• THE HS2 project should be stopped. It never made sense in the first instance.

This is a wasteful vanity project, diverting valuable resources, that would be far more productively targeted to improving the existing network. Costs and programme are already spiralling out of control.

By the mere fact that an enquiry has (at this very early stage) had to be instigated, is symptomatic of confusion and a lack of control. There’s really no excuse.

It was this government that instigated the project. It is this government that has been in power (uninterrupted) for the duration – thus far.

There is no justification for the government to not – at all times – have been in full knowledge and control of the costs and programme. Already it looks like the costs have doubled and no one seems to know why.

This is unacceptable. The Department for Transport (correspondence ref TO 269572 – dated 08-10-19) tells us that the “review of HS2 [is] to consider whether and how we proceed with the project”, and that the review will “consider all existing evidence of HS2 and examine a number of aspects of the programme”.

How is it that we don’t already know and have not all along known… “whether and how we proceed with the project” – and at all times not been “consider[ing] all existing evidence on HS2” and at all times “considering all aspects of the programme”?

The “final report [was supposed to have been] sent to the department [transport] in the autumn to inform the government’s decision on the next steps for the project”, even this didn’t happen or, if it did, it was rejected by the government, presumably because it was laden with truths that the government didn’t want to hear. Or want the people to hear.

I think that the project needs to be stopped regardless of the vast costs already incurred. The way things are going, those costs will simply be a drop in the ocean compared with what the final bill is very likely going to be.

WARREN CHAPMAN,
E2