THERE are a number of concerns that could be raised about the HS2 project. Certainly the compensation offered to those living near the proposed route appears to have been miserly. The absence of a local station means it will bring no direct benefit to those affected by it. Most of all, the Government urgently needs to get a grip over the escalating costs of the project.

Nevertheless, I think Elise Benjamin (October 8) is mistaken in suggesting that HS2 is taking funding away from improvements to the existing rail network.

In Oxfordshire alone the Great Western mainline is to be electrified, there is to be a new service between Oxford and London Marylebone, the line between Oxford, Milton Keynes and Bedford is to be reopened and electrified, and the mainline between Southampton and Birmingham is to be upgraded to increase its capacity.

Work on these improvements is already under way, and all will be completed long before HS2 is built. HS2 is not in competition with any of these improvements; rather it is the next stage in expanding the rail network to cater for the additional capacity that will still be needed after improvements to the existing network are complete.

We are being told more airport capacity is needed in the South-East. It is an established fact that the existing HS1 line via the Channel Tunnel has captured significant passenger traffic from the air routes to Paris and Brussels. Similarly, HS2 has the potential to capture much of the traffic currently using internal flights between Heathrow and other parts of Britain, thereby reducing pressure on airport capacity.

The real choice is not between HS2 and the existing rail network; rather the choice is between HS2 and airport expansion. In that context HS2 is likely to result in much less environmental damage than a new airport or expansion of the existing airports, and so will provide (dare I say it) a much greener outcome than the policy newly espoused by the Greens.

Cllr CHRIS ROBINS, Foxdown Close, Kidlington