Stop HS2 while there is still time

That is, until the £50 billion high speed rail project HS2 gets built. Now the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England is having to call for safeguards to stop graves being dug up.

For all the concerns over HS2 and the path it will cut through England in the name of slightly faster journey times to and from London, it must surely be one of the most serious.

This is not a case of disruption to businesses or the loss of homes - both of which should have already given MPs reason to reconsider - but of the disturbance of a place that marks the life and passing of someone who was loved, who was mourned and who is missed.

With every passing week, every new story about HS2 and its soaring costs, the case for this project becomes more and more flimsy.

The Conservatives sacked their own vice chairman, the Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant, partly for his objection to a scheme his constituents are overwhelmingly against.

David Cameron and his transport secretary, the Stafford-born former Cannock Chase councillor Patrick McLoughlin, need to consider very carefully whether all of this will really be worth it.

They have consistently alienated their core supporters in counties like Staffordshire with their commitment to a scheme that few can see the benefits of.

Labour are no better. Both the country's biggest parties are committed to this enormous piece of public spending - the biggest rail project since the Victorian era - but have failed to persuade the public why it is so necessary.

The promise is new jobs and faster journey times as well as cutting the overcrowding and soaring fares on rail services up and down the land.

But the line will not even begin running until 2026.

The economic recovery, while extremely welcome, is still fragile. It requires a series of bold, quick wins and not something whose benefits are not going to be felt until long after the current crop of senior politicians have left office.

With the damage the line will cause as it ploughs through the countryside, knocks down homes that people have worked and saved for, tears up profitable businesses that lie in its way and potentially forces the dead to be moved from their graves, it is time to stop the HS2 train before it pulls too far out of the station.