Dear Editors 

I read the article by George Trefgarne, in which he layers undue praise on the previous and unsourced statements of Mark Bostock, and felt I ought to respond.

I will take his apparently visionary warnings one by one…

Of course people wanted to link HS2 with HS1, however the cost of the land and properties that would have been required to divert HS2 off the West Coast mainline route, through Camden and into KX would have been enormous. Also it would have required a new border control at Kings Cross (especially since Brexit) that would have been a logistical nightmare for domestic-only passengers.

I simply love the idea of following the M40 corridor to minimise environmental impacts. How does it make the blindest bit of difference if you’re beside a motorway or going solo through the countryside?! It’s still a massive new railway going through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Of the stupidest and uncritically accepted statements in the piece, the idea that HS2 should’ve been started in the north is the worst. The West and East Coast Mainlines are at capacity at peak times. If the govt had built a high speed line that wizzed around the north before getting into Birmingham, the passenger crunch point at Brum would’ve brought the whole network to a standstill. Also the often unexplained benefit of HS2 is that it takes long distance travellers and puts them on a new line, freeing up the existing lines for more stopping and faster short distance services for commuters. The most crowded lines are those in and around London and HS2 will massively relieve them of long distance traffic.

The rationale of HS2 was never about speed, that is a bare-faced lie. It was about capacity, as I explain above, and the speed was chosen because if you are going to spend billions on a state of the art new railway that will take 15-20 years to complete, you want it to be as fast as possible and utilise the latest technology so it isn’t out of date by the time it’s built.

Neil Harrison 

We need innovative solutions to tackle environmental problems

Dear Editors, 

We may be attempting a shift on a par with the industrial revolution, but as most of us are breathing polluted air and we are powering the Earth on a finite resource. That concerns me. I feel that the push for environmental sustainability should be an overarching and compelling concern, rather than just one item on the to do list.

Those whose lives are urban and political are very far removed from the changes we see in the environment. Innovative solutions that could tackle environmental problems is what I want to read about rather than conflated ideological differences. That is so negative. Discussing sustainable technologies and solutions is positive and could be a force for good. Maybe it’s embarrassing for mainstream journalists to take the environmental crisis seriously. 

Caya Edwards 

We need a deeper understanding of the issues driving global migration

Dear Editors,

You have much of it wrong in your leader of last week.

Some sensible articles are around on the subject, but it is not about your manufactured concern about rejoining the EU. Many indeed much of the country wants sensible relations with European Continental countries. The EU is only one spokesman for these countries and Britain is not in the EU and never will be.  

The migration crisis is not solved in the English Channel, that is a sideline although it seems to be of great concern to the failed Conservative government. It is not the main concern of the many people who have a deeper understanding of the issues behind the worldwide problem of the phenomenon of migration. 

Regards,

Dr Jonathan Wager

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