Focus spending on tackling poverty

MUCH has been said about HS2 and its ever-increasing cost for the sake cutting a few minutes off journey times.

With more and more people adrift in poverty, some coupled with unemployment and children and poor housing, one has to ask whether this government “toy”, as it has been described, should not be placed on hold.

How do you say to child, who is hungry, cold, and living in appalling conditions, who is most probably suffering from malnutrition, that money spent on this project should have gone to address the problems faced by many.

Numbers grow daily of those who would starve if not for the work of the food banks and other voluntary services.

How many of the low income will ever afford a ticket to travel on the HS2 trains?

We need to halt HS2 and the fanatics who deem we should be making more cycle lanes. One only has to see Castle Boulevard and lack of cyclists using it, even before the pandemic.

We are members of the G7 and one of the richer nations, yet still we must get a footballer to highlight the poverty and hunger that children in low-income families suffer daily.

Low-income families can only dream about ordering from companies who deliver takeaways, with prepared food meal boxes offering £10 to £15 off your first delivery, which is most probably the amount that the low-income family with children budget themselves for two or three days’ meals. As any parent will tell you, children are constantly hungry.

So, let’s see councils looking at the expenditure and working to reduce the burden of council tax not only on low-income families but everyone and stop these pointless projects, such as the Robin Hood Energy, which impact on the available monies available for those in poverty?

Tony Morris Carlton