Monday 21 March 2011

Philip Hammond on top form

Philip's getting increasingly exasperated with the NIMBYs:

Critics say the £33billion rail link proposal from London to Leeds/Manchester is not green enough and far too expensive. But, talking exclusively to Metro, Mr Hammond launched his most scathing attack to date.

Nimby is an acronym of Not In My Back Yard – a derogatory term for people who would be in favour of something were it not taking place near their home.

‘There is not much more to their argument than Nimbyism,’ he said, ‘I hear lots of arguments about whether the country can afford it, value for money and the business case. But 95 per cent of these arguments come from people who just happen to live in [affected towns] Wendover or Aylesbury or Amersham. I don’t blame them for fighting their corner but they should be honest that their objection to this project is that it comes through their backyard. It is not a principled objection.’

Mr Hammond said instead of putting up fares, many could drop dramatically as operating companies try to compete on price with the new 250mph trains.

Ralph Smyth, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: ‘It is completely wrong that this is Nimbyism. If you are spending £33billion it shouldn’t just be carbon neutral, it should be positively green.’

9 comments:

WitteringsfromWitney said...

MW, well there is no NIMBYISM here! I am against it as I don't believe from what I have read that the case has been made. I still believe there is a link between TEN-T and this decision.

Until both are either proven or not, how can such expenditure be justified?

Bayard said...

Me too. I think it is a piece of international cock-waving. The case has not been made as no costed alternatives have been offered. There is no justification that this is the best way to spend the money on the rail network. The amount of proposed traffic on the new line is suspiciously high, considering it is all supposed to be new traffic and they look suspicously like they have been inflated to make the CoBA work out.
Having looked at the TEN-T proposals, they seem to go for the slightly saner option of upgrading the WCML. I don't think you can blame this one on the EU, it's a home-grown piece of lunacy.

Gawain Towler said...

It was a Labour elctoral pork barrel to the marginal seats in Brum, and now the Tories are in power they have just replaced the red barrel with a blue one.

Lola said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lola said...

Hammond is right on nimbyism, but wrong on the Big Boys Toy. It's a huge misallocation of (scarce) capital. (And, I say this as an Engineer. I love trains.)

James Higham said...

Yes, I agree with WfromW. It's an issue of expenditure and its justification, rather than straight Nimbyism.

Deniro said...

"Mr Hammond said instead of putting up fares, many could drop dramatically as operating companies try to compete on price with the new 250mph trains."
HaHa you gotta be joking. The railways set prices with a regualator, and subsidised to make up any losses from "drop dramatically" fares anyway.

Bayard said...

"now the Tories are in power they have just replaced the red barrel with a blue one"

What's the betting that once the Tories have shovelled lots of lovely taxpayers' cash into the pockets of their friends running consulting engineering firms, the scheme will be dropped as a "cost-saving measure"?

AntiCitizenOne said...

Count me in as a critic.

Cut the deficit, then we can think about expensive new infrastructure that planes do better.