“Change of route away from Meadowhall will prove extremely damaging”

Your recent front-page headline questions why there is no mention of Sheffield on the HS2 route.

There would have been a station in Sheffield at Meadowhall Interchange, had it not been for a concerted effort supported by Sheffield Council and, I must say, the local press to seek an alternative route away from Meadowhall – and towards the city centre.

This lobbying proved successful, but the route was moved east resulting now in no station in South Yorkshire on the main HS2 line.

There was never any proposal from HS2 Ltd for the main line to serve Sheffield city centre and we now have the unfortunate situation whereby Sheffield will be served by a minimum number of trains terminating at Sheffield "Midland" station, running on conventional rail off the main route from south of Chesterfield.

I fear this change of route away from Meadowhall will prove extremely damaging to the region.

There will be HS2 stations at Birmingham Interchange, which will be built in Solihull, and the East Midlands Hub at Toton, to serve Nottingham and Derby, which questions why there was so much opposition to a station at Meadowhall.

The message from this is clear.

Ensure any local proposals for changes to a major scheme are feasible and will be an improvement.

This has not been the case in respect of HS2 and Meadowhall. Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds were all going to be terminating stations with Sheffield an intermediate HS2 station on all original proposals, to be built at Meadowhall, on the main high speed line.