• THE general election gives the three main political parties an opportunity to review their support for HS2. Party members should get in touch with them to urge them to include such a review in their manifesto.

HS2 does not and never did make sense, economically, environmentally or with respect to regional planning. In the House of Lords on January 31 two former permanent secretaries to the Treasury voted for Lord Framlingham’s amendment which, had it succeeded, would have put an end to the project, is a powerful indication.

Since then, Michael Byng, a quantity surveyor very experienced in railway matters, has prepared a detailed costing for Phase 1. His estimates are twice the official ones. If the parties are not prepared to admit they made a mistake in the first place, these costings, together with the post-referendum pressure on all public services, give them a way out without losing too much face.

Lord Framlingham said that he had been told on good authority that when Mrs May became PM she was minded to scrap HS2 but was told that it was too late. It is not too late. Something approaching £2billion has been spent so far. Some of that would be recoverable if HS2 were scrapped, but even if none of it were, this is a very small amount in relation to the total cost.

On August 9 2016, Theresa May said in a letter to Cllr Sarah Hayward that she was “fully committed” to HS2 because it would “provide vital capacity for rail passengers and our transport system, as well as a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebalance our country’s economy”. The PM was misinformed.

A line built to accommodate trains running at current InterCity speeds would cost at least £5billion less to build, would do less damage to the environment, result in much fewer CO2 emissions and generate less new travel, with all the extra costs that that would create. HS2 is at least as likely to exacerbate the north-south divide as to reduce it.

Numerous attempts by expert critics of HS2 to reason with the government have been rebuffed.

STEPHEN PLOWDEN, NW1