 |
| A Eurostar train at Vauxhall shortly after departing from the old terminus: London Waterloo International (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
4O% STAKE ON OFFER, IN THE REGION OF 10bn. The privatisation of britains stake in Eurostar is about to be sold off according to Danny alexander,. the chief secretary to the Treasury. The announcement on Wednesday will mean he has doubled the coalition's target for the disposal of state assets to £20bn over the next six years, just weeks after the government was criticised for undervaluing Royal Mail during its controversial flotation. This comes at a time when Eurostar and Keolis, both firms majority-owned by French SNCF announce plans for a joint bid for East Coast Railway line franchise currently run by the UKgovernment company, Directly Operated Railways (DOR). It was brought in to operate the line as East Coast after National Express defaulted on the London-Edinburgh franchise in 2009, when the transport group admitted it could not afford the £1.4bn in payments due over the life of the contract. By contrast, East Coast has paid more than £600m in premiums to the government over the past two years. The question arises of the building of HS2 Planned estimated cost is £43 billion (by the Department for Transport), at least £80 billion(independent study by the Institute of Economic Affairs). On English soil comparable development is HS1, which was initially expected to cost £1 billion, with final bill around £11 billion. Why does'nt the UK government ask the french to build HS2 thus giving up all of the planned infrastucture develpement to french owned companys. David Cameron is going cap in hand to China for investment in the UK whilst selling off our infrastructure to the french, Once again this government has failed the people of this country. lets just hope that the governments advisors or should i say complimentary money grabbers get a fair price for the railways. Why do i think that that will not happen, sold short once again. shameful and shameless.
.
