Open letter to Lucy Chadwick, Director – Projects, Department for Transport regarding High Speed Two.

WE are not sure whether you are the appropriate person to write to in connection with the above from a policy viewpoint but please pass on this letter if you are not.

We are writing to register our opposition to the proposed HS2 routes through the Chilterns.

Both the first choice route and preferred alternative Route 2.5 would harm the local environment and destroy an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as a result of trains travelling through it at 250 mph every four minutes.

The benefits of the project seem marginal at best, being 20 minutes off the rail journey time from London to Birmingham, a route which is already well served from Marylebone and Euston with no benefits to the local communities through which HS2 passes.

The estimated costs are huge at a time when the public finances are likely to still be in crisis.

The proposed investment would be far better spent on the local roads which are in a disgraceful state of repair and have been since well before this winter.

The proposal will blight homes in the area for years.

If the preferred alternative route is followed our house which is 100 yards from Seer Green station and which HS2 trains could pass through, will be significantly reduced in marketability and value at a time when we will undoubtedly want to sell.

I would urge you to use your position to ensure that the HS2 project is dropped at the earliest opportunity.

This would remove the uncertainty surrounding this very ill-thought through proposal.

Richard and Sandra Baldwin, Longbottom Lane, Seer Green.