This crisis highlights the wastefulness of HS2

SIR – We are in the grip of a pandemic, of which the final health, economic and social costs cannot be known. In the meantime, taxpayers’ money continues to be poured into HS2.

Surely the Government should stop this scandal immediately, along with all the so-called enabling work on HS2. HS2 Ltd may think it’s business as usual but, while we face the consequences of chronic underfunding in our health and social services at the very time we need them most, high-speed rail looks like an anachronistic extravagance.

For several years, as the costs and timescales have ballooned, we and other campaigners have been saying that the money would be better spent on the NHS. In the coming months we will have plenty of time to reflect on lost opportunities. But now is the moment to stop HS2 in its tracks if we want to prevent any further haemorrhaging of public money in the wrong direction. Graham Dellow Congleton, Cheshire