Yes, we should use taxpayers' money to fight HS2 (From Bucks Free Press)
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Yes, we should use taxpayers' money to fight HS2
9:00am Saturday 11th February 2012 in Your Letters
WHILST understanding your editorial comment of two weeks ago questioning the possible use of taxpayers’ cash to fight HS2 in court, can I take the matter back to the basics of the taxation we pay at national and local level?
A great deal of this money is already budgeted and used in the day-to-day routine of protecting and maintaining the environment, green belt, agricultural land, areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks,and quite correctly so in my opinion as they are a priority.
Local authorities have the right to spend tax money on protecting our natural assets through our planning process, and that might mean taking legal action at local level when necessary.
As I understand the planning process at local level, any application that can be seen to breach the regulations will only get permission if there is a) a clearly defined need and b) community agreement to meet that need.
The only way that the Government can get permission is by prevailing upon on us that the proposal is in ‘The National Interest’. There is much evidence that HS2 does not fit into this category.
So my support is with the councils to use contingency monies for stopping the Government wasting some £40 billion plus interest (because we will have to borrow it from somewhere) on an ill-judged project. Anyway should not ‘infrastructure follow the signs of regional growth’, not the other way round.
Brian Swain, Great Kingshill
Chiltonian says...
10:28pm Wed 15 Feb 12
It will simply not stop HS2 - that is not the outcome.
It will legally question the approach taken and, if such action is won, it will cause that part of the approach to be re-done again.
This simply delays the project duration timing and would therefore would add further to the cost of the final route.
In the mean time, all those, which are suffering from blight due to the proposal, will continue to live in the likely corridor for HS2 and will continue to be blighted until the rail is finally built.