• WE picked up a copy of the New Journal on a recent visit to London from Sheffield.

Paul Braithwaite’s letter (They treat people with contempt, February 29) on the council’s handling of complaints about the progress of the High Speed 2 works in Camden was an interesting insight into the local issues.

More broadly it was depressing for us, as it emphasises how far distant is the vision of the long-awaited electrification of the East Midlands line to South Yorkshire, while the vast and spiralling budget of HS2 continues to disappear into the black hole of the Euston tunnel and all other expensive aspects of the beleaguered HS2 project.

Trawling around on the web, there appeared articles on the pressing need to “keep tunnelling” and how it was not technically possible to run HS2 into and round St Pancras anyway, a decision apparently reached some time ago on the basis that St Pancras was full and this obvious interchange / through-route would entail too much destruction (on top of what’s already happened with HS1). Aaargh!

Viewed from South Yorkshire the expenditure lavished on the capital’s transport infrastructure is of epic proportions, not that we begrudge you Crossrail.

Expanding the view a bit, the current government’s plans for levelling-up within what is left of the Northern Powerhouse initiative – as far as strategic transport improvements go – consist of completing a kind of “railway box” by upgrading the Transpennine link from Manchester to Leeds (not including Bradford, which has always been reached down a siding to a dead stop at the buffers).

We will then have electrification to Manchester, Leeds, and across the Pennines (missing out Bradford). South Yorkshire loses out again.

Best of luck with HS2.

NICK FLEISCHMANN & KATE DAY
Sheffield