A DIFFERENT kind of protest against the controversial HS2 high-speed railway has been made in Oxford.

People crossing the railway bridge at Walton Well Road in Jericho have been greeted by a brightly-painted artwork steaming along next to them.

The drawings were part of action organised by the local branch of Extinction Rebellion to alert the public to the ‘national scandal’ they believe the project to be and the ‘astronomical’ figure it will cost.

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Panels with the engine and the carriages show that these are drawings of the HS2 high-speed railway, with messages such as ‘HS2: A National Scandal. It is costing the Earth’ and ‘Breaking the Bank’ scribbled on them.

A spokesperson for the group commented: “How can a spend of £127,000,000 and possibly more as the costs keep rising, on a train line regarded by many as unnecessary and hugely damaging, possibly be justified?

“Only three billion allocated to the NHS to fight this terrible pandemic – but many more billions already spent by HS2 on preparatory work before a single mile of track is laid.

“The train on the bridge is one way of alerting the public to this national scandal.”