Letter: High speed rail will be beneficial
One correspondent last week suggested cancelling HS2 and diverting funds to flood defences. Even if this was to happen, I doubt the money would be diverted to flood defences.
In the long term HS2 is probably a beneficial project. It is not about faster journey times, but about increasing rail capacity.
It will free up space for improved local commuter lines and improve the carriage of goods which will benefit business and the economy. Most importantly, increased use of rail transport is important if we are to achieve climate change targets.
With regard to flood defences I would refer people to the Pitt Report published after flooding in 2007. It identified that flooding was likely to become more frequent due to climate change and that more investment in flood defences was needed.
The then Labour government increased spending on flood defences by 10 per cent in the financial year 2008-09 with an additional 10 per cent increase in 2009-10. Then came austerity, since 2010-11 the average annual increase in spending has been 1.2 per cent. Spending in 2018-19 as a share of GDP was substantially lower than in the last year of the Labour government.
If, like myself and many eminent economists, you see austerity as motivated by ideology and intent on shrinking the state, successive Conservative governments have ill-served the many people who have been affected by flooding. Moreover, given recent government responses to the flooding this looks likely to continue.
Chris Sheahan, Yorton Heath
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