This quip is a bit over the top isn't it.
“The Portishead line is a nationally significant project that will deliver wide ranging environmental and economic benefits to our region". ....
Talk to anyone outside of "our region" and they wouldn't know where you were talking about but mention
HS2▸ and everyone knows about that project.
It does sound a bit grandiose doesn't it? I think, though, it refers to the fact that it is going to extend the national passenger rail network rather than just opening a station or two on the existing network. Besides, since when have politicians anywhere chosen to downplay their claims?
I think it is a technical planning definition - this sort of development is deemed to "nationally significant" and is therefore determined by the Secretary of State rather than the local authority.
And I think you are right, ellendune. I seem to recall that very form of words being used by our Noble Friend, Andrew, Baron Adonis, way back in the day when he was transport minister. I think that once a railway is deemed to be of national significance, it can only be cancelled then reinstated for a maximum of three elections. And let's face it, adding 50,000 customers to a business is never going to be sniffed at!
As regards the time scale, we should recall that the line was relaid for freight from Parson Street to Portbury Dock in less than a year from the announcement, and that included the chord into Portbury from just west of Pill. The original centruty-old track remains
in situ from Portbury nearly a junction - the points were thrown into the grass by the line last time I looked. Said points could be refitted and clipped in a day, and the new rail delivered in 250 metre lengths at 5 mph. There is no reason why the 3 miles or so that needs to be relaid couldn't be done quickly, although doubtless it won't be. It's in the preppy-uppy. That drainage will take time, and there's bound to be a newt or two along the way.
In my previous life as a person who wasn't retired, working in the 1980s - 1990s as a fraud investigator for what was then DSS, I followed someone to work from his home in Portishead, where one of my solicitor brothers-in-law then had his practice. The traffic along the Portbury Hundred at 7.30am was so bad that on day two, I had a colleaugue waiting on the Bristol side of the A369, and another in Abbots Leigh, because even if I was right behind the target car as we got to the M5 roundabout, there was little chance of me still being in eyeball contact on tghe other side. Since then, thousands of new homes have been built in dear old Posset. (
BTW▸ , it was fun at the other end. He went into Asda in Bedminster to get his lunch, before we got to the nitty gritty. As I pressed the
PTT▸ button on the built-in radio to talk to a colleague, all the alarms in all the Fords within a 25-metre radius went off. Like the responsible adults we were, we drove around the car park setting off more alarms, and almost missed our man leaving.)
