Peer review: Christian Wolmar
Transport writer and broadcaster
This fascinating interview is as revealing for what is not addressed, as much as for what is.
I was most struck by Tom Kelly’s view of the opposition to HS2. He seems to think that it comes from people who are directly affected by its construction, but he offers no insight into why there is a substantial body of people who (like me) have come out against the scheme when we are not affected by it directly. He does not mention - or seem to know - that there is a significant minority of people within the rail industry who doubt whether HS2 will provide anything like the benefits that its huge cost suggests.
He says nothing, therefore, about the roots of the problem and why the project still faces an uphill task in convincing the wider public.
There is, however, the occasional hint that he does realise why the scheme got into such a mess before his arrival at HS2. He says, tellingly, that the Rebalancing Britain report “went back to basics, and asked the question: is the ‘why’ actually justified?”
Indeed, but surely it was the failure to address that basic issue that lies at the root of doubts about the scheme.
It was first conceived as a sop to the environmentalist wing of the Labour party, when the party was in power and announced its support for the third runway at Heathrow.
Transport Minister Andrew Adonis commissioned a report with the route already predetermined by having to provide a potential connection with Heathrow, rather than starting with a blank piece of paper and asking the more fundamental question: How do we best address Britain’s transport needs?
Kelly also addresses another of the fundamental flaws that the promoters of the scheme are at last trying to address - its connectivity with the rest of the network.
The industry needs to work together to make sure that that beneficial effect is felt as widely as possible. That is why HS2 cannot be seen as a standalone project, but also as not just part of the wider rail network, but of the wider transport network. HS2 has, in fact, seen itself as a standalone project - after all, why is it not melded in with Network Rail, which (in the end) its tracks will have to be? Clearly Kelly is aware that this is a major issue, but it will require more than a bit of clever PR to address it.
Not surprisingly, there is quite a lot of PR gloss in Kelly’s utterings. The most laughable is his delight that the two supply industry conferences were ‘sold out’, which his PR man quickly corrects, saying they were free.
Well, with some £43 billion - possibly much more - available for spending, is it any wonder that a swarm of hungry predators are ready to feast on the HS2 banquet?
The question that has never been answered is very simple: ‘If we had £43bn or so to spend on transport, would this be the best way of doing it? Nothing in this interview suggests that it is.
