Thus the entire HS1 / HS2 concepts are integral parts of an EU transport masterplan, a masterplan that for forty years has set in steel, stone and concrete the EU hub and spoke network. It has less to do with reduced journey times or British economic or business interests than with forced Euro integration. As such, we must welcome the government review, which must now view the UK's transport planning from a fresh perspective.
AEP in the Telegraph cogently dissects why we must now do the same for ports - the predominance of Dover in truck movements, which have grown from 14% to around 30% of UK-EU trade since the early 1990s, has left us wide open to EU blockade (though AEP politely doesn't use that term). Saint Greta would deprecate the waste and pollution of (as AEP writes) trucking Scotch Whisky to a ferry at Dover rather than via a container from the Tyne.
Now that we're no longer under the boot-heel of the EU's transport planners, we can take pointless freight off the roads by better use of container ports, eliminate Romanian and Polish truckers with their dodgy LHD rigs by using ro-ro trailers (hauled by UK rigs on UK roads) and use the Chunnel for what it's meant - a thrumming artery for containerised freight, not a luxury passenger route for our bloated Gauleiters to shuttle back and forth from the Chancellery in Brussels.
To our transport experts - I'm happy to be corrected on any of the above in the comments.
