Cancel HS2 proposal immediately

I am writing on behalf of the residents of the village of Ladbroke in Warwickshire where I am chair of the local action group opposed to HS2. I am also a director of HS2 Action Alliance Ltd, the national organisation which has led the research upon which many of our objections to HS2 are based and which also acts as a co-ordinating body for approximately 70 community action groups along the length and breadth of the proposed HS2 route.

I am also copying this to our constituency MP Jeremy Wright, who has been assisting us in our opposition to HS2; to Chris White MP and Dan Byles MP, two other Warwickshire MPs who have expressed outright opposition to the current proposals and to Mark Pawsey MP and Nadim Zahawi MP, who also represent Warwickshire constituencies and who have expressed varying levels of concern about the proposals. Finally, I have copied this email to all Warwickshire county councillors who have unanimously voted to oppose the current HS2 proposals and to all local media contacts.

The Ladbroke Action Group responded at length to the public consultation and I will not reiterate the arguments made therein; I am sure you will have access to all responses which I understand total in excess of 55,000. Our village remains implacably opposed to the current HS2 proposals, believing that they are the wrong solution to our national current and future transport needs, representing an eye wateringly expensive project which will only add to the ever mounting public sector debt pile, no matter whether the money is spent gradually over a period of years or in a single amount. What this country urgently requires is much longer trains on the existing tracks with comparatively small expenditure on a small number of ‘pinch points’ to enable significant improvements in service. I am aware you have been provided with detailed explanations of these alternative proposals through our national campaign office.

Ladbroke village residents were particularly concerned to read in recent national newspapers that the reason for your delay in making a decision on whether to proceed with HS2 is to enable you to assess whether to construct extra tunnelling in the Chilterns, with the cost for this tunnel being found from reducing mitigation measures etc further north along the proposed line.

If true this proposal is utterly unacceptable to Ladbroke and I am confident this objection will apply to all Warwickshire residents. If this environmentally disastrous, overly expensive ‘white elephant’ project does proceed Warwickshire will require full implementation of state of the art mitigation to reduce all impacts of HS2 and we will petition and campaign vigorously in this regard prior to and throughout the passage of the Hybrid bill.

On behalf of all Ladbroke residents I urge you cancel the current HS2 proposal and implement immediately additional improvements to our existing rail network bringing rapid improvements, much needed employment opportunities and associated economic benefits whilst saving our environmental heritage. - Graham Long, chairman, Ladbroke HS2 Action Group Director, HS2 Action Alliance Ltd.