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It's interesting, being back in civil engineering, a world I left behind quite a long time ago now. One thing I do notice, is that the industry  perception of HS2 is that things will be very busy for 2022 and 2023, with a rapid tailing-off after that. A lot of things need to happen before ground is broken, and those things don't seem to be happening. 

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49 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

It's interesting, being back in civil engineering, a world I left behind quite a long time ago now. One thing I do notice, is that the industry  perception of HS2 is that things will be very busy for 2022 and 2023, with a rapid tailing-off after that. A lot of things need to happen before ground is broken, and those things don't seem to be happening. 

 

Indeed. All Yap and no action.

 

Bulldog tools Wigan await the orders for spades !!!!!!!!!!

 

image.png.3825c9897d5de1aceb69a1f15ea5978a.png

 

image.png.43b73abba53cfd256510eff0298c864d.png

 

Wigan - Where we call a spade a spade an implement of torture !!!

 

Brit15

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43 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

Indeed. All Yap and no action.

 

Bulldog tools Wigan await the orders for spades !!!!!!!!!!

 

image.png.3825c9897d5de1aceb69a1f15ea5978a.png

 

image.png.43b73abba53cfd256510eff0298c864d.png

 

Wigan - Where we call a spade a spade an implement of torture !!!

 

Brit15

Funnily enough two of the biggest backers of the Union Pacific in 1862 were the Ames brothers. They owned a shovel works and sold shovels to the construction company they helped to set up called Credit Mobilier. That company got paid by  the feldgling UP  to build the railroad and of course the Ames brothers got their money from all 3 companies.  They made a lot of money selling shovels to build railways with.  There is a huge monument to them at Sherman summit, but both the stone Oliver and Oaks have had the noses shot off. 

 

Jamie 

Edited by jamie92208
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2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

.....A lot of things need to happen before ground is broken, and those things don't seem to be happening. 

 

Could you explain what you mean by "before ground is broken" ?

 

I thought it quite obvious that a lot of ground has been broken, with large civil projects already underway along the whole length of Phase 1 and a long list of contracts are being worked up at the moment.

so I'm rather puzzled by your remark.

 

Ron

 

.

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15 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Could you explain what you mean by "before ground is broken" ?

 

I thought it quite obvious that a lot of ground has been broken, with large civil projects already underway along the whole length of Phase 1 and a long list of contracts are being worked up at the moment.

so I'm rather puzzled by your remark.

 

Ron

 

.

Indeed.

There can't be many places between London & Birmingham where work hasn't started.

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7 hours ago, 62613 said:

I suspect that that's the government ordering the local authority to build so many houses;

Aye, and we might not like that when it comes to places we know and love, but the basic fact remains that we are well short of housing in the UK. It is a shame that the government needs to force the issue onto local authorities, but if they did not, nimbyism would ensure an even worse housing situation. I prefer the case where everyone can get a home.

 

Yours, Mike.

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I watched the TV prog earlier illustrating the holiday park complex in the Lake District that has to bus their staff in daily from Workington, two hours each way, costing the firm (or rather their customers) £100k a year. All due to up to 85% of properties in much of the NP now being second homes/holiday lets.

 

The same phenomenon has been accelerating rapidly during the pandemic in the more photogenic parts of Devon and Cornwall and, no doubt, the same difficulty will increasingly arise in staffing more vital services such as health services and safety related trades. 

 

I heard of a case last week where a weekender well down in Cornwall had to pay for a heating engineer to drive down from Plymouth to fix his boiler because all the local ones were booked-up at least a fortnight ahead. Cost him the labour/call-out fee + four hours travelling time (including lunch break/visit to KMRC :)) + parts + VAT. Bet an inclusive contract suddenly doesn't seem as expensive now!   

 

John

 

 

Edited by Dunsignalling
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9 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Aye, and we might not like that when it comes to places we know and love, but the basic fact remains that we are well short of housing in the UK. It is a shame that the government needs to force the issue onto local authorities, but if they did not, nimbyism would ensure an even worse housing situation. I prefer the case where everyone can get a home.

 

Yours, Mike.

Are we, though? There are an awful lot of vacant homes out there, between 200 000 and 600 000, depending on your source. Of course, some are waiting to be sold, but there are an awful lot bought as a speculation, and deliberately left empty; others, it's rumoured, have been bought using the proceeds of crime, or as a hedge against taxation, but are again deliberately left empty. what does one do there?

 

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I think rockershovel was referring to the further projects included in the government's "plans", in particular those linking the north. Yes HS2 has started and that is in theory the topic of this thread but it is now difficult to separate out the various parts of the government's transport "strategy" (if that is not a contradiction in terms) since they are closely linked (and one day may even be physically linked though I shall probably not live long enough). Since presumably enough work has been done to identify routes, examine the difficulties, get some assessment of cost (so that comparisons can be made), then why are we so many years off actually starting to do something "on the ground"?

The answer has been hinted at above: because the government can't be blamed for things which don't happen after it has lost office, so put anything concrete (literal or metaphorical) off until after the next election. And then if it wins the election it can claim the glory again.

Sorry to be so cynical.

And yes, it is good to see so much progress with Phase 1 of HS2 but that should have led to the next projects without a gap so that we keep construction teams together rather than as has happened so often having boom and bust so that any new project has to start by training a new team.

Jonathan

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15 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I think rockershovel was referring to the further projects included in the government's "plans", in particular those linking the north. Yes HS2 has started and that is in theory the topic of this thread but it is now difficult to separate out the various parts of the government's transport "strategy" (if that is not a contradiction in terms) since they are closely linked (and one day may even be physically linked though I shall probably not live long enough). Since presumably enough work has been done to identify routes, examine the difficulties, get some assessment of cost (so that comparisons can be made), then why are we so many years off actually starting to do something "on the ground"?

The answer has been hinted at above: because the government can't be blamed for things which don't happen after it has lost office, so put anything concrete (literal or metaphorical) off until after the next election. And then if it wins the election it can claim the glory again.

Sorry to be so cynical.

And yes, it is good to see so much progress with Phase 1 of HS2 but that should have led to the next projects without a gap so that we keep construction teams together rather than as has happened so often having boom and bust so that any new project has to start by training a new team.

Jonathan

That's my point. Its "all hands to the pumps" in 2022/3 as far as Birmingham, but when you look at long-lead items beyond that, a very different picture emerges. But if these things aren't being done now, then gaps emerge in the schedule.

 

It's also worryingly clear that the money spent at HS2 is being cut from other projects. This isn't new, the Jubilee Line Extension was used to obscure cuts across the board in the early 90s, to give one example off the top of my head.....

 

It's my considered opinion that HMG has no settled strategy at all, not least because HS2 is essentially an ideologically driven project. There is no management experience at government level, nor is there any commitment to developing a skills and resource strategy. 

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10 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Aye, and we might not like that when it comes to places we know and love, but the basic fact remains that we are well short of housing in the UK. It is a shame that the government needs to force the issue onto local authorities, but if they did not, nimbyism would ensure an even worse housing situation. I prefer the case where everyone can get a home.

 

Yours, Mike.

Get a home; yes, but if someone offered me a Victorian terrace house in a former Mill town with no work, my response would probably include the horse they rode in on

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1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Are we, though? There are an awful lot of vacant homes out there

Is there a housing shortage? Yes - there are government figures, but perhaps this BBC briefing gives a better picture of the overall problem:

 

https://news.files.bbci.co.uk/include/newsspec/pdfs/bbc-briefing-housing-newsspec-26534.pdf

 

The 1 million + on council house waiting lists is just the tip of the problem.

 

Vacant homes - sure, the government figures here quote about ~600K homes vacant currently:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants

 

Even if all 600K were occupied, it would not solve the housing problem, as the BBC stats show. However, part of these numbers are homes that require work before they can be occupied and others are in the process of being let/sold. I remember that my father's house stood empty for over 6 months after he died, while the process of probate and sale took place. Such places are included in the stats.

 

My own personal experience of the problem is based on the struggles my own children faced in getting homes, even though they had well-paid jobs - they would not qualify for "council housing".

 

Yours, Mike.

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1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Are we, though? There are an awful lot of vacant homes out there, between 200 000 and 600 000, depending on your source. Of course, some are waiting to be sold, but there are an awful lot bought as a speculation, and deliberately left empty; others, it's rumoured, have been bought using the proceeds of crime, or as a hedge against taxation, but are again deliberately left empty. what does one do there?

 

There are (or could be) various taxation and/or compulsory purchase strategies to help bring such unused stock back into occupation. These only tend to be used in fairly extreme cases, though.

 

Almost certainly needs the relevant legislation to be beefed up to make it easier/cheaper/quicker for local authorities to do something with what are often semi-derelict eyesores.

 

As Rockershovel points out, however, such action is only appropriate in places where people want to live.

 

John

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On 22/11/2021 at 23:13, jamie92208 said:

Funnily enough two of the biggest backers of the Union Pacific in 1862 were the Ames brothers. They owned a shovel works and sold shovels to the construction company they helped to set up called Credit Mobilier. That company got paid by  the feldgling UP  to build the railroad and of course the Ames brothers got their money from all 3 companies.  They made a lot of money selling shovels to build railways with.  There is a huge monument to them at Sherman summit, but both the stone Oliver and Oaks have had the noses shot off. 

 

Jamie 

Just to go with my previous post here is one of the Ames brothers, 8,400' up in Wyoming. The monument was built from local granite of which there is rather a lot.

591178639_Slides2005-G014.jpg.725d6ec31c701bafec8206b8fb115bcb.jpg

And one of the Ames brothers, I can't remember which one.

195211656_Slides2005-G016.jpg.d31cc2c3dcb8c34040db43c484230f92.jpg

The original route was bypassed in 1910. The surveyors had to deal with bands of Native Americans who wanted to scalp them.  Not a hazard that today's surveyors have to contend with. However such targets like this are irresistible to the quite heavily armed locals today. 

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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I thought for a minute you were referring to Swampy et al, but they are not residents of the Chilterns.

Yes, it is difficult because the empty homes are often because there are no jobs (sometimes I am afraid because of government actions, such as ex mining towns in South Yorkshire). And underlying the whole issue is the break-up of the family which is creating many more, but smaller, households. That is not just a British problem though.

Jonathan

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1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

There are (or could be) various taxation and/or compulsory purchase strategies to help bring such unused stock back into occupation. These only tend to be used in fairly extreme cases, though.

 

Almost certainly needs the relevant legislation to be beefed up to make it easier/cheaper/quicker for local authorities to do something with what are often semi-derelict eyesores.

 

As Rockershovel points out, however, such action is only appropriate in places where people want to live.

 

John

There's also the not-so-small matter of Boris' Damascene conversion to greenery, which has huge implications for wide swathes of the national housing stock...

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3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Are we, though? There are an awful lot of vacant homes out there, between 200 000 and 600 000, depending on your source. Of course, some are waiting to be sold, but there are an awful lot bought as a speculation, and deliberately left empty; others, it's rumoured, have been bought using the proceeds of crime, or as a hedge against taxation, but are again deliberately left empty. what does one do there?

 

Empty homes should be heavily taxed, enough to make sure keeping them empty is not worthwhile, it's not rocket science!

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11 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

There's also the not-so-small matter of Boris' Damascene conversion to greenery, which has huge implications for wide swathes of the national housing stock...

Depends how real the conversion is, it wouldn't be the first bandwagon he's jumped on and he's likely to be off on another tangent in search of new headlines to flatter his "good guy" self-image in a week or two.

 

Whatever he wants (or says he wants), any truly effective ideas will no doubt be massively watered down by his backwoodsmen in parliament...

 

John

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1 hour ago, KingEdwardII said:

Not so different to the HS2 project, then. The natives of the Chilterns are not to be tackled lightly...  :D

 

Yours,  Mike.

To true we are an awkard lot if pushed about  but we say hallo to visitors  and sell them tea and scones :rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

Depends how real the conversion is, it wouldn't be the first bandwagon he's jumped on and he's likely to be off on another tangent in search of new headlines to flatter his "good guy" self-image in a week or two.

 

Whatever he wants (or says he wants), any truly effective ideas will no doubt be massively watered down by his backwoodsmen in parliament...

 

John

That's true enough, but the resulting confusion and uncertainty can (and will) be very damaging. 

 

Bojo doesn't exist in a vacuum. He isn't the only force in play. 

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Ah, but how do you pronounce "scones"?

I am beginning to feel that either this thread should be filed under Fiction or we should leave it for reports of progress on the actual HS2 project. We get some very interesting ones from time to time, but they tend to get buried under the mass of non-recyclable rubbish.

Jonathan

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