Alistair Darling must take share of blame for Leeds’ transport woes - Yorkshire Post Letters

Sad to say, Andrew Vine’s “retreat from Moscow” rail trip to Manchester comes as no surprise – not least to him, I imagine (The Yorkshire Post, May 21).

Everything he says has been said endlessly with little, if any, ‘South-style’ action and none to be seen in the near future. I am uneasy with Andrew’s description of former Chancellor Alistair Darling as “one of the wisest counsels in politics”. Was he not the one who, at one minute to kick-off, withdrew funding for the Leeds three-line tram network? In almost the same breath, he funded a most successful system for his native Edinburgh – wisdom of a sort, I suppose.

Rather than a resounding “up your kilt, Alistair”, Leeds City Council did as they were told. They tugged the forelock with £70m and 10 years wasted on so-called “New Generation Transport” – the failed trolleybuses. We now have 
some excellent all-electric buses in Harrogate. Leeds has none. Why?

From: Jenny Eaves, Balby, Doncaster.

We keep hearing that the benefits of HS2 will outweigh the costs – while at the same time being told no one actually knows what the final cost will be. Hmm.