Shrinking Britain is Good. So We Need Fast Trains.

I can’t decide whether Matthew Sinclair thinks High-Speed Rail too ambitious or not ambitious enough. I’m happy to share his scepticism towards the economic and jobs numbers put forward by the plans’ backers but trust he will not be offended by the suggestion his own figures should be treated with comparable scepticism. Who knows what the impact will be? All estimates, on each side of the argument, involve hefty assumptions and some amount of guess-work.

But when and why did we decide that we no longer need to spend money on infrastructure? At this rate there’s a chance Britain will end up like the eastern seaboard of the United States: motorways as car-parks, slow trains and overcrowded skies. HSR is unlikely to be the solution to all these problems but it may be part of one.