How HS2 is being made obsolete by video calls during pandemic

I WRITE in support of the letter from Linton Gaunt (The Yorkshire Post, April 11).

I was a regular traveller from Wakefield to London for business meetings, and I could never see how cutting the journey time by perhaps half an hour would be of any great benefit.

I also had many such meetings in Brussels and latterly many of these were conducted by video and conference calls. The current situation has clearly shown that business can function perfectly well this way.

The people that dreamt up HS2 clearly had no foresight that, with developing technology, communication would change and the need for face-to-face meeting would be unnecessary.

If HS2 goes ahead, it will cause many environmental and social disruptions at an enormous cost to us all, which could be better spent on repairing the ravages of coronavirus.

From: Canon Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse.

LINTON Gaunt’s letter is spot on. He hopes that when Covid-19 is under control that the Government will finally cancel HS2.

What a sensible idea. As he also mentioned, people can “work from home” these days. Cutting off 20 minutes on a journey to London is unnecessary. The money to be spent/borrowed to build this unnecessary railway would be much better used in paying back the millions which Covid-19 is costing.

From: Dennis Whitaker, Baildon, Shipley.

I HAD a telephone conversation with a friend in Cyprus yesterday. They, too, are in lockdown but if you wish to shop, exercise the dog or yourself, you firstly send a text message to the local authorities and wait for an ‘approved’ signal. You are restricted to within a certain radius of your home – or be fined.

I understand a resident of Larnaca, surprised to be stopped by the police in Limassol and asked why she was so far from home replied: “I am in Limassol to borrow a vacuum cleaner from a friend.” The policeman, somewhat less flustered, fined her €300 and pointed out that if she returned the cleaner before the curfew was over, there would be another fine.

From: Keith Alwood, Fulwood, Sheffield.

BILL Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, April 10) makes sweeping generalisations about international organisations, particularly singling out the World Health Organisation.

He conveniently forgets the WHO’s role in eliminating the scourge of smallpox, which was finally eradicated in 1979, or in 2003 limiting deaths from SARS to less than 1,000 despite the fact that it had spread to 26 countries.

The WHO is not an enforcement agency and its effectiveness is only as good as the support of its member states.

Since the successes of smallpox and SARS the WHO has been weakened by underfunding and criticism of its handling of Ebola. In the case of coronavirus, the WHO issued initial warnings in February, but some countries – including the UK – repeatedly failed to follow WHO advice.

So in answer to Bill Carmichael’s question of who should we trust, I would say an international agency with the experience and expertise to know what it is talking about.

From: Paul Muller, Woodthorpe Gardens, Sandal, Wakefield.

ON Good Friday, you published two excellent articles. One an Easter Message from the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, an inspired message from a very knowledgeable and kind man. We must all listen to his message of hope and love for our future on Earth. The second was a letter from Paul Rouse on why we must delay Brexit. Now is not the time to leave the EU.

From: Brian H Sheridan, Lodge Moor, Sheffield.

DAVID Roy’s remarks on Rishi Sunak come steeped in prejudice and inverted snobbery (Feedback, April 13).

It is not the Chancellor’s fault that he is a “Southerner, educated at Winchester and Oxford”. Anyway, so what? What’s wrong with that? Above all, he comes across as very bright but unaffected. Give him a chance.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

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Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor