I STILL fail to see the point of the high speed rail scheme that is causing so much anguish in the Chilterns. Why does the UK actually need it?

It’s difficult to object to a plan of great benefit on the basis that you don’t personally like it on your doorstep. If it is going to be of vast importance to Britain then it has to go somewhere and some trees will have to be uprooted somewhere nice to make way for it.

But there is little evidence of any great benefit. For starters, do you believe people will give up their cars for this? I don’t. You could raise petrol to £10 a litre and they’d still drive.

I like Chiltern Railways, but I rarely use the line. My car is far more convenient and it generally works out cheaper to drive. Every time I go on a long trip, I examine the alternatives and try to go by rail to avoid the stress of gridlock. But every single time, apart from trips into central London, the car works out the better option.

Secondly, as many readers have already made clear, the existing Chiltern line has a perfectly good service to Birmingham already. Why do we need this kind of disruption to create a slightly faster one?

If I could be convinced of some benefits, I’d have far more sympathy with High Speed 2. But for me, it currently is not a question of whether or not the Chilterns is the right location – the question is why is this needed anywhere in Britain.

Sadly, whether we like it or not, rail travel is becoming an outmoded concept in the UK, and the advent of super fast trains is unlikely to alter that.