north-west line extends further north than Manchester, perhaps to what looks like Preston. Will she give serious consideration to ensuring that Preston is included in phase 2, so that Lancashire and one of the hubs of British manufacturing get direct access to the south?

Justine Greening (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury; Putney, Conservative)

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that places such as Preston will gain from phase 1, in terms of connectivity between the west coast main line and HS2. I am as passionate as he is about ensuring that his area has excellent railway links, and we are looking at developing the HLOS2 proposal for shorter and medium-term funding in our railways. I have no doubt that he will continue to represent his constituents’ needs to us as powerfully as he just did, and I will continue to pay very close attention to them.

Recently the example of Edinburgh highlights the risks of what appears a relatively simple task.  Edinburgh’s tram system is years late, has cost around 5 times more than planned and is going to be under half the original length. In the last week there has been a lot debate about whether the track will reach the city centre at a further cost of £250million.  A lot of this seems to be put down to inadequate survey of the route. Most people don’t realise that all utilities under the track are moved so that the track isn’t dug up on a regular basis. In Edinburgh this turned out to be a very major job with unknown tunnels and sewers.  It might be thought Preston has less likelihood of unknown under road obstacles.  It is also said that Manchester and Nottingham did a bigger survey and had less problems although maybe they wouldn’t have had them anyway.

The previous government planned that £2bn a year would be spent on rail. Crossrail and Thameslink in London would spend that up to about 2017 when High Speed Rail work would start. Yet it seems very unfair that all the investment is going into London while the rest of the country gets London’s old rolling stock as they get new trains. There are 55million people living outside London and the gap in wealth gets larger while more and more money is poured into London – the Olympics being another example. Surely it is time for some equality.  It is said that London is more dependent on rail transport yet it has the only high speed rail line in the country and that goes outside the city to Europe. So London is sucking in people from outside to use its monopoly position. Why should people from the Midlands and the North need to travel to London to go to Europe on the train.

London is currently like a pressure cooker, hemmed in by small hills north and south and nothing of significance crossing those barriers. High Speed Rail will release some of the pressure and it would be expected to shrink the country so that areas well beyond those hills feel the benefits of the London investment effect. On top of that it could release capacity at Heathrow for lucrative international flights rather than domestic ones.

The need for a high speed line is here now, the West Coast Main Line is very busy and increasing train length is only a stop gap. Adding more track will cost as much if not more than a High Speed line.  Building should commence on the full length of line to Manchester and Leeds immediately with a target opening date in 5 years. British engineering companies should be given research funding to develop train technology. Work should also start on improving the track to ensure High Speed compatibility all the way to Scotland. The recession provides a benefit by reducing costs and the project will create jobs.

Being close to London these groups are getting a lot of publicity and even the BBC on this morning’s Today programme took sides with the opponents. 

It is understandable that you wouldn’t want a new rail line building close to your house but the project has national implications such as: shrinking the size of the UK, creating additional capacity and relieving existing track, reducing domestic flights, creating an outlet from the pressure on the South East while bringing the north and midlands onto the pan-European high speed routes. 

The government is getting used to people objecting to all their many changes mixing the good with elaborate spurious and exaggerated claims.  Sometimes the government hasn’t got it right but in this case there is a lot of support and both major political parties support the line.  The main negative is that it is taking much too long.

‘The Chancellor also announced on 20 October the electrification of the lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Blackpool, representing an investment of up to £300 million. I expect work in the north-west to begin next year and to be completed at about the same time as work on the Thames valley commuter lines, in 2016. Some sections will be completed well ahead of this, notably Manchester to Newton-le-Willows in late-2013, allowing new electric trains to operate from Manchester to Scotland. As with Thameslink, we will require Network Rail to keep a tight rein on costs. The redeployment of electric rolling stock to these routes will, in turn, free up hundreds of diesel units, which will be available to train operators to lease as they become available in the period after 2015.’

In a further reply he stated:

‘…..Electrification will allow the electric carriages released by the delivery of the new Thameslink carriages to be deployed. There is no point completing that electrification (Man. to Blackpool), except for the section from Manchester to Newton-le-Willows, until those electric carriages are available. The timetabling is perfectly logical and the early completion of Manchester to Newton-le-Willows will allow brand-new electric trains to be operated on the Manchester to Scotland routes.’

Some good news then.  In 2011 start electrifying the line from Manchester to the West Coast Main Line at Newton le Willows which will enable the diesel powered trains to Edinburgh that run through Preston to be new electric trains by late 2013.  While the remainder of the electrification from Manchester via Bolton and Preston to Blackpool will be complete by 2016, as well as the Liverpool to West Coast Main Line track. The bad news being that the line through Preston gets second hand stock from London, but better that, than nothing and the lines around London are much more congested so bigger faster trains are needed.

‘In the North West, we will invest in rail electrification between Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Blackpool and we will provide funding for a new suspension bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn.’

Must admit that when it was first announced it appeared to be a stunt by the last government to get votes and there is no saying it’s still not a vote buyer.  No dates have been announced but little detail was announced on many items. Presumably the transferring of rolling stock from London is still on the cards and probably offsets some of the cost.   With the doubt over routing of the High Speed Train this is presumably a shorter term improvement and will enable a lot of service improvements by allowing electrified trains to travel between Manchester and Blackpool as well as to Scotland from Manchester and Blackpool from the south.

A high speed rail link can bring major advantages to the areas it touches and the plan of completing the route to Manchester by 2027 seems too late.  Also the benefit of a Heathrow loop to allow fast travel from the north to Heathrow is vital to reduce the need for extra runways in the south.

It appears the signalmen are looking for a lesser action than a strike although that usually results in a more prolonged dispute, they’ve already been talking about these changes for 3 years so there’s no hurry for them.  While the maintenance men seem enthusiastic about taking redundancy, leaving the safety issue as a lone factor.  Another curious thing is that the strikes are being spoken of as being at Easter but the leader of the RMT, Bob Crowe, said the railway is usually shut for maintenance at Easter and buses are used. Bit of a surprise. So he’s saying passengers aren’t inconvenienced at Easter. Although the maintenance will still need to be done and if safety is their worry and they’re not maintaining the track it seems a bit of a double standard. 

Ever increasing regulation and improvements to standards will result in costs that we can no longer afford.  Efficiencies must also be found. From what I can gather no-one has been threatened with compulsory redundancy on the railway and surely the managers and regulator have safety at the top of their agenda. So should they be on strike.  Is there more to this dispute?  No doubt, but what agenda; is it politics, opportunist power with the government vulnerable at this point in time.

Meanwhile, like at British Airways, will you be planning a trip using the railway if there is another way?  Many will, but I wouldn’t.  Then again with the pot-holed roads the car has square wheels and loose suspension, not looking forward to its MOT.  Perhaps best to not go so far this Easter.

Sounds great but still a lot of questions to be asked.  The biggest one being will it ever reach Preston.

Will there be a full capability link to Scotland.  Will it go up the west or east coast or both or remain a slower line. Liverpool is on a spur from Manchester so will Glasgow be on a spur from Edinburgh via Newcastle on the east coast.  That could mean Preston missing out. 

Protests from people living on the route will be considered with one person in the Chilterns saying they aren’t convinced of its value – yet living only 20 miles from London it has no value to them. Although I wouldn’t want the line near us particularly if it spoilt nice areas of green.  The M40 cuts through the Chilterns and has created an ugly gash in Englands green and pleasant, lets do better than that.  Maybe using the existing West Coast Line in that area is a better solution although it might lead to years of unacceptable disruption.

The Conservatives are listening to the people on the route and looking at a line via Heathrow.   That seems to have some sense as cutting out flights is one of its purposes. Although a line further west via Heathrow might be less politically messy for the Conservatives or is it just expediency not to announce it now.

The other issue is the timeframe. It’s so far in the future that it might be overtaken by technology.  The Conservatives have said they’ll pull it 2 years forward which sounds better but not good enough.  It should be planned for it to run to Manchester in 2020 at the latest although it is said we can only afford £2bn a year and the London crossrail is spending that till 2017.

The technology will probably all be imported into the country that built the first trains. Surely we can do better than that, where are the British companies that can do this.

Other countries are now building trains that run on magnetic fields and by 2027 will the HST begin to look like the stagecoach and horses. The canals and original railways were built quicker.

Another influence will be for Preston to be the link for the north west, outside Manchester. Building Tithebarn will make Preston that much more of a convincing destination.

This line, if it was available now would change the idea of travel and bring more wealth to every area it touches. It would be possible to commute to London. Birmingham would be a stones throw away from most regions. Reducing flights from Manchester to London as well. The downside of that is that the prices would need to be high or the line won’t have enough capacity. To have fast trains from Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds converging with the Birmingham trains on one line will have an almost constant frequency.

The French found that they built too many stations and it slowed the line and reduced capacity so the regional philosophy sounds about right.

 The line is planned to within 5 metres it is said so lots to think about, need more information.

You expect the Green Party to support green policies. Yes, wind power, insulation and waste management are high on the agenda.  Along with quite high social provision and low defence provision. 

Who could argue with wind, insulation and waste measures? Insulation seems to be one of the biggest factors in reducing energy bills. It isn’t very glamorous though and isn’t going to gain technological credibility so doesn’t get a lot of press. 

All those windmills.  Are they becoming a bit of a blight already?  They’re often not turning, so not very dependable. For the region with its seas, hills and facing the prevailing wind we can expect a lot more who-ever is in power but even more with the Greens. We can also expect Heysham Power Stations to close and the fuel site at Salwick.

Waste? All that plastic packaging and milk cartons. Surely it should be discouraged.  Some countries already re-cycle twice as much as the UK without too much difficulty.

Another Green policy is an increase in public transport.  Not too long ago their promise of building 30,000 new buses would sound like manna from heaven for this region, Leyland,  but now there is hardly any bus building except some body work at East Lancs Coachbuilders, Optare.  

There wasn’t much written about reducing car use but cutting rail fares by  30% and expanding public transport implies a reduction in car use. I’m not convinced about a 30% cut in rail fares. A cut from £10 to £7 is only marginally advantageous and if I was spending that every day, a cut from £50 to £35 wouldn’t be life changing. I’m against encouraging distance commuting so in some ways an increase in fares might help that.  I have free bus use now and have never used it, so cars will need to be penalised. 

The 30,000 buses are an interesting concept. British jobs for British workers?  Including steel from Middlesbrough for windmills and buses, although probably it’s the wrong steel and too little, too late and steel making isn’t green. 

Taxes on aviation, like VAT on aviation fuel, and restrictions on new runways coupled with reductions in rail fares, might create an advantage to resorts like Blackpool.  Especially if the pound sank because of the financial controls the Greens promise. 

On defence the Greens are looking at a defensive posture and only venturing overseas under the UN. As UN don’t usually use more than Land Rovers and light armour you could say no overseas capability will be needed.  Is that goodbye to Ascension, Falklands and perhaps Gibraltar.  Aircraft Carriers and their aircraft and probably a lot of the navy wouldn’t be needed. Trident is definitely out.  I wouldn’t hold much hope for the aircraft industry in Lancashire or ship industry at Barrow.  As an area with a large defence and nuclear industry how many defence workers does it take to insulate one loft.

The Greens are also big on social welfare including workers and human rights and a citizens wage. 

There are other policies about building solar arrays in Africa and using high voltage d.c. transmission lines to bring in the power.  As well as local generation.  It’s not long ago I was reading about the advantages of the a.c. distribution system so I must re-visit that. Surely a policy like that couldn’t be written without engineering awareness. 

The Greens also support the EU, but not as a nation, and support international co-operation, who doesn’t.

As you’d expect, some big changes would result and I was a bit surprised that they seem quite left wing when out of the major elements of the ‘green zone’.   I’d support a ‘greener’ track in many aspects and use of local producers and local workers appeals. There’s always a downside to this type of social engineering in that if basic stuff becomes more expensive you’ve less to spend on enjoyment. In conclusion they won’t get my vote but have my support as a pressure group.