I was depressed to read Larry Elliott’s article (HS2 is the white elephant in the room. If the Tories won’t scrap it, Labour must, 10 August). I have worked on HS2 contracts for the last five years, and it’s crucial that common misconceptions in the piece do not go unchallenged.
What the story lacks is its central political context. The scope of HS2 and its procurement contracts are subject to continuous revision. This may seem like due diligence on a £106bn project, but in reality this process is itself piling waste on to the scheme while pushing back the date at which we can benefit from a new low-carbon railway.
The article implies that HS2 capacity benefits could be more cheaply obtained by redirecting funding to “other rail projects”. The east and west coast mainlines are at capacity. We cannot rely on tweaked Victorian rail infrastructure forever. That means we will build a new north-south intercity rail service at some point. In which case that should be now, it should include the eastern leg, and it should make use of state-of-the-art high-speed rail technology, which HS2 does.
HS2 is not about journey time savings between London and Birmingham. Phase 1 is the first stage of a project to meet the UK’s rail capacity demands over the next century. We need to get serious about what this project is about, and insist on its full completion as soon as possible.
Alex Ramage
London
• It’s sad that the UK is unable to do what has been achieved by nearly every other European country, namely build a functioning high-speed rail network. True, Britain does not need a high-speed link between London and Birmingham. There is probably no need for one between London and Leeds, but there would undoubtedly be advantages in having a high-speed service that links Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness with London. This would reduce demand for flights between London and Scotland in the way that the Alta Velocità rail link has drastically reduced demand for flights between Milan and Rome.
Perhaps, the answer is not to abandon HS2, but to rethink it, starting the project in the north and gradually working southwards.
John Dunn
Bologna, Italy
• Labour in government started HS2, so in office again it should admit its error and cancel it. Labour’s last transport secretary, Lord Adonis, required a proposal for HS2 from London to the West Midlands to be produced before the 2010 general election. His error was to rush out and impose a single plan. Less damaging and cheaper alternatives were disregarded.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) submitted one – a new 106-mile line alongside the M1 from London to Rugby and Leicester to French high-speed standard, plus a rail bypass of Stafford costed by Network Rail in 2008, and four-tracking the line between Coventry and Birmingham. This was presented to Labour, then to the Cameron government, to parliament, to the Oakervee review and to Boris Johnson’s staff in 2019.
CPRE’s plan, at 2019 prices, cost £14bn-15bn. It used known design parameters, met all needs for more capacity, minimised environmental impact and would have opened by 2032. It was never evaluated. Parliament’s committees refused to hear alternatives. Both parties are responsible for where we are now.
Mark Sullivan
CPRE Warwickshire
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