Simon Jenkins's analysis (This triumph for rail nerds is money beyond all sense, 11 January) is spot on. We are likely to spend over £32bn to construct a project based on the shoddiest of evidence bases. This is nowhere more evident than in the assertion by opponents that it will "rebalance regional economies" by somehow reversing longstanding flows of wealth and jobs from the north and Midlands to London and the south-east. This fanciful idea flies in the face of the vast majority of independent research and the Department for Transport's own figures, which show that 70% of any jobs created will accrue to London and its hinterland.
Supporters of HS2 frequently cite the regenerative impact of the TGV on the cities of Lille and Lyon as evidence for their case. A glance at the official unemployment statistics, however, reveals that unemployment rates in these cities relative to those for France as a whole have actually worsened over the years since the TGV arrived.
Ian Waddell
Middleton, Warwickshire
• Simon Jenkins has got it exactly right on HS2, and your leader article wrong (Editorial, 11 January). The powerful pro-HS2 rail lobby has somehow managed to convince most politicians and business leaders that HS2 is the only game in town when it comes to modernising the UK's creaking rail infrastructure. Simon Jenkins has clearly put in the time and effort to go beyond the hype and look at the true facts.
There is still a long, hard road for the government to follow before this project can become anywhere near a reality, and plenty of time for a lot more critical appraisal of the many flaky assumptions used to justify it economically and environmentally.
Cllr John Whitehouse
Liberal Democrat, Kenilworth
• Only time will tell whether high-speed rail was wise. In the meantime, millions will have been spent on arcane predictions of the costs and benefits in an attempt to answer the wrong question: "Is this scheme good value for money?" A fundamental fault was hinted at by the evidence given to the parliamentary select committee by Transport for London, which queried the necessary improvements to the local transport systems to enable people to get to and from high speed stations. This harks back to Ruth Kelly's white paper which argued that people make end-to-end journeys: they do not ride a train, high- or low -speed, merely to travel between stations but as part of their journeys from A to B.
A bundle of implications lurks behind this truism: if we all use the transport system as if it were one system rather than a collection of semi-autonomous sub-systems, then it should be planned as one system. That changes the question to: "Is this a wise way of spending £32bn on the system as a whole?" We should stop assessing discrete schemes such as HS2 and assess improvements to the overall transport network. We should be asking: "Are there better ways to spend £32bn on improvements to the transport network?"
Barry Hutton
Tranent, East Lothian
• "Dismissing HS2 as a vanity or legacy project misses the point," claims your editorial. Not so, it's precisely the point. Britain's railways are equally important for freight. In particular, business needs to expand the number of through goods trains from Europe. Unfortunately, many lines, such as those from the east coast ports, are already at capacity. Freight comes second in priority to passenger trains and Beeching's ill-informed cuts created bottlenecks – when engineering works or breakdowns block the way, there are no alternative routes.
HS2 money would be better spent throughout the UK's rail infrastructure, creating larger-gauge tunnels to accommodate continental rolling stock (and double-deck passenger carriages to increase capacity) along with rail "bypasses" around congestion points to enable a true multimodal network.
Dave Young
London
• I doubt that I am alone in finding objectionable the continuing efforts of Martin Tett, the leader of Buckinghamshire county council, and his cohorts to block the extension of high-speed rail from London to the Midlands and the north, thus depriving those regions of the essential transport infrastructure which is now accepted as the norm across the rest of the world.
It is surely not for objectors concerned primarily about the route of HS2 through their own localities to question the economic value of the project to businesses and communities further north, where Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle all anticipate benefits, and it is preposterous to suggest that Britain already has a high-speed network as large as that of France, when the only true high-speed link is HS1, from London to the Channel Tunnel.
It is true that other areas – the south- west, Wales and Scotland – may not be linked in or benefit immediately, but that is no justification for doing nothing, more a spur to speed up the development of a truly nationwide high-speed network. And if to achieve this, HS2 has to go through Mr Tett's backyard, then so be it.
Chris Haslam
Threshfield, North Yorkshire
• There are two significant questions I have not seen addressed in the discussions and reports about the proposed high-speed rail investment (Report, 10 January). The first question is what fraction of the work will actually be carried out by UK companies – or will the trains, for example, be sourced from abroad? If it makes economic sense to have a high-speed rail service along the main spine of the UK, then surely the opportunity must be taken to enhance the UK's industrial capabilities. Second, why is a link into the Eurostar route to Europe only being considered in the 2026-32 phase of work? Surely that should be provided right at the start.
John Chubb
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
• The letter above from Barry Hutton was amended on 12 January 2012. In the original, the letter writer's name had been incorrectly rendered as Barry Huttonbarry. This has been corrected.