Exposing the lies & bullshit dispensed by HS2 & its deluded fan club. Retired Chartered Civil Engineer. Transport Planner. #BlockedbyAdonis. Likes rail
East Midlands UK, not a NIMBY
Joined July 2017
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John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Has the Planning Inspector lost the plot? The Isle of Wight has never been able to deliver this level of housing and yet the IOW council is being forced by the government's blunt and contextless housing targets.
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Then you are a misinformed patsy…..the cost is in the wrong route, wrong spec and wrong design! The Chilterns full tunnel was costed at £350mn in 2015….the budget was £21.7bn back then….its now £100bn! That wasnt tunnels….we told them exactly this would happen!
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Pointing out the project was poorly conceived and has turned out to be a waste of cash isn’t briefing against it.
It is pointing out the obvious which is that it shouldn’t have been started until a proper oversight was in place and people held to account if it failed.
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
I have mentioned the Ajax fighting vehicle fiasco many times — on Twitter, on my TV show and in a direct confrontation with the defence secretary. As for HS2 it’s clear it should never have been started and was an all-too predictable fiasco. But it might be too late to pull stumps. Open to persuasion either way.
Yes Ferries overrun is the biggest state procurement fiasco ever... PS dont mention the AJax fighting vehicle (£5.5B+) or HS2 (£100B+).. express.co.uk/news/world/173…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Our next Webinar is on mega-sheds/warehouses and the adverse impact on their neighbours.
Friday 3rd July at noon.
The link is on our Events page: communityplanningalliance.or…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
£200m for the Overground, which is 1% of the cost of the £20bn Elizabeth Line. Both carry the same amount of passengers p/day. Overground uses updated existing infrastructure, Elizabeth Line is mainly new.
youtube.com/shorts/KrYzWRqya…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
The owners of Thames Water have had their money and profit from us the customers; the creditors have made bad (or mad) lending decisions.
It is not our job to rescue them, they are supposed to be experts and knew the risks. Let them learn the lesson.
"EXCLUSIVE: Feargal Sharkey urges ministers to 'seize' Thames Water as nationalisation looms."
It's time to end it and that time is now.
mirror.co.uk/money/feargal-s…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
and here it is... a guide for local councillors concerned about greenfield development in their local area.
Our other reports are on the same page too.
communityplanningalliance.or…
Starmer's back out moaning about 'blockers' again. So we're going to help councils to get blocking. There is simply no need to build on an inch of green space... Keep an eye out here for our NEW councillor toolkit, coming very soon! @CommunityPlann1
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
The Ministerial Code by which all government ministers must comply can make interesting reading.
"It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister."
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
If you're really serious about dumping billions of pounds worth of unsustainable development in England's bread basket, then it's clear the powerful opposition to the #OxCamArc needs to be urgently revived.
Meanwhile, how about some alternatives?
tinyurl.com/2j5hvsfh
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
The key word is network: not the odd bike "lane" with white line paint. @TransportActio2 @bristol_citizen @Glutenfreescone @peteraf1 @HereforHereford @MastermanDavies @CityVoicEd @CommunityPlann1
“The most effective approach is to build a network and built it as quickly as possible.
But bike lanes alone do not make a network. In Dutch cities up to two thirds of the network is in mixed, low-traffic conditions, where the bike is the dominant mode.”
wiseair.vision/en/blog/pensa…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Operative word is "system" : joining key origins/destinations across the city and modal change points. Not the usual UK single route going no where? @HS2theTruth @ceritheviking @LizzieBushby @TransportActio2 @BrentToderian @bristol_citizen @martr101 @HS2DeadDuck @HereforHereford
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Backhanders and corruption into the pockets of decision making politicians and their supporting advisors must clearly be at play within current UK decision making.
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
So, doesn't Reeves know that this is the most expensive (and socially divisive) way of going about things; or does she know, but doesn't care?
Either way this should disqualify her, and others with this mind set, from any role in our Government.
Reeves examines using private sector funds to build new towns.
It is PFI renamed as public-private partnerships (PPP).
The state guarantees corporate profits. £1 investment results in £6 repayment.
Cheaper for govt to borrow. It can issue public bonds.
theguardian.com/society/2026…
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Not on run upto phase 2a bill they didn't
DfT - Grayling, Ghani & Kelly knew HS2 was £30bn ove declared £56bn budget months before bill passed but 'carefully' did not tell parliament.
Kelly & Ghani misled parliament on industrial scale. Ghani even rebuked MPs over costs
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
(1) The usual disingenuous analysis from Britain Remade/Britain Robbed by corporate lobbyists. As the Lovegrove Review makes clear, the ‘gold plating’ that doomed the project wasn’t environmental, but gold plating of the concept of highest possible speed.
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Lord Hendy scathing to Transport Committee on original plans for HS2 - astonishing planned to use a signalling system that hadn’t been invented. Wild: “you don’t want to be the first people in the world to be using new tech” .. cheaper to keep going with civil engineering
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
Today it seem appropriate to repeat this - '125 Miles Per Hour On A 70 Miles Per Hour System' stevenboxall.wordpress.com/2… It seems that HS2 lacked the thinking and thought that a Nationalised Industry had.
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
#HS2 was a cross party political project. MPs were whipped to vote it through with many not even looking at the shocking lack of detail in the original plan or understanding that the case had not been properly made.
@Labour @Heidi_Labour
John Marriott 🍃💚🍃🚲 retweeted
1/The people shamelessly lobbying for more HS2 (under new names) are always suspiciously silent on bad news days
2/ #HS2 ltd are in charge of multi billion Northern Powerhouse rail.
History is about to repeat