HS2 was promoted as the " Must Have" rail system for the 21st Century. A high speed train which would not be able to run on existing lines , it cost billions to design and buy up property to enable a brand new infrastructure to be built...except it wasn't.
Towns , villages and woodland would have been devastated in South and West Yorkshire to provide a Leeds to London rail service which would be twenty minutes quicker than currently available...
Although it will eventually be completed between London and Birmingham , and at some point on to Manchester , the so called eastern leg from the Midlands to Leeds has been cancelled.
Had it gone ahead , houses and trees visible from my bedroom window would have been replaced by a fifty feet high viaduct carrying passengers through South Yorkshire without stopping , several times a day.
It was inevitable in a way that this part of the line would hit the deck as over priced projects often do , but I don't think many tears will be shed locally.
My cartoon offers a compromise ... but shouldn't be taken seriously. The government will have plenty of time to find a suitably controversial alternative...
