What nonsense. As if there was a desperate need for land in rural Britain. Southern England is densely populated compared to countries, but its still incredibly rural.

In most places it barley effects people at all and when it does 99% of the time its a minimal visual impact.

> therefore unable to use the line, by the way.

This is a complete misunderstanding on the system effects of these lines. The point is that all other train lines can be used much more efficiently because the high-speed trains don't have to use those lines anymore. Making it much easier to run more rural trains.

And it will also reduce car use on these routes, meaning the much, much worse highways will be used less.

So in actual fact, the new lines are massively positive in terms of overall impact for rural areas.

And I say this living in a country with some of the most dense rail networks in the world.

> We also have very little wildlife left and we don't really want to live in concrete jungles.

Another bunch of nonsense. Rail lines are very small and highly efficient. If you didn't build rail lines, you would almost certainty have to extend highways and those are infinity worse for wildlife.

Railways and specially high-speed rail have the best impact vs effect calculation of almost anything you can build.