HS2 will simply let London pull the life out of the fragmented North

sir – HS2 (report, January 24) will do the opposite of what is intended.

London works as the United Kingdom’s major growth engine because its infrastructure enables the large population to work as a single market for jobs, goods, services and ideas, in spite of its being spread out across most of the South East.

London has achieved a critical mass which, like a black hole, sucks in anything within commuting distance – allowing new hubs like Silicon Roundabout to develop to everyone’s benefit.

The North has similar population levels but abysmal infrastructure, which means that it does not work as a single unit. Liverpool and Manchester might as well be in different countries – and those with ambition and ideas tend to gravitate to London.

If HS2 is built, first it will simply make this worse. The North will become even more susceptible to the pull of London, its talent will continue to flee and it will never develop its potential. HS2 should be cancelled, and the money should be used to create across the North the kind of infrastructure that London enjoys.

Only when the North has truly begun to operate as a single entity should improvements be made to its connections with London. By then, that might not mean by rail.

Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire

sir – If the most serious objection to cancelling HS2 is the sum of around £9billion which has been spent principally on buying up properties and land along the route (Leading Article, January 21), surely selling the land and properties will solve the problem. It might even show a profit.

London SE16

sir – Those of us in the South West can only cast weary and slightly envious eyes to the North and East whenever the HS2 project is debated. We grow weary of seeing the constant “urban regenerations”, infrastructure projects, and communication initiatives that are poured into the North.

It takes two hours and five minutes to get from London to Manchester by train, whereas a journey to Plymouth takes three hours 22 minutes. Penzance is five hours and more.

The West has no significant concert or entertainment centre and the last shopping centre of any size is in Bristol.

The fact that the political map in the South West is currently almost totally blue may be a factor, but this is a long-term issue and needs to be addressed in the interest of equality and fairness.

Bristol

sir – Among the main beneficiaries of HS2 on the London to Birmingham proposed stretch will be taxi drivers ferrying passengers from the new HS2 railway station, which is situated a good walk from the centre of the city.

Sutton Coldfield