It was interesting to hear this week that Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has floated the idea of building a new road through a National Park.

In a key note speech outlining the Department for Transport's plans to improve transport connectivity in the north of England, Mr McLoughlin said the possibility of constructing a new road in the Peak District to relieve congestion is being looked into.

What does this have to do with Buckinghamshire, I hear you ask.

Well, we have our own major construction project to look forward - HS2. Mr McLoughlin reiterated in his speech this week that it must and shall be built, and it will be cutting through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The construction traffic will be noticeable, but once building work on the line is complete it won't be completely hidden from view. A series of cuttings and embankments are planned, meaning one minute you can be peacefully walking through the Chiltern hills, the next you can be standing looking over a great scar in the landscape with a railway line at the bottom of it.

And that's where HS2 and Mr McLoughlin's nice new road in the Peak District differ. The new road would, apparently, go all the way underneath the rolling Derbyshire countryside in one continuous tunnel.

That's probably fair enough as the Peak District is an officially designated National Park - affording it a level of protection far greater even than that given to the Chilterns.

But even so, an extremely good business case needs to be compiled and exceptional reasons need to be put forward before destroying great sections of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty can begin to be considered.

Ever since details of where HS2 would go were released, residents of our county have been calling for the line to go underground the whole way through the Chilterns. Not just bits of it, occasionally coming up to the surface, but all the way - just like the new road Mr McLoughlin has been touting this week.

There is a chink of light that may enable this to become a possibility however. This week one of our own, Chesham and Amersham MP Cheryl Gillan, was appointed vice chair of the influential All Party Parliamentary Group on the Environment.

As the name suggests, the group makes recommendations on a wide range of important environmental issues, and Mrs Gillan has already pledged to challenge for a tunnel which will provide protection to the AONB.

She said a fully bored tunnel "must now be firmly on the government's agenda", and it is vitally important she insists in the strongest possible terms this tunnel gets built.

It's not just for the good of our residents, but also for the environment and preserving this beautiful area in which we live for generations to come.

It cannot be fair that our area can be so spoilt on the whim of a few politicians, when other areas of the country are being given the privilege of extra protection for the environment.

If the new road through the Peak District was simply going to be laid on top on the countryside, you can bet your bottom dollar residents of the Derbyshire Dales constituency - which takes up much of the National Park - will be straight onto their MP demanding the best possible protection for their environment.

Incidentally, the MP for Derbyshire Dales is one Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport. It appears double standards are at work, and it is only right and proper the rules relating to the Peak District should be applied to the Chilterns.