On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:43:39 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:58:26 +0100, Arthur Figgis ]
wrote:

snip

Give local electorates the power to protect their own buildings and they
will.

By, say, drawing up a list of buildings of architectual or historic
interest? Which would mean that, erm...


snip, as this is a transport group

The Victorians often flattened what went before to build their
railways.

Which are now run far beyond capacity, expansion completely hamstrung by
ridiculous planning regulation.

Not really - even if you are counting things like accessibility and
safety as planning, the cost explosion brought by the
post-privatisation structure of the rail industry is hardly a planning
matter.

That's a separate issue.

But that is where the real costs in increasing capacity are. The cost
of installing a set of points or lengthening a platform hasn't
increased because many people prefer the atmosphere of old market
towns to central Crawley The reason we can't have trains overhanging
platform ends any more is not because of of restrictions on replacing
a K6 by the village green.

Critical capacity issues existed long before privatisation. The ridiculous
process to get the CTRL through Kent is a prime case in point.

Perhaps you'd prefer a French-style system? Central government makes a
decision, and if you are in the way of the national interest and the
glory of the state, then tough luck? Kent is a rather different
environment to Pas de Calais.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK