Scrap HS2 and plant trees along route instead – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE high speed rail minister, Andrew Stephenson, reported to the Commons Transport Committee by saying that the ‘estimated’ cost of phase one of the project has already been spent or contracted (The Yorkshire Post, January 7).

If it was scrapped tomorrow, he doesn’t know how much can be recovered – not least because of the compulsory purchase of family homes.

The large areas of land purchased could be used for creation of woodlands to go towards meeting the Government’s target of planting 30 million trees. This would benefit wildlife and could generate an income in timber production as well as replacing the veteran trees that have been felled for this project.

Lord Adonis, who was the Minister under Gordon Brown’s government and who instigated this project, refuses to say who did the original costing of this project.

Did the Government of the day obtain the estimated cost of £39bn from the Department for Transport or employ specialist consultants? Have some of the project management engineers who failed to curtail the cost of Crossrail ‘jumped ship’ to HS2? This is why the link to Leeds will never happen as there will be no money for it to be built.

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