RAILWAY historian and author John Healy, from Chesham, gives his views on High Speed 2.

Mr Healy, who was brought up in Potter Row, Great Missenden, close to the route, explains why he can see the benefits.

As D-Day approaches HS2 seems set to be passed thus finally realising the dream of a wealthy Victorian entrepeneur by name of Sir Edward Watkin who wanted to link Liverpool and Manchester with London and Paris via a Channel Tunnel.

Sadly his scheme ran out of money before it could come to fruition and it also suffered great problems with finding a route into London which did not help, then latterly what had been built of his route suffered during the Beeching cuts because of passing through too many rural communities and having to compete with road competition.

Despite the fact that the route was systematically demolished and has almost been obliterated, Sir Edward Watkin’s dream has remained an ambition of many governments not just in seeing the Channel Tunnel built but also in creating the High Speed rail routes that need to go with it.

Now is the time for HS2 and 'HS3' (the Manchester and Leeds link in the second phase) to show what they can do for the economy.

Not only will there be jobs created for those making rails and sleepers and other paraphernalia concerned with a new railway but there will be thousands of new construction jobs involved in constructing the line. Added to that there will be opportunities for people to build rolling stock.

Then once HS2 is opened there will be employment opportunities for those operating the railway as well as maintaining it.

While the latter is all very well the government needs to take into account that the current route of the HS2 line needs to be changed to reduce the costs of construction and also incorporate some revenue generating points.

I would also urge all the protesters in my capacity as a railway historian who has written several books on the subject and does not agree with the destruction of the countryside for a project such as this, to take all the above comments seriously and fight their campaign in a more realistic fashion so that we get HS2 yet maintain our areas of outstanding natural beauty.