HS2

• ANYONE who thinks that HS2 will prove to be worth the hell of its construction, because Birmingham will be a few minutes nearer, had better know their way around that city.

I spent two hours trying to locate a tourist information centre in Birmingham, only to find there isn’t one.

The number given online is for a defunct office in a building – rather a handsome building – that has been demolished.

The librarian, who confirmed the city really had closed all its tourist offices, was helpful.

But it was beyond his remit to recommend hotels and, not surprisingly, he couldn’t provide detailed information about local trains and buses.

The idea that a bunch of politicians, blinded by ambition, are spending millions of pounds and destroying lives, landscape, and properties, in order to get a bit faster to a city that doesn’t even know how to deal with the visitors it already has, is beyond belief.

As for directory inquiries, it provided the same “unobtainable” phone number that I had been getting myself – at a charge of something like £2 a throw (which is being refunded).

ESTHER WHITBY
Harmood Street, NW1