“Stopping HS2 halfway is like building half a bridge” captured the winning argument: cancellation would leave the West Coast Main Line’s northern bottleneck intact. Yes carried the vote by a clear but not overwhelming margin, in a self-selected online ballot rather than a poll of the UK.
The floor’s most-respected Yes cases were practical rather than starry-eyed. One argued that HS2 “doesn't fix the bottleneck that is the West Coast Mainline North of Birmingham”; another asked whether it was time the scheme was finally “got on with”. Even supporters often sounded like reluctant shareholders trying to salvage value from a troubled investment.
No voters, meanwhile, made the cost overruns the central fact. Their strongest case called it “a blank cheque for a late, bloated railway”, while another dismissed it as a “Pointless vanity project”. The two sides largely talked past each other: Yes warned that doing nothing meant overcrowded trains, No that continuing meant throwing good money after bad.
That tension places the result inside the wider argument over whether northern growth is best served by ambitious new infrastructure or by repairing what already exists. The vote’s more revealing qualification was that several Yes voices demanded a “radical overhaul” of how the project is planned and delivered; support for Manchester was not a vote of confidence in the machinery behind HS2.
The route won the room; HS2 itself did not receive a clean bill of health.
20 Opinions
The failure of HS2 is a failure of the free market, first and foremost, as is the case with most UK infrastructure projects. Private construction firms suck every last drop of money from the government and the taxpayer, rather than focusing on delivering results. HS2 should be continued and expanded, but only under strict state oversight and management.
Poorly thought out, badly implemented and sadly caused unnecessary chaos and loss for many whilst enriching a few. Should've got the French in to show how its done on quiet wheels !?
No. The costs are astronomical and there is no guarantee it would produce different results. Phase 1 has already doubled and slipped. Northern growth matters. A blank cheque for a late, bloated railway does not. Fix what we have and prove the case before we extend a project that has already broken its promises.
When are politicians actually going to start carrying out due diligence before embarking on their vanity projects?
I support investment in infrastructure, trying to upgrade our inadequate transport systems. BUT, whole process needs radical overhaul. Need to be more authoritarian in execution. Once route decided, no more NIMBY, delays for Great Crested Newts, building hedgehog tunnels. Selection of Contractors with penalties for failing to deliver stages they signed up to. Otherwise it becomes a typical money pit, years of delays and multiple project cost overrun. Get on with it!
Pointless vanity project. Doesn't save any time and costs too much. Doing all this when lots of commuters are starting to work from home. Not needed.
HS2 was always a scam only showing that as a Nation our Public Sector is not fit for purpose & irredeemably corrupt; however the Northern parts should have always been the priority. The lies the Civil Service told to justify £Billions to shave 10/15 minutes off a trip to Brum are up there with COVID-19 was a ‘Pandemic’ ( cos we secretly changed the definition). Northern link will make economic sense, but government should but out.
No, and I would have never started it in the first place. The cost/benefit ratio was never beneficial given the relatively small distance between the cities.
We should just cut our losses at this point, HS2 has been a total disaster
NO HS2 was a pointless exercise in chest thumping in the first place. Billions spent to save an elite few, a couple of minutes on a train journey from London to Birmingham. The money wasted on HS2 could have made vast improvements in travel times for many millions of citizens daily travel if it had been spent on improving the current road & rail infrastructure we already had. The same applies to the Birmingham to Manchester section of HS2