HS2 billions should be spent on Hull to Liverpool rail link – Yorkshire Post Letters

HS2, this fantasy vanity project already double the original budget of £50bn, will doubtless exceed £200bn if previous experience is any guide. What the UK needs is fast results to drive economic revival.

I suggest two examples: First, Hull to Liverpool high speed rail electrification with freight moved to rail from the M62, resulting in an efficient motorway and environmental benefits.

There are other smaller projects in our current not-fit-for purpose rail system to bring it into the 21st century.

Second, nationwide 5G coverage with any excess used to reduce our national debt.

From: Steve Wilson, Idle, Bradford.

AS you rightly state via your Editorial “Rail scheme is a test of trust” (The Yorkshire Post, November 28), Northern Powerhouse Rail is indeed an acid test of the promised levelling up agenda.

So news that the Government may seek to do this on the cheap to the detriment of around a quarter of the population of West Yorkshire by by-passing Bradford, is depressing yet predictable.

As the councils behind the West Yorkshire devolution deal signed it off, a telling comment from Leeds councillor Andrew Carter suggesting Leeds could be “dragged down by others”; who could he mean?

Here in Bradford we have become accustomed to the role of the poor man; removing the city from any future rail link will create far more issues that saving £4bn. One West Yorkshire?

From: Nina Smith, Chair, Railfuture Yorkshire Branch, Hebden Bridge.

IT is 30 years since local people started campaigning for a railway station at Haxby, and it has long been one of Railfuture’s top new station priorities

So it is excellent news that the Government has taken the first steps towards providing a long awaited and much needed railway station for Haxby.

But early reports that Haxby is to get a station have been premature. A so far unpublished sum is being made available from the New Stations Fund for “further development proposals”. We assume that this refers to a suitable location being agreed and plans drawn up and approved.

Let’s hope these don’t take too long. We trust that the New Stations Fund will then make major funding available for the project. A new Haxby station will have an estimated catchment area of 22,000 people, so the station is long overdue.

Railfuture would also like to see the York to Scarborough line electrified during this decade.

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