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Will HS2 Fail or Succeed?

Dave Perton
I believe it will do both, it just depends on the measure you use. In an project there are three measures of success or failure, cost, time-scale and outcome and I believe it will fail on two but succeed on the most important and have set out my argument in a blog post here https://communities.theiet.org/groups/blogpost/view/27/231/6920


The project is so complex to think costs will not overrun or timing slip is to be naive, as it is impossible to predict them when the timescales are so long and the complexity so great, but the outcome will be a success
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    Hi Angus,


    Without wanting to get bogged down on this point...
    "I am sensitive to the requirement to protect SSSIs, however do the French, German, Spanish, Italians or Japanese not have their own unique ancient SSI areas of their own? Somehow they manage to build and move forward. If we do in fact have globally unique areas (which they may well be) then engaging with the bioscience community to extract the DNA and store this for future re-planting is a solution."



    Unfortunately it's not that simple (and of course just because it's an approach that has been used in the past and elsewhere does not necessarily mean it's an appropriate approach). Perhaps a good way to visualise it is an analogy where we consider a motorway plan that involved going through Birmingham and completely removing New Street Station and its tracks. We could capture the design of New Street, and we could rebuild it elsewhere, but the rail network would be fundamentally broken. It's not like a motorway going through York and causing the museum to be lost, which I think is how it's often seen. That's the problem with habitat loss in the UK, it's no longer about saving a small space for a bit of scientific interest, we've reached the point where we're losing the key corridors which allow the network to operate. Any argument that a particular piece of incremental destruction is justified (which is what is being made in the case of HS2) needs to be made on that understanding of the consequences.


    I'm not commenting on the rest of the argument because as a rail industry consultant that's the day job! (Reminds me of a doctor I knew who, if asked any medical question in the pub, would reply "my surgery hours are...") It's a pain, but on some issues it's just not worth the risk expressing personal opinions in public which may or may not be taken as those of my employer - plus for professional credibility I'd only want to do so if it could be a fully referenced and researched opinion. (Apologies that reads very pompously, which it's not meant to, that's just life as an engineer - you'll appreciate a question like this needs several hundred pages to answer properly!)


    Thanks,


    Andy
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    Hi Angus,


    Without wanting to get bogged down on this point...
    "I am sensitive to the requirement to protect SSSIs, however do the French, German, Spanish, Italians or Japanese not have their own unique ancient SSI areas of their own? Somehow they manage to build and move forward. If we do in fact have globally unique areas (which they may well be) then engaging with the bioscience community to extract the DNA and store this for future re-planting is a solution."



    Unfortunately it's not that simple (and of course just because it's an approach that has been used in the past and elsewhere does not necessarily mean it's an appropriate approach). Perhaps a good way to visualise it is an analogy where we consider a motorway plan that involved going through Birmingham and completely removing New Street Station and its tracks. We could capture the design of New Street, and we could rebuild it elsewhere, but the rail network would be fundamentally broken. It's not like a motorway going through York and causing the museum to be lost, which I think is how it's often seen. That's the problem with habitat loss in the UK, it's no longer about saving a small space for a bit of scientific interest, we've reached the point where we're losing the key corridors which allow the network to operate. Any argument that a particular piece of incremental destruction is justified (which is what is being made in the case of HS2) needs to be made on that understanding of the consequences.


    I'm not commenting on the rest of the argument because as a rail industry consultant that's the day job! (Reminds me of a doctor I knew who, if asked any medical question in the pub, would reply "my surgery hours are...") It's a pain, but on some issues it's just not worth the risk expressing personal opinions in public which may or may not be taken as those of my employer - plus for professional credibility I'd only want to do so if it could be a fully referenced and researched opinion. (Apologies that reads very pompously, which it's not meant to, that's just life as an engineer - you'll appreciate a question like this needs several hundred pages to answer properly!)


    Thanks,


    Andy
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