Letter to Lichfield Mercury (April 2010)

Like many others, my partner and I attended the meeting at Hints Village Hall on Wednesday 31 March to hear about the proposed high speed rail link.  Local people, understandably, expressed their opinions, their fears and so on to the local and district councillors about blighted properties and spoiled landscapes which would be gone forever. These were exactly the same fears and concerns that were expressed when the M6 Toll program was in the front line.

It is obvious to everybody who travels the UK that we do need an updating of the travel system, especially the railways that mostly are pre-war design and build.

This is where, in my opinion, the trouble with the new high speed rail lies – in the design.  Surely, when unemployment is rife, areas of our cities are run down, we should concentrate our concerns not by appealing to MPs and councillors, but on designers and construction companies.

Why take Green Belt that is so special in our country and all over the world.  What I am saying is that I am sure, somewhere there are some young designers, architects and planners who could sit down with the new Government and come up with some brave ideas and better designs. For example – why not use existing motorway and dual carriageway corridors?  Let’s face it, the Government is always looking for the cheapest route – design and build.

Before we take anymore greenery, let’s put together a national initiative for new inventive ideas such as monorails, for example, or using existing motorway links or the old railway lines and stations that Mr Beeching knocked down in the Sixties.  This could create jobs for a lot of young people.

So before the plans for high speed rail are “railroaded” through Parliament and rubber stamped, let’s give the young designers a chance.  Perhaps a nice little earner out of the Lottery fund would not go amiss for the best design?

What about tunnelling under existing motorways – after all the London Underground doesn’t owe us anything.  The cost of this would obviously be enormous, but could minerals be processed and reused?  New water mains could be incorporated to bring some of that precious water down from North to South.

I am sure that somewhere there is a designer who could come up with an imaginative solution which could break the present out-of-date idea of design and build – the cheap option which has gone on for too long.

I think that the answer lies not in Government or council but to put the designer in the forefront and see what comes up before we destroy any more Green Belt.   After all there would be more winners than losers.

VJM, Hints