Need for speed (From The Northern Echo)

Need for speed

2:38pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Letters

THE proposed high-speed rail link will bisect a beautiful area between Kenilworth and Warwick.

This was my area of lost content, the happy highways where I roamed as a boy.

In summer I would cycle along to Warwick, along a quiet A-road through the Warwickshire countryside.

The thought that this idyllic place could be violated did cause me consternation, but then I realised the England of the Fifties disappeared a long time ago.

With the opening of the first stretch of motorway in 1958 England would soon be transformed from a land of quiet A-roads to a place dominated by the brash motorway, a watershed moment which would change our environment dramatically.

The motorway changed our attitude to travel, we would no longer take our time and see the views, and instead travel became an exercise in getting from A to B in the fastest possible time.

I consider myself fortunate to have lived through the quieter pre-motorway age. The highspeed rail link is, I feel, inevitable. It is just the latest development that has made our country what it is today.

Derek Parker, Bishop Auckland.