Rebecca, Why not suggest a campaign against the HS2 to 38 Degrees (http://38degrees.org.uk/)?

They emailed me today - here's part of it:

Dear Nigel,

There are now over half a million of us involved in 38 Degrees and we've proved that when we work together we can make change happen. So now we need to answer an important question: what should we do next?

People power - 38 Degrees style - made the government think again and saved England’s forests from being sold off. And that's just the latest example of how it can work. 38 Degrees is all about hundreds of thousands of us coming together and making change happen on the issues that matter to us. It works because we all work together. So please join the conversation and help decide what we do together next.

In just the past few weeks 38 Degrees members have saved England's forests from being sold off, stopped a giant US-style cow factory farm being built in the UK, and prevented billionaire Donald Trump from evicting local people from their homes to make way for a luxury golf course. In the past we've helped stop cuts to valuable services like the BBC and NHS Direct.

Staff and volunteers in the 38 Degrees office will go through all the ideas and comments, and draw up a shortlist of the most popular ones in a few days' time. We’ll then all need to vote to pick our priorities from the shortlist.

I totally agree with you. It makes absolutely no sense and it seems to be that the alternatives haven't been fully explored. Its ludricrous to think as a country on the brink of bancrupcy with budgetary cuts being demanded everywhere that this is a viable economic option. In a country which is meant to be a democracy, no one I have spoken to wants the HS2, so why are we not listened to? All the arguments for it simply don't stack up - 'increasing population who will want to travel' was one of the arguments I heard on country file, but since no politician wants to grab that thistle and tackle it either, it simple angers me more that population growth is used as a reason.

I know the LDWA is not a campagning organisation, however I think members should be fully aware of the impacts of HS2, which will mean the closure of many public rights of way, and if you oppose it, a petition can be signed at http://stophs2.org/

Luckily some very influential people live in the areas affected such as the Chilterns and I really hoping the oppostition to this gains some momentum.

All the transport people I've spoken to (and I work in transport, so that's not just me talking to a bloke in the pub!) feel HS2 is a big white elephant. They point out that if we really want to reduce journey times on long rail journeys, rather than shave 20 minutes off the rail journey itself at the cost of billions, we should focus on all the other links in the chain - the journey from home to the station for example, and the journey from the end station into the city - where we can easily save many people 20 minutes at much lower cost.

Plus, by working on these journeys to and from stations we might be able to REDUCE the environmental impact of the trip (e.g., by providing alternatives to driving to and from the station) rather than increasing the impact with massive engineering works.

Just wondered what members think of this proposal? Slicing thought the chilterns.......etc etc...great.

As a midlander I've already suffered the 'white elephant' of the M6 Toll road that scarred the landscape near where I live, that no one seems to use as its too expensive, and now just a mile away from this we are going to suffer another scar in the form of the HS2 - as you can see I'm not best pleased, but have to stay polite.

When will it all stop? When the UK is just one giant block of tarmac?