The HS2 pain is going to continue for a decade longer than first scheduled

• ONE aspect of the transport secretary’s latest announcement on HS2 should be welcomed.

For the first time, a minister in the department has come close to acknowledging that there is as yet no means devised of getting trains from Old Oak Common to Euston in a new high-speed line. He refers to the need to find a route that is “deliverable”. The myth that all things are possible to engineers with unlimited access to funding is finally being exploded.

Instead of berating the government for delay in building the vanity project, the local MP (who needs the support of Camden voters if he is to become prime minister) should be lamenting their lack of courage in failing to cancel the whole scheme, which was designed as Tom Foot observes (Fury as – after years of demolition and disruption in Camden – HS2 is delayed to the 2040s, March 16) for a land-grab at Euston and not for rail capacity or levelling up.

Neither of these were more than an idea in the mind of God when the scheme was first put forward. Nowhere is in greater need of open space and social housing. The land stolen from the community should be returned.

Publican Craig Douglas (Landlord who saw treasured pub lost to HS2 bulldozers thinks rail line will never even come to Euston, March 16) should be swiftly compensated and a pub which complements the famous London home of the vegetarian curry restored.

ANDREW BOSI, N1