Tories are absolutely itching to cancel HS2 at the point just after all the money has been spent and disruption incurred, but before the benefits can be realized. It's like the cancellation of the UK's space programme at the exact moment they were about to do their first (and in the end only) launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow
Not really the ‘tories’ just some of them. The northern Tory MPs certainly want it. It is funded by long dated bonds. Not immediate taxation as it’s a nationally significant capital project. So cancelling bits of it looks good on paper only but makes zero immediate impact.
As a Return on investment, every pound spent in the south east on infrastructure returns 5 times or more in the local economy compared to the rest of the Uk, which is how these projects are prioritised.
One would think that there would be diminishing returns to more infrastructure in London, that some investment in the Power House North would do wonders.
A high speed rail linking up Liverpool to Hull sounds like a good idea, there are the Penniness to drill though, but it would hardly be the Gotthard base tunnel would it.
Pennine base tunnel anyone?
[update: this turns out to be a study for a road tunnel]
Those gains are part of the reason HS2 should go all the way to Scotland and why the Northern Powerhouse route from Hull to Liverpool should be built too
Its pretty terrible, that line would have had a major capacity impact on all the other Eastern lines. It goes a long way destroying the major benefits of HS2.
> One would think that there would be diminishing returns to more infrastructure in London, that some investment in the Power House North would do wonders.
Why would one think that? Everything we see suggests returns are compounding rather than diminishing.