East Midlands misses out

In response to your editorials on the HS2 eastern leg:

The financial climate has changed. The money has been spent on the pandemic, and the cost of ‘borrowing to invest’ is set to rise.

Neither the new nor the original scheme serve to tackle the problems of transport in the East Midlands. Its most populous city, Leicester, fails to get a mention. And Northamptonshire is not mentioned at all.

Such proposals as there are for the East Midlands seem only to serve the interests of those already best served. How do they help the potential traveller from Kettering, Wellingborough or Corby to get to Northampton, the West Midlands or East Anglia?

The East Midlands has the lowest level of central government per capita support for public transport. And within that, most investment has gone to Nottinghamshire.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, and indeed Christian Wolmar, need to reflect that it is the scale of investment in London and the South East that distorts the picture. Take out that distortion, and the North West comes out on top.

My impression is that the

East Midlands - and particularly Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire - are a bit of a mystery to those running the show.

Ian Brown, Wellingborough