Getting on the right track with HS2 benefits | Letters

Jim Steer responds to an article by Simon Jenkins that said the high-speed rail link was of little use to the north, and Mark Sullivan hopes the West Midlands gets the transport hub it rejected a decade ago

Simon Jenkins' latest piece on HS2 (Depleted and unwanted, HS2 hurtles on as Johnson's 100bn vanity project, 30 July) repeatedly mischaracterises both the case for, and the benefits of, a rail project that will transform connectivity in the UK.

He talks as if services will only go from London to Birmingham, stating confidently that Britain's new high-speed railway will not - repeat: not - get to the north of England". But this is simply untrue. Construction work on the Birmingham-Crewe section is now under way, and detailed planning and consultation prior to a parliamentary bill submission is under way for Crewe-Manchester. HS2 services will reach Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds and more than a dozen other cities across the country.