HS2 the ‘rich person’s railway’

• I FOUND your front-page report (July 15) on the Stop the Tunnel Westminster protest against the HS2 proposed high-speed rail protest extremely useful.

But it is worth highlighting the fact that this isn’t simply a case of “nimbyism”. 

Only this week the Institute of Economic Affairs dismissed the financial case for the project as unfounded, labelling it a “political vanity project”.

That reflects the conclusion of the Green Party, the only party nationally to oppose the project. We remain strongly in favour of rail travel in general, but the expense and environmental damage of the HS2 proposal is in no way justified by the results, the chief of which might well be the development of areas of Birmingham as new commuter suburbs of London.

It won’t take one plane out of the sky, but it will burn 50 per cent more energy mile-for-mile than the Eurostar, and be a “rich-person’s railway”, with its own business case assuming that a third of passengers will be on incomes of £70,000 or more. We need to stress that this is a badly conceived project for the country - as well as for London.

NATALIE BENNETT
Chair, Camden Green Party