YP Letters: Short-term thinking on HS2 and nuclear power will cost Britain dear

From: Ian Anderson, Wakefield.
Can the cost-benefits of HS2 be justified?Can the cost-benefits of HS2 be justified?
Can the cost-benefits of HS2 be justified?

ISN’T it time the government listened to ordinary people?

What is the point of spending an absolute fortune on an express train that, if you live south of Leeds, will take longer to get to London than the existing service?

As this new train will not stop at Wakefield, anyone wanting to catch it will have to travel to Leeds, which will take at least half an hour.

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As the new train will only cut 20 minutes from the journey, it will take 10 minutes longer by the new route.

If the proposed new nuclear power station is shelved, as it should be, there will be an immense amount of money left floating aimlessly.

We are struggling to get 
our carbon emissions under control and our air quality is abysmal.

Why doesn’t the Government pool the money that they could save by stopping HS2 at Sheffield, and by cancelling the new nuclear power station and then invest this money into the research of tidal power?

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We are an island nation, totally surrounded by heavy tidal seas.

On top of that, we have a massive amount of tidal estuaries that are now standing vacant since the decline of our fishing industries.

There is a huge pool of unemployed labour in our old fishing ports.

Tidal power is an enormous free gift for this country and we don’t exploit it.

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To generate electricity from tidal power would reduce our national carbon output by a colossal figure.

We could rapidly become the world leader in this free power generation.

It could also cut the need for so much gas, using electricity for heating.

Hence reducing the need for fracking, which is another contentious method of producing our power.

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How is it that successive governments over the years don’t seem to look any further than their nose-ends?

They always seem to take the simplest way out, never thinking of the long term solutions and effects for the future.

Our motorways are a classic example. It was very obvious years ago that three-lane motorways were not adequate for purpose, but they kept on building them even up to this present day.

They will then spend another fortune a few years later, inconveniencing everyone, extending them to four lanes.

It must be time that our leaders looked to the future, for all our sakes.