REGARDING the letter from Dr Hirst, Guardian, August 28.

I have to ask why he thinks that revenue, if any, ever, will benefit the sick, frail and disadvantaged?

If this high cost white elephant is ever put into production, each one of us will be paying for it for years and years to come, wherever we live, whatever our health.

It will not, by default, reduce taxes.

There will not be any spare cash around to benefit any of us, in fact, the opposite. Estimated costs have already risen to £52bn, some £20bn more than announced earlier this year.

And according to its propaganda leaflet, ‘HS2 is forecast to generate over £50 billion in benefits for Britain’.

Dr Hirst wants to encourage tourists to ‘...spend their wealth while enjoying our heritage and scenery’.

They will have to visit soon. HS2 will destroy not only our scenic countryside but also some of the most productive farming land in the Midlands and the north west, especially Cheshire. We can never reclaim that loss.

A new railway is not needed to solve capacity problems. We need to improve our current trains and tracks and invest in longer, more frequent trains.

Just looking at trainline.com this morning, a train leaving London at 10am will reach Edinburgh in 4hrs 22 minutes and cost £63.

Or a train leaving at 9.40am will arrive in Chester in two hours and a first class ticket can be bought for £66.

I should have thought these tickets were well within the time frame/expense budget for any serious foreign tourist.

No one has yet announced potential ticket prices for HS2!

HS2 will not bring prosperity to the north.

It will drain our towns even more, as businesses migrate southwards.

It will devastate our land forever. It must not be allowed to continue.

LINDA HOLMES Northwich