HS2

We visited Strelley Hall on a National Heritage Open Day and came up against HS2 for the first time. It will divide the estate in a cut-and-cover operation, as it sticks to a north-south alignment close to the MI motorway and the existing railway route, west of Nottingham.

This was the first time that I had met someone who was going to be directly affected by the scheme. The new office block in the grounds that cost over a million pounds will have to go. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the owner is against the scheme.

HS2 will cost a lot, cause a lot of disruption and dislocation, not be up and running for ages and will then save only modest amounts of travelling time.

HS2 is likely to boost the north of England’s economy, create lots of jobs over many years, free up capacity on the rest of the network and be a statement of optimism about the future.

If the money saved by not doing it was to be allocated instead to other rail improvements that would benefit northern cities more directly, then maybe I’d be against it, too - but that is not how things work.

All major communications enterprises meet opposition from those affected from the moment that they are first mooted until they are up and running. When considered retrospectively, most are thought to have been a good thing - the most recent local example being the return of Nottingham trams. 

The grounds of Strelley Hall, on the route of HS2