PUBLIC SESSION
MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE
taken before
HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE
On the
HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL
Tuesday 23 June 2015 (Afternoon)
In Committee Room 5
PRESENT:
Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Ian Mearns
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IN ATTENDANCE
Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport
Witnesses:
Mr John Donovan Mr Robert Jones-Owen Mrs Beryl Upton Ms Kirsty Gibbs Ms KJ Alonso and Mr KJ West Ms Gayle Metcalfe and Pauline Woodham Mr Ian Phillips Ms Susan Crane and Mr David Crane Mr Henry Gardner, Governor, Vyners School
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IN PUBLIC SESSION
INDEX
Subject Page
John Donovan, Beryl Upton, Robert Jones-Owen and others (continued) Closing submissions by Mr Donovan 3 Submissions by Mrs Upton 4 Submissions by Mr Jones-Owen 12 Response from Mr Strachan 18
Kirsty Gibbs and others Submissions by Ms Gibbs 28 Response from Mr Strachan 33
Ms KJ Alonso and Mr KJ West Submissions by Ms Alonso 36 Submissions by Mr West 37 Response from Mr Strachan 39
Gayle Metcalfe and Pauline Woodham and others Submissions by Ms Metcalfe 41 Response from Mr Strachan 50
Ian Phillips, Susan Crane and others Submissions by Mr Phillips 61 Submissions by Mr Crane 69 Submissions by Ms Crane 76 Response from Mr Strachan 79
The Governing Body of Vyners School Submissions by Mr Gardner 84 Response from Mr Strachan 99
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1. CHAIR: Order, order. We’re back this afternoon with HS2 Select Committee, dealing with petitions 728, 717, 730, 729, 724 and 1264. Mr Donovan.
John Donovan, Beryl Upton, Robert Jones-Owen and others (continued)
2. MR DONOVAN: Thank you. Can I have slide A1109(8) up, please? Just before we broke for lunch I was talking about the difficulty already being experienced by people trying to sell property in the Hoylake Crescent area, and I pointed out that there are only eight houses in that rural support zone. During the lunch break, one of the people, who lives at number 154 said that he’d approached HS2 to buy his house. He also spoke to a local estate agent. HS2 said it was worth £25,000 less than the estate agent. He put it on the market with the estate agent. He said four people came to visit and apparently each one of them pulled out after finding out more about HS2. So I think that bears out what I was saying earlier about it’s already becoming difficult to sell houses, and houses are already blighted.
3. If we could go – I think I’ve almost come to the end of what I wanted to say. I just wanted to go back on that point and make sure it was clear to everybody that it’s an increasing problem for people who want to move from Hoylake Crescent. On the Promoter’s response, one of the things they said to me was that my property in Hoylake Crescent, with the work, is unlikely to cause any adverse noise during construction and is unlikely to cause a significant adverse noise effect during operation. I think they’re kind of slightly weasel words, really. ‘Unlikely’ can mean that it’s possible, so it could cause adverse and significant effects. It’s hardly reassuring, and I think brushed away any concerns that people have.
4. Going back slightly, a couple of years, when Philip Hammond was Secretary of State for Transport, he said: ‘Where a project which is in the national interest imposes significant financial loss on individuals, I believe it is right and proper that they should be compensated fairly for that loss.’ And I think it’s only right that should happen in practice.
5. Just a very quick word on the community forums. These were held to inform and answer questions from local people. But they were often unable to do either of those two things. And at the end of the very last community forum meeting we were told, at
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the end of it, that this was going to be the last one. There was no discussion and no advanced warning. After all the meetings that we’ve had, during the last four years or so with HS2, I’m not aware of any concessions that they’ve made to local residents. And I think that’s where I’d like to finish.
6. CHAIR: Who’s on next?
7. MR DONOVAN: Sorry, are you?
8. CHAIR: No, it’ll be three of you together. Three make presentations.
Beryl Upton and others
9. MRS UPTON: I’m Beryl Upton. Like John, I’m to present on behalf of all our neighbours on Hoylake Crescent, Pynchester Close and Copthall Road East. I’m also representing Mr and Mrs Ilott. My petition is personal to me, but it mainly applies if the conveyor built and construction works are built near the back of my garden. I’ve learned a lot about petitioning since I’ve completed my last May, and if I were writing it now it would be very different, and I would have included a lot about the need to protect our countryside, our wildlife, our trees and our valuable greenbelt and environment. I haven’t mentioned it all in my petition, but I do fully support everybody making this request.
10. Life is going to change drastically if construction of HS2 goes ahead, and the impact upon the whole of area would be huge. The environmental statement is flawed. The plans for HS2 have been hastily drawn up on a desktop using aerial maps, without any local knowledge and often with no attempt to visit the areas. Requests by me for a visit from HS2 finally resulted in HS2 representatives visiting my house in March 2014, and I thank them for coming. I, along with several of the petitioners who are here today, took them on a tour of parts of Ickenham, which are particularly close to the planned route, including Brackenbury House, Hoylake Crescent and the green way. I think what they saw was not what they expected to see. But much of Ickenham, although within the M25, is still rural, green, peaceful and unspoilt.
11. My husband and I moved to Ickenham in 1970. It was a lovely place to live and bring up our children. Our house was to be our forever family home. Can I have my
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slide A1108, slide one, please? On the left it shows the area where I live, the area we are presenting. And this bit here is the bit that we’re all – yeah. Thank you. Slide two, please. You’ve seen that map often, but that shows how close Chiltern line is to my house. Slide three, please. That shows the noise levels. And slide four shows the River Pinn as it passes under the Chiltern line bridge, and a view of the riverside walk. Slide five, please. The path behind my garden – that’s that one, the top left. The one to right of that is the cricket club, beginning of match. Bottom left is the golf tee, which will be lost due to the construction and the line. And the one on the right is the path running beside the River Pinn where the conveyor belt will be.
12. I’m one of the so-called lucky home owners whose property is within 120m of the HS2 line, and I therefore quality for compensation under voluntary purchase scheme. But I do not want to sell. I still consider our house to be our forever home. It’s full of lovely memories, but it’s still also a happy place to live in the present. Slide six, please. That shows my home and my garden, which I love. Everything in garden, except the old apple tree, was planted by us and our family. At night it so dark that I can see the stars. It’s also magical to sit with the family watching the bats fly over the garden late into the evening. I’m very aware that the impacts of light pollution by HS2 on the bats, especially during construction, would be particularly detrimental.
13. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I ask you how much background light is there at night now?
14. MRS UPTON: I’m going to show you.
15. MR BELLINGHAM: Thank you. I’m waiting with bated breath.
16. MRS UPTON: Yes, it is dark.
17. MR BELLINGHAM: I must say, it’s a stunning garden.
18. MRS UPTON: Thank you. Where have I got to? I know the Committee will be very pleased to hear that there are newts in my pond, because I know you often miss the newts. The tunnel portal will not be far away from my garden, and the track behind my house will climb high enough to cross the bridges over the River Pinn and Breakspear Road South.
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19. P6749, please. This shows the cross-section of land between Hoylake Crescent and the River Pinn. This is the HS2. Can I have slide seven of mine, please? Which is A1108. If you draw a line level with the top of my roof going horizontally across to HS2, which is – I have actually done – that’s that line there – you’ll see that the track of HS2 is actually slightly higher than the top of my roof. Sorry, it’s bit of a long stretch. That one there.
20. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How often do you stand on your roof and have a look?
21. MRS UPTON: Okay. Quite often, obviously. No, I don’t – garden, I’ll be looking up at that angle. Yes, thank you. There’s going to be a 5m sound barrier. Not a brilliant view from the back of my house when the trees aren’t in leaf. You’ll see that the track is approximately 125m from my back door.
22. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Forgive me, if you were given a choice of not having the sound barrier or having the sound barrier, which would you choose?
23. MRS UPTON: We’ll come to the sound barrier in a minute.
24. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But it isn’t a yes or a no?
25. MRS UPTON: It’s not a yes or a no. The sound barrier could – will look like a Berlin wall. Who knows what’s better. Add to that 5m noise barrier the 5.5m high electric cables, and then the 6m gantries and it will be very high indeed. I’m worried that the noise barriers will not only stop the noise of HS2 trains, but will reflect the noise of the Chiltern line back to me.
26. Since completing my petition I’ve been told by HS2 that the very things I’m requesting in my petition – that’s limited daytime working hours and no weekend working – are not possible because once the boring machine starts work it isn’t good practice to stop it. It will take six months to install the conveyor belts, and for approximately three years two conveyor belts will be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Whilst tunnelling works are being carried out the conveyor belts will cause non-stop noise, vibration, light and air pollution, making the fields behind Hoylake Crescent and my peaceful garden into an almost no-go area, both night and
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day. Certainly not a place of enjoyment. It’s not going to be much better indoors, with all the windows and doors always shut. During the whole of the summer of 2013 Network Rail worked on the Chiltern Line, reinforcing the embankments, and sometimes working from before 7:00 a.m. until after 7:00 p.m. in the evening. So we’ve already had taste of just how awful it could be.
27. I know that air pollution has been covered by many others. I also know that the Government is committed to meeting carbon reduction targets. But I would like to point out that according to Defra’s own models the construction of High Speed 2 will increase emissions of the most dangerous pollutants in Ickenham by up to 40%. However, today my concern is light pollution. Light pollution, which hasn’t been mentioned by many, if any, both during construction and operation is one of the main concerns of residents who live near the line, especially from those whose houses back onto the current Chiltern line in Hoylake Crescent and in the green way. Slide eight, please. Mr Bellingham.
28. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.
29. MRS UPTON: These views were used to explain to HS2 that it really is dark behind my house. You can see how dark it is in my garden, both looking down the garden, and the bottom left hand one is from part-way down the garden looking back at the house.
30. MR BELLINGHAM: And are the street lights – is your street lit?
31. MRS UPTON: The street is lit, but this is looking down the top, so the street lights are behind my house. And there is virtually no street light filtering through.
32. MR BELLINGHAM: It looks very dark.
33. MRS UPTON: And I really can see the stars, because it is so dark. Light from the construction works will change this, although in the environmental statement HS2 states that: ‘At night, continuous lighting is associated with the conveyor is proposed. However, since the foreground is already well lit by…light spill from buildings, effects at night will not be significant.’ This is HS2’s environmental statement. However, my view is no assessment was made of how much light pollution there is currently in this
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area, and no night-time photos were taken.
34. Following my response to the environmental statement I contacted the HS2 enquiry team in January 2014 with various questions. Among those questions I asked about the 24/7 construction work which is planned behind my garden, and pointed out that there should be night-time photographs of the area. My own photos were dismissed as misleading. I was assured that for the night-time assessment it had been assumed that the proposed scheme would not significantly change the existing conditions when viewed from residential properties, because of the light spill from road lights and neighbouring buildings. I was also told that some areas were inaccessible, such as private land and residential buildings. In these instances, professional judgment has been used to approximate the likely views from these locations. I asked who had made these assumptions and judgments, and what qualifications they have to make these assumption when it is clear that they do not know the area at all. As the owner of a residential property, I would welcome HS2 to come into my garden to do an assessment and take their own photographs.
35. My questions have not been answered to my satisfaction. My request for HS2 to provide professional night-time photography has been dismissed as being costly and impractical. HS2 has told me, with regard to night-time photography, the use of handheld cameras can provide misleading results. ‘Photography without flashes portrays an image that is typically considerably darker than that perceived by the human eye. The use of camera flash gives further false portrayal of foreground illumination and produces darker backgrounds.’ This is still HS2: ‘Capturing accurate night-time photography using professional equipment and specialist photographers would have been costly and impractical to achieve along the length of the route and in all locations.’ Again: ‘The approach taken by the environmental statement accords to best practice guidance, and is typical of all major environmental impact assessments undertaken over the past few years.’ This is back to me. Just because this approach is typical, it doesn’t mean that it’s right. I would still welcome HS2 to come to my home and do a proper night-time assessment.
36. Now to the two conveyor belts. You’ll have heard a lot from Phil Taylor, all about how conveyor belts are made and the noise that they make, etc. The conveyor belts would obviously – sorry, covers over the conveyor belts would obviously help to
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reduce the noise, but a simple metal cover wouldn’t make much difference. It would need to be a proper structure with full acoustic lining to achieve any real reduction. Once the conveyors emerge from the cover to offload the spoil then obviously there’s no sound reduction and the full sound can be heard. And this is where most of the machinery is typically located. HS2 Ltd has admitted they have no evidence that they could meet their noise targets for night-time working, and that would be the sub- contractors’ responsibility. I’ve been told by HS2 that any pollution mitigation measures will be dependent on the noise assessment for the area, and the specific equipment used, and that an assessment will be carried out by the contractor before the works commence. This is part of the detailed construction planning, so would take place once the nominated undertaker has been appointed, following Royal Ascent.
37. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How many more pages have you got?
38. MRS UPTON: Sorry, am I going on a bit too long?
39. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You are.
40. MRS UPTON: Two.
41. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Because I – not to put you off, but to anybody else who’s going to speak to us, reading out prepared pages of speeches are far better given to us to read ourselves, which we can do far better, and we stay more lively as we do it. So if you can get through the last two pages, but to others behind you – not necessarily today, but other days – please, don’t come with long pages of prepared speeches. It’s not the best way of us understanding what you’re saying.
42. MRS UPTON: Right, I’m not used to speaking in public, and this is the easiest way for me to remember what I need to say.
43. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Indeed. But for future witnesses, please give us your speeches and talk to them rather than read them all out.
44. MRS UPTON: Right, okay. Right, well basically I’m asking for the conveyor belts to be put in acoustic linings in order to stop the noise, light and dirt. Okay? And I’m also asking for a noise proof building to enclose the end of the conveyors where the spoil will be offloaded and transferred to train tracks. There’s been lots of talk about
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the code of construction practice, and I think that is thrown in to conversations by HS2 at every possible place when they’re not sure what to tell us.
45. Without these mitigation measures I feel I shall be forced to move. I don’t have confidence that HS2 understands the area around our homes, or the disastrous consequences of their plans upon us. Possibly the only real solution is to have a tunnel. And this was where I was about to say ‘and finally’. But then I received HS2’s exhibits. They arrived late, which didn’t help matters – it made me rather cross. But it gave me other things to think about. I was also allowed to send a few more exhibits of my own.
46. P6750, please. Right, if you can move through this exhibit, please. I think there are several pages. It’s about conveyor belts. You can keep going. Next one, next one, please. Suddenly, after being told – no, back again, please. That one. After being told that HS2 wouldn’t know until the contractors have been put in place whether the conveyors were going to have covers or not, suddenly there are pictures of conveyors with covers over them. This hasn’t been mentioned at all in the past, that there would be covers, and there’s no indication of whether they’re acoustic covers or what. And to my mind, these pictures could well have been brought up by Googling ‘conveyor belts’.
47. A1128, please. It’s alright, I’ve only got one more page to go. This is from the environmental statement web archives. If zoom down to the lower bottom corner, please, left-hand. That’s it. In very, very pale pink, all around here.
48. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you point to it.
49. MRS UPTON: Oh, right. You’d reach it better. Thank you. Yes, thank you. There are little, very pale pink crosses, which – and also an area – if you can – just along here, that bit there. If you can – you’ve got a steadier hand. Yes, that, please. That land is marked up as being potentially required during construction. P6751, please. Right, that’s that area again, all along there. Thank you. This land is no longer planned potential but in actually planned construction site. The land is going to be used to divert an electricity cable. Next slide, please. P6752, please. Right, go on to the next page, please. And the next. Right, this – from here there’s this square box and the electricity cable going along to the west. And then it turns right to go under the railway bridge. But also – right, stop right there. Perfect. It’s indicative of a location of a
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diverted sewer. Asking around, nobody has any idea about this diverted sewer.
50. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I just help there, because I’ve noticed that. That should refer to diverted electricity line, and it’s a mistake on the slide rather than anything – so I apologise for the mistake. But the previous slide that you’ve seen is describing the utility diversion, which is an electricity line.
51. MRS UPTON: Yes, I understand that.
52. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well spotted.
53. MRS UPTON: I get a star, thank you. Right, so my next questions were where did this sewer come from and where did it go, but it’s not there at all. Right, A11282, please. These are the photographs of that area, where the electricity cable is going to go, along the path immediately behind my garden. To the top left there’s a fairly large oak tree, and the paths, and it’s all very pleasant out there, very popular with people walking. A11283, please. And there’s the field and the path leading under the railway bridge and the flowers that grow all along there. P6745, please. Right, this is a bit that I’m a bit concerned about. This area here. It’s an area which has been designated to be a landscape mitigation planting. P6760, please.
54. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Do you mean 6770?
55. MRS UPTON: No, 6760 was the one that I was shown.
56. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): This one here?
57. MRS UPTON: I’ve got it written as – okay.
58. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yeah, 6770.
59. MRS UPTON: Sorry.
60. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s alright. We all make mistakes, as you’ve just pointed out.
61. MRS UPTON: This describes that landscape mitigation planting area. If you’d like to read that. A11284, please. This is typical of that sort of habitat that you’ve just seen, which is a landscape designated area. Why is there any need to replant it, why is
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there any need to manage it? I know that HS2 want to put in mitigation for places they’re destroying, but truly this area I don’t think needs replanting.
62. A11285, please. And this really is nearly the end. I’d like my grandchildren to have the chance to continue sowing sunflowers in my greenhouse for many years to come. And now, finally, thank you for your time, and your patience. And thanks to all the other petitioners and residents who have been so supportive. I really don’t want to leave my home. Slide A11089, please. 11089. That’s it. This last slide sums it all up for me. I don’t want to leave my home; I don’t want to leave my garden.
63. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We don’t give rounds of applause, but that’s worth a lot. Well done.
64. MRS UPTON: That will do, thank you.
65. CHAIR: Thank you very much, Mrs Upton.
66. MRS UPTON: Thank you.
67. CHAIR: Good afternoon.
Robert Jones-Owen and others
68. MR JONES-OWEN: Good afternoon. My name is Robert Jones-Owen. And along with 30 neighbours I signed petition number 717. I live in Pynchester Close, which is just a small road of 21 houses off Hoylake Crescent. I moved to Ickenham with my parents in 1960. I spent my teenage years in Copthall Road East not far away. In my 30s I returned to Ickenham with my wife and two small children, and my wife and I have now lived in the area for 34 years.
69. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Let’s just be clear where the focus is. Shall we have a look at P6722?
70. MR JONES-OWEN: I was just going to come to that, but yes, that’s fine.
71. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’ve got it on 6612, but I think it’s the same.
72. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Fine.
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73. MR JONES-OWEN: That’s alright. Thank you. My children grew up in the community, with excellent schools, many voluntary activities going on, and open spaces for them to enjoy. Now, my wife and I are both retired and we continue to enjoy the facilities that our village – and it may be an affectation but we still call it our village – offers. We have no desire to move. The community is strong and vibrant, and now we have the time to enjoy those many walks in the open spaces around the village. And all of us wish to preserve what is good about Ickenham, and we’re appalled at the plans that HS2 has for our community.
74. The population of Pynchester Close is a mixed one of retired and working families, and I’m here to represent the views of my neighbours who’ve signed the petition, and to convey their real concerns. As Beryl and John from Hoylake Crescent have explained, we have worked together, as we share a number of concerns about the construction and running of HS2. Therefore, as they’ve already covered many of the concerns we highlight in our petition, I shall be concentrating on just one issue: traffic. Can I have A1114(2), please?
75. Now, this shows the location of Pynchester Close, just here, and Hoylake Crescent and Breakspear School. Hoylake Crescent leads into Wallasey Crescent and into Copthall Road East, both of which lead onto Swakeleys Road. I think everybody accepts that that is going to be very busy during the construction period, particularly in that peak period that we hear a lot about. Can I have A1114 (3) please? Now, I accept that this is probably out of date, but the numbers change quite frequently. This is the one I was using in preparation for my presentation. The area which many people are particularly concerned about is this stretch of Swakeleys Road, which originally, we thought, in the peak period had 93 HGVs an hour added to it, but now it appears it’s more like 50 or 55. I’m not too sure.
76. But we still contend that during peak periods of traffic movement, traffic will not just build up there, but back up along here and into the village, causing a great deal of congestion for people trying to get through Ickenham. Maybe I could be permitted to make an observation here? I have driven along this road on a number of occasions. I don’t think the problem is the junction with the A40. When you drive along that bit of road, as you get to within about 50 metres of the junction, it opens up into three lanes, and the traffic moves quite freely. The problem is the sheer weight of traffic before
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there. It’s got nothing to do with the functioning of the junction, so you could save a bit of money there in not having that junction looked at, but I am pleased that the other junctions are being looked at. That is a positive move.
77. Can I have slide A1114(4), please? Now, this slide, I hope, gives the wider context. On a weekday morning, traffic moves primarily – as I think everybody is now aware – from north to south through Ickenham. There are many queues. Three times a week I drive north, thankfully, and I pass queues in this area here of Ruislip as they try to get onto Ickenham High Road. That’s at 10 past seven in the morning. We content that HS2’s idea that the rush hour for Ickenham is just one hour between eight and nine is quite wrong. As the morning wears on, traffic builds up, because there are junctions and traffic control lights along this stretch of road before it gets to the junction with Swakeleys Road here. We think it’s going to be made worse again; not, perhaps, through the whole of the 10-year period, but certainly a significant period where traffic is trying to enter the Northorpe Tunnel portal site here at West Ruislip, as heavy goods vehicles try to get in and try to get out. I assume there’ll be some sort of traffic control mechanism, so the traffic is going to build up in this area.
78. We’re also very sceptical about HS2’s claim that as congestion builds up, people will find alternative routes. I can only go on personal anecdote, but my son drives from Eastcote – up here – through Ickenham to do what thousands of other people to do: try to get to work via the A40 and the M25. He leaves at 6.50 in the morning, and still doesn’t entirely avoid the queues. If he could find an alternative route, I’m sure he would. Where are these alternatives? Surely commuters would be using them now to avoid the congestion in Ickenham; we already hear that some of those roads are above capacity. Some commuters may be tempted to try to get to the A40 down West End Road, or Victoria Road, but they are going to be stymied by the Victoria Road vents that have to be constructed, and also by possible service realignments on West End Road.
79. Now, we understand from the literature published so far, and from our recent PRD meeting, that it would be not necessary to close Breakspear Road South, which is one of the feeder roads, as it crosses the Chiltern line there and a new bridge is put in. We were reassured at our PRD meeting it would be no longer necessary to close the road, although that had featured as a possibility in the draft environmental statement. Can I have P6621, please? Now, in my pack which I received on Thursday, I discovered the
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extent of the utilities that pass along Breakspear Road South under the current bridge that takes the Chiltern railway and then moves up towards Harefield. I think, by the way, that’s the sewer that seems to have shifted to this location on the photograph. Now, as a layman, I find it impressive that it won’t be necessary to close Breakspear Road when the necessary service realignments are made. The foul sewer that needs to be constructed passes here, under Breakspear Road South.
80. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is it a similar one, or is this another one?
81. MR JONES-OWEN: I don’t know. They keep appearing.
82. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is it the same one?
83. MR JONES-OWEN: Perhaps we’ll be enlightened. Now, I assume it may be possible to have a road diversion there, as the land is purchased either side; to reroute the road. But, clearly, it’s not just the sewer that’s got to go in there. There are lots of other services that apparently have to be realigned. Even if there’s just signalling there, people will find other routes to get to the A40, and I think I know which way they’ll be coming. They’ll be coming along Ickenham High Road, Long Lane, or Swakeleys Road. Traffic in Ickenham will come to a standstill. When there are road works along Breakspear Road or accidents, Ickenham fills up very, very quickly. Mr Taylor, on Thursday, made a point about realignment of services at West Ruislip. If they should coincide, I think we know what might happen.
84. While I have this slide here, I would just like to get some understanding of whether it will be possible as a resident and as a walker to walk along this stretch of land between the land acquired by HS2 and the back of the houses in Hoylake Crescent. That would be useful to know. Thank you.
85. Now, a very particular concern in Hoylake Crescent and Pynchester Close with regard to traffic – and, indeed, Copthall Road East and Wallasey Crescent – is the fact that as the traffic becomes ever more congested, we shall find it difficult to exit onto Swakeleys Road. The problem is exacerbated in the morning and early afternoon by the location of Brakespear School. Can I have A1114(2), please? Breakspear School is located here. Parents bring their children in large numbers by car along Copthall Road and Wallasey, and drop their children off either in Hoylake or in Bushey Road. I need
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to reinforce, I think, Mrs Hobday’s evidence that she gave to you on Thursday – she’s the chairwoman of the governors at Breakspear – when she expressed real concern about pupils and teachers getting to school on time. Busy parents drive many of the parents to school. They find it then difficult to exit Copthall Road East here, or Wallasey Crescent here.
86. If I could have A1114(5), please? Just a couple of photographs of traffic, which we all like so much. The first one shows the view down Hoylake Crescent South. This was taken about 20 past three in the afternoon, as parents come to pick up their children. The second photograph is the intersection of Copthall Road East, looking forward; Wallasey to the right, and Hoylake Crescent to the left. If I could have the same photograph, please? (6)? That is a queue of traffic exiting Wallasey Crescent on an afternoon when Swakeleys Road was flowing freely. With added traffic on Swakeleys Road, the queues waiting to exit Wallasey and Copthall Road East will be much longer.
87. Another traffic concern we have concerns buses; in particular, the U1. That’s a particular concern to some of our elderly residents. At the moment, it’s a journey that should take about 30 minutes from Ruislip to Uxbridge. It’s a five-mile journey; it often takes 45 minutes. In the rush hour, it can take an hour, and we’re fearful that such journey times will be even longer once hundreds of HS2’s HGVs hit our roads. Now, the PRD stated that with regard to local buses – when we raised this issue – in a few cases, there may be permanent changes to bus routes. And here, the nominated undertaker will work with local authorities and transport operators to develop suitable alternative arrangements. Now, if one lives in Ickenham and has to travel to Uxbridge or Ruislip, where will the alternative bus routes run? There really aren’t any, and that is a very great concern.
88. Another major transport concern is the accessibility of emergency services. Could I have A1114(4), please? HS2 have tried to reassure us in the PRD that there will be dialogue between contractors and local emergency services, and as you can understand, we’re very relieved at that. That’s a positive move. Nevertheless, we are still very concerned – and, I think, particularly during that peak period of construction – that response times for emergency services could be adversely affected. Of particular concern will be our fire station, which is in Bury Street, just up here by Ruislip Lido. So if there’s a fire at my property in Ickenham, I would expect the fire engine to come
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down Breakspear Road and into Ickenham, or into here and take the high street into Ickenham that way. Whichever way they choose during that peak period, if I have a fire at the rush hour, I think I may be in trouble.
89. Now, to give you a flavour of some of the concerns of my neighbours who’ve signed the petition, I’d just like to mention very quickly one or two concerns. There are some elderly residents in the road. They’ve lived there since the road was built in the 1950s. One of them is particularly concerned about getting to medical appointments at Hillingdon Hospital, and to the Uxbridge Medical Centre, on time. Especially, she often relies on buses. Problems already exist; with HGVs on the road in greater numbers, it’s not going to get any better. One of my neighbours works at Stockley Park, near Heathrow. It takes longer to drive to the A40 than to get from the A40 to Stockley Park. It’s a very difficult journey during the rush hour.
90. A number of our neighbours have children who attend Vyners School, the other side of Ickenham. The children walk or cycle, and their parents are very concerned about the safety of their children once the HS2 construction project is underway. Adult cyclists and pedestrians also have safety concerns. One young mother has to take her daughter to nursery before catching a train into London four days a week. She’s afraid that with further traffic on the roads, this will become ever more difficult. She may well end up late for work. And one of my neighbours runs a small electrical contracting business in the Ickenham and surrounding areas. He regularly drives to and from clients and wholesalers around the area; it’s an essential part of work, and he’s hampered – often severely – by local traffic problems. When he’s undertaking several small jobs, this can become serious and affect the number of clients he can get to in the day. In turn, that has an impact on his income. He’s fearful that HS2 construction work will make it more difficult to run his business.
91. I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate my neighbours’ concerns. It’s not just about the inconvenience of a longer journey; it really is about the impact on the healthcare of elderly neighbours, the safety of children and adults on the roads, and the impact on people’s ability to earn a living. We agree with Hillingdon Council that the environmental assessment does not take into account impacts to businesses from congestion.
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92. Mitigation: now, the petitioners in Pynchester Close – and, I’m sure, in neighbouring roads –.want to preserve all that is good in our community, now and well into the future. Our best hope for effective mitigation is clearly an extension to the tunnel. If that is not forthcoming, we honestly cannot see much that can be done. We shall just have to grin and bear it for the greater good. However, in the spirit of trying to be positive, and in the face of a decade of disruption to our lives, we would ask for, firstly, movement of lorries to begin after nine o’clock in the morning, and for lorries to avoid the evening rush hours. Secondly, to avoid using Swakeleys Road for HGV movements at the time that the school day finishes, so that excessive build-up of traffic is avoided and road safety for pedestrians and cyclists is maintained.
93. And thirdly –and this is one that I feel I shouldn’t have to say – since I’ve been attending these meetings over the last few days, there really needs to be proper consultation and liaison between HS2, its contractors, and the London Borough of Hillingdon; now, during the planning stages, and later, during the execution of the planned work. We have been very concerned at recent PRD meetings to hear HS2 representatives asserting that Hillingdon Council has, in effect, been wasting our money by commissioning a report from tunnelling engineers. In my own meeting, I was informed that Hillingdon Council seems to think that HS2 has a magic wand. Now, from my perspective, such comments suggest a lack of respect for our council, and if there are to be meaningful discussions, that has to change. We hear a lot about traffic management plans. If they’re going to be effective, there has to be proper dialogue, and I for one should like to put on record that I’m very pleased that our council is spending resources now in the hope that the community and economy of this part of West London is not damaged beyond repair. Thank you.
94. CHAIR: Mr Strachan? If the bell rings, and there’s a division, I’ll just say ‘Order, order’, and we’ll disappear for 15 minutes.
95. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): You’ve heard from a number of petitioners in the area. Can I just give you the context, again? I’m going to show P6742 first, just to locate ourselves in relation to Mrs Upton’s property, which is shown in red. Pynchester Close, as you’ve just heard, is just below, and then Mr Donovan is in a property in this location on Hoylake Crescent, and of course there are a number of Hoylake Crescent residents affected. Could I just show you P6743, please, which is the aerial photograph?
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Again, the area in red is Mrs Upton’s property, and the photographs you were looking at of her garden are obviously in the garden that stretches behind her property towards the Chiltern main line, and Pynchester Close, again, is shown to the south.
96. Now, just in terms of cross-sections and what we were showing earlier, there was a question raised by Mr Donovan on one of them. Can I show you P6706 first? As the Committee will appreciate, depending on which petitioners’ raised an issue, we try to provide representatives cross-sections. This, I think, is in fact more Mr Donovan’s property. We’ve got similar ones for Mrs Upton. If you could go to P6707, that shows the effect of the cross-section from Mr Donovan’s property. This is during construction, and we’re seeking just to give an illustration of the locations of the traffic route and the excavated material conveyor during construction, and its relationship with Hoylake Crescent.
97. I think the question that arose is on P6617. If you’d just go to that, briefly? One question raised on this particular cross-section, which is actually taken from Pynchester Close – we see Pynchester Close on the left, and at this stage, if you go right over to the other side, there are two 2.4 metre fences in the cross-section, and if we go back one slide to P6616, those are marking within the site area areas of working. If you just look at annotation 1B, on the other side of the railway, in that location there’s the Ickenham stream canal feeder diversion, so all that’s showing is site hoardings within the working site separating site boundaries. I think an explanation was asked for about that.
98. And if I can just show you the operational position, on P6619? I think this is the only of the cross-sections where this crops up. In fact, if I just point to the cursor there, you’ll see there’s a noise barrier in place. It’s said to be 3 metres; that is a 5 metre noise barrier, as you can see a reference to the train. So the notation at that point, where it says ‘Noise barrier, 3 metres’, is an error on the slide. That should be five metres, and you can see that when we go to the noise effects. I’ll just take you, if I may, to P6755. These maps, in the environmental statement, will be familiar to you. These are showing the noise contours. This one’s taken from Mrs Upton’s property, but you’ll see, just to the north, the noise barrier in this location is five metres on the southern side and 3 metres on the northern side, so it is a 5 metre noise barrier.
99. And this environmental statement modelling showed the lighter orangey-brown
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area, and the revised noise modelling results that we’ve produced subsequently, at P6768 – sorry, I just have to move around with these slides. Sorry, that’s the explanation of the 5 metre noise barrier being modelled. P6769 follows on from this. You see Mrs Upton’s property in red, and as a result of the 5 metre noise barrier in place, there is an improvement – which is the improvement I was talking about earlier today – to the noise environment in Hoylake Crescent, which is the result of the 5 metre noise barrier. You might be able to zoom in. That’s great; thank you very much. The darker orange has receded back towards the railway as a result of the 5 metre noise barrier, and the properties in Hoylake Crescent that are affected are in the lighter yellow colour. You will recall I was talking about the greenway earlier, where that isn’t the effect? It’s in Hoylake Crescent where that benefit of the 5 metre noise barrier is felt, and has been properly modelled.
100. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, just – where it says ‘3 metre’ again there, is that on the same side as the…
101. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s on the other side.
102. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s on the other side.
103. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Sorry, it’s five metres…
104. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Five metres continuous on the southern side?
105. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Five metres continuous on the southern side, and that hadn’t been put into the noise modelling. Three metres on the other side. Just in case – for the avoidance of doubt, when I referred to The Greenway…
106. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It doesn’t change it for –
107. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think, if anything, the darker orange comes slightly further south, so, if anything, The Greenway is slightly more affected, simply because the line is sinking down and the noise barrier is going with it, and that’s the revised modelling as shown. But it’s not materially different, I hope. You know, I’ve explained that. And so – that’s the overall position and – in relation to Hoylake Crescent, both during construction and operation. Now a number of questions have been asked about the conveyors.
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108. CHAIR: Can we just finish with the noise barrier. Mrs Upton raised the issue of whether it would like sightly, unsightly, well designed, and – do we have any more information on that?
109. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, clearly the idea is to make it blend into the environment. Of course, it’s a structure designed to absorb noise and is five metres in height, so it is a structure which is of relatively high size. But the detailed design of that is intended to address the visual effects of it.
110. And I think it may be a help to just remind one of the effect on Mrs Upton’s property, because you recall, we looked at photographs of her property with a very attractive garden and planting which she’s put in. In terms of the cross-section, it shouldn’t – I’ll just give you the cross-section from her garden, P6749. These cross-sections – the red lines are taken from the top of the property. In reality of course, any one, and Mrs Upton in her garden, will be lower down. There is a – they are quite light on this, but there is an effort to show existing vegetation; you’ve seen it in the photographs, there’s quite a lot of vegetation and trees within Mrs Upton’s garden. Of course, as is the nature of trees, the effects of the trees vary during the seasons, so there’s less screening during the winter, but certainly, from this perspective, the only likely visual effect is going to be some views of the top of the noise barrier, if one’s standing in the garden. It will depend precisely where you are. Subject to the existing vegetation. So, we don’t anticipate any significant visual effect for Mrs Upton in her garden, which we hope she’ll continue to enjoy, if she chooses to remain there.
111. Mrs Upton, as she’s identified, is in fact, because of the proximity of the line, within the rural support zone, and so she does have the ability, and I appreciate she’s keen to stay, but that she does have the ability, if she found the position that she wanted to leave, because of the location she’s in, she’s able to exercise that. But certainly, from what we’re showing and I endeavour to give you some idea, both in terms of the noise environment, and also the visual environment, we consider – we hope that she’ll see, from what we’re showing, that it is not a significant effect on the enjoyment of her garden, and her existing planting. And in all of these cases that you’ve heard today, this isn’t a situation where HS2 is taking land for the scheme, and it is seeking to mitigate the effects of the scheme both visually, and in noise terms, with noise barriers and various planting areas that we’ve looked at.
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112. So, can I – that’s noise. Can I just deal with the conveyors because Mrs Upton in particular, has raised an issue about the conveyors and the concern about what they will look like, what they will sound like or the air quality. We haven’t sought to give information about those and I don’t know the Committee will require it, but Mr Smart can certainly offer further information on the conveyors, but the general view that’s shown is that the conveyors will be at those low levels we’ve seen in the cross-sections, they’re not elevated in this area.
113. The question of lighting arose, and that’s covered by the Code of Construction Practice. I would emphasise, that the Code of Construction Practice is not just any old document; it is actually, an important document which sets out a number of practices which will have to be adopted in the construction of this scheme, to ensure construction effects are properly mitigated and site lighting is one of the things that is specifically covered, because people are concerned obviously, about the way sites are lit at night, and paragraph 5.4 specifically identifies the need for any lighting that is on sites, to be positioned and directed so as not to unnecessarily intrude on adjacent buildings, ecological receptors – bats of course, being one, structures used by protected species and other lands to prevent unnecessary disturbance with a whole range of people, local residents etc.
114. This provision will apply particular to sites where night working will be required and so the specific specifications for site lighting and the control of light pollution and light spill are types of lighting that you use, which is covered in the Code of Construction Practice, and will be applied in this case. We don’t actually anticipate significant site lighting of the conveyors in this location, because, as you’ll appreciate, they’re just carrying material from the tunnelling machine, but where there is lighting in any of the construction sites, these principles will apply to ensure it’s kept to the bare minimum. And indeed, there’s reference to using lighting which only comes on when it’s necessary to go and inspect in particular areas. So, I hope that provides Mrs Upton with some degree of assurance.
115. CHAIR: And when the railway’s operational, there are no lights from it?
116. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): There’s no lights from it. Indeed, I think we’ve looked at that in other locations. So, as I’ve said, Mr Smart can provide further details
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of how the conveyors operate, but I’m conscious the Committee’s probably looked at that already last week.
117. There are a number of other miscellaneous things which were raised. Public rights of way, again, I know we were going to look at that perhaps, in more detail when another petitioner comes to look at all of the public rights of way in this location, but in answer to Mr Jones-Owen’s question, there are some temporary diversions of public rights of way in this location. He asked about the right of way that exists to the north of Hoylake Crescent and I think he may not have seen, but in the residents’ standard pack of exhibits that he will have received, there are details of what’s proposed in the additional provision for the public rights of way network and P6247, if we can have it on screen, and the Committee, I think, has looked at this last week, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it will provide some assistance to Mr Jones-Owen about what is proposed in this location. You can see, he was pointing to a footpath, U47, and the idea, under this additional provision, is to keep the footpath going, but there is a temporary diversion, to enable the construction to take place and, for a time, it goes underneath Breakspear Road South, but the specific area he was concerned about, will continue to walk upon, is provided for in this slide.
118. The emergency services, the Committee will be aware that part of the process of arranging construction traffic in this area involves consultation with the emergency services, and we don’t anticipate any material effect on emergency services from what we’re proposing but of course, I emphasise, it does also involve consultation with the London Borough of Hillingdon, as the authority responsible for traffic in this area, and the Committee is very familiar with the traffic management plans that will be arranged.
119. On that note, yes we do anticipate full consultation and engagement with the London Borough of Hillingdon, in relation to construction traffic. There’s obviously been a difference of view about other issues, such as the tunnel, which is maybe what Mr Jones-Owen is referring to, and there are different views, the London Borough of Hillingdon and the promoter, but we certainly, would not anticipate that, in full and frank and productive discussions about how to manage traffic in the area and all the other range of things that should be agreed with the local authority. So, I hope I’ve covered most of the topic. I’m very happy to answer any other points the Committee has.
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120. CHAIR: And the conveyor, sorry did I miss that? There is soundproofing –?
121. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The precise design of the conveyors, again, hasn’t been fixed, but it is possible to have those covered conveyors. The noise source, as I think you were hearing last week, is principally from the drive parts of the conveyor, and we looked at the generation noise from those parts and how, although there’s noise if you’re very close to them, the noise generated further away, has been part of the Environmental Statement assessment, so we don’t anticipate a material noise effects, certainly to these properties from the conveyor. The noise assessments include the effects of the conveyor and the tunnel boring activities in this location. But, Mr Smart is here, if there are any specific questions about the use of conveyors and how they’re designed, and he’ll be very happy to answer those questions.
122. The utility diversions, I should – I’ve already pointed out; it’s just an error of description on the slide itself, there is a utility diversion as we’ve identified, it’s just it’s an electricity diversion and you’ve heard about utility diversions more generally and there’s a set of slides which explain, how, as happens frequently throughout any urban area, utility works do occur but the idea is to minimise the effects on any diversions by regulating traffic. By allowing traffic to continue to flow, albeit subject to some restrictions. But these are generally speaking, short term utility type diversions of the type you see in streets from day to day. So, I think – unless there are any other points, that’s what I wanted to say.
123. MR DONOVAN: So, sorry, are you saying the barrier will be five metres the entire length? With three metre noise barrier to the north of the HS2 line?
124. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. And I say the entire length, the entire length that we’re dealing with here, it moves back down again to three metres I think further west, but in the areas what we were talking about…
125. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So it’s come up to surface level?
126. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It comes up and the – as it comes up to surface level, there’s a five metre noise barrier which runs along this section all the way long to the Hoylake Crescent part that we were discussing.
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127. MR DONOVAN: Can we just call up P6397 please? Is that 6397? Sorry, the second bullet point down, says, ‘A review of the proposals has shown that the five metre barrier was modelled inaccurately which resulted in the predicted noise attenuation being lower than it should be’. The third bullet point says, ‘The noise assessment has been remodelled with the barrier at the correct height’, but it doesn’t say what the correct height is.
128. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Five metres.
129. MR DONOVAN: Fine. So, if you then go down to bullet point four, ‘Although this is still identified as a significant community noise effect, around 100 homes will no longer be adversely effected, including those, for example, those in Copthall Road West. If you call up A1109(3), I think you’ll see that Copthall Road West is quite some distance away from the line anyway.
130. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think there’s a discussion about noise contours, which we went through earlier, and I think if it remains an issue, perhaps you could talk with someone in the corridor outside who can take you through it please.
131. MR DONOVAN: Alright.
132. CHAIR: These barriers costs hundreds of thousands of pounds and will add to the maintenance of the line, but it seems that if at the correct height, this barrier is doing its job, then it’s taken out about half the houses which are affected by noise, so hopefully, that’s a good improvement.
133. MR DONOVAN: But nevertheless, it will still be noise that isn’t there at the moment.
134. CHAIR: There will be noise, yes. The other point Mrs Upton made was would the barrier reflect sound from the Chiltern Line back; it may do or may not do?
135. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It won’t do and that’s – and there are two reasons for that: one is, it can be noise absorptive on both sides and the other of course, is that a train passing in front of the – or alongside the barrier itself acts as a barrier.
136. CHAIR: So it’s self-reflecting.
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137. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So it’s not noise propagating out to any material degree. But it is a point that Mrs Upton raised and we did check and the noise assessments that we are showing are ones which recognise the presence of the barrier in that location with the Chiltern Mainline there.
138. CHAIR: I suspect, Mrs Upton, you’ll hear the Chiltern Line more than you’ll hear the machinery in the background.
139. MRS UPTON: Can I say a few more words?
140. CHAIR: Brief final comment.
141. MRS UPTON: Sir Peter asked about whether I’d prefer a noise barrier or the noise. When we had our PID meeting with HS2 a few weeks ago, it was suggested that the noise barrier is still to be designed, and it was suggested that it could even be transparent or translucent. I don’t know if you know about transparent noise barriers, but if it’s possible to have a transparent noise barrier then that would be preferable to a Berlin wall, but I’m a bit concerned that bats and birds would go crashing into it, so you know, it’s a no win situation really.
142. CHAIR: We have, in the past, Mrs Upton, had some slides on noise barriers. The technology is moving on, they can be designed to be the most suitable type for a particular location and I think all they would try to point out is that as technology moves on, you’ll get the appropriate noise barrier, hopefully with some screening as well.
143. MRS UPTON: Okay. And the other thing was the lighting. I’m still not 100% convinced that the works aren’t going, if they’re 24 hours a day, I’m not convinced that there isn’t going to be some lighting effect.
144. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I did say there may be some lighting, but the effect of the lighting is going to be carefully controlled under the Code of Construction Practice.
145. CHAIR: You’re going to get some light, Mrs Upton, I’m afraid, but hopefully, not for a long period.
146. MRS UPTON: Yes, it was disappointing to be dismissed as my photographs
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were.
147. CHAIR: No, they’re lovely photographs. Mr Jones-Owen, any final points?
148. MR JONES-OWEN: Yes, the utility diversion, the Environmental Statement talks about the National Grid, gas main, west of Breakspear Road South bridge, two, Thames water sewerage sewers in Breakspear Road South, SSE, kilowatts, overhead and buried lines, BT Openreach, overhead and underground lines, National Grid, gas mains buried in Breakspear Road South. Additionally, protection of an affinity cast iron water main in the vicinity of the pharmaceutical facility. This is more than just occasional road works and diversions. I admire you confidence that they can be done with a limited amount of –
149. CHAIR: Final comment on that, Mr Strachan?
150. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): There is a mixture of works that are required, some of what’s been referred to is a monitoring of existing utilities, some are diversions, they have all been taken into account in the material that’s being produced, they’re recognised that they’re there, and works have been planned accordingly, and identified in the Environmental Statement as part of the construction programme, so this is stuff which those behind me are well aware of, and are well aware of how to deal with them, in the timeframes that have been identified in the Environmental Statement.
151. MR JONES-OWEN: Can I just ask, supplementary – will they occur before that peak period of construction has been identified?
152. CHAIR: A lot of nodding going on.
153. MR JONES-OWEN: Thank you. I’ll take that as a yes.
154. CHAIR: I think it’s useful to raise these issues because clearly, these knotty issues of works and that are going to have a big impact on the community. Thank you to all three of you.
155. MR MEARNS: Just for your information, Mrs Upton, the Berlin wall was only three point six metres high –
156. MR BELLINGHAM: With an electric fence on top.
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157. CHAIR: Right, we now move onto petition 715, Kirsty Gibbs and others. We may be about to divide, so if you could take your seat. Let’s just see if we have a vote. Order, order, I adjourn for 15 minutes as we go and vote on the European Union Finance Bill Committee Clause II.
Sitting suspended.
On resuming –
158. CHAIR: Order, order. Thank you very much everybody for being patient. Kirsty Gibbs.
Kirsty Gibbs and others
159. MS GIBBS: Hello again, everyone. I want to thank the members of the Committee for your time today, and the many, many, many other days you have devoted to hearing so much information about the impact of HS2 on various communities along the proposed route. I’m Kirsty Gibbs, and I live in Wallasey Crescent, Ickenham. So, my first slide, which is A1107(2) please.
160. Right, so this slide shows the map where Wallasey Crescent is. The red spot on the map is approximately where my house is. My house is the one shown there with the yellow brick wall. I’m showing you this map to highlight the fact that our road, as it’s names suggests, is part of a larger crescent. In Ickenham, you either live on a rat run, or some kind of cul-de-sac.
161. Because of the river and the open space, so many roads in Ickenham don’t really go anywhere. Most people have to use either Swakeleys Road – I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s the map B467, Breakspear Road South, Harvil Road or Ickenham High Road, to drive to any destination. Today, I don’t plan to be speaking for very long, I’m sure you’re pleased to hear that, and I will not be using any technical language, as many people much more informed than myself, have already done that.
162. The promoter has, very, very recently changed information, which I haven’t been able to reflect very much in my presentation; I was too busy this last weekend, celebrating my son’s fifth birthday party with 45 children.
163. CHAIR: Forty five?
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164. MS GIBBS: Forty five.
165. CHAIR: Well, this is nothing compared to that.
166. MS GIBBS: I’m going to speed through some things which I realise have already been mentioned many times, to save you having to hear it all again, therefore, this is a very personal presentation, but for the record, I fully support London Borough of Hillingdon’s tunnel plan, and I urge you to not dismiss it without further investigation please.
167. So the next slide, number three. As I already mentioned, I live in Wallasey Crescent, Ickenham. This shows the day we moved in, in July 2010, all looking very happy, small children. We’d previously lived in Harefield which we do love, as it’s a very tranquil and beautiful place, currently. We only moved from Harefield to Ickenham, as so many of our friends reside in Ickenham. At the time we moved in 2010, we had no idea about HS2. It certainly wasn’t mentioned in any surveys or reports that are part of the house buying and selling process.
168. I first became aware of HS2 in 2010, early 2011. I assumed it wouldn’t have any impact on our lives. I thought it couldn’t be that close to Ickenham, as I would have been informed at the time we bought the house.
169. So, just out of mild curiosity, I went along to HS2’s road show presentation at Winston Churchill Hall in Ruislip in March 2011. At this point, the reality of the future started to become a little clearer, although I did find that any questions I asked of HS2 staff would often be answered with, ‘We’ll have to come back to you on that one’, or ‘Obviously, the finer details of the design need to be worked on’. This is a theme which has come sadly very familiar. Next slide, number four please.
170. Right, so this set of photographs shows one of the many reasons why our family and so many other families love Ickenham. These pictures are from Ickenham festival last year. It’s a wonderful event that happens every other year where the whole village comes together. There is a whole week crammed with activities, such as open gardens, teddy bear picnics, fun sports on the fields etc. It all ends with a grand festival weekend, a giant old style village fair, music night with fireworks, and a duck race.
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171. I just want to clarify that, like many photomontages you would have seen, relating to the different communities along the line, I do understand that I’m showing the best view of Ickenham. This is its nicest look. But apart from a very wide angled camera lens on the river shot, there is no artist’s impressions or manipulation in any of these images. So, next slide please.
172. I’m sorry to mention this, and I’ll be as brief as possible, but traffic. Another map, lots of red dots. Wallasey Crescent and our house is one red dot, I think we’ve already seen where that is. The other dots are to indicate places where we go very, very regularly. The children’s current school, the Breakspear School is the dot off Bushey Road, thank you. The school has entrances from both Hoylake Crescent and Bush Road.
173. I just want to say that I was here last Thursday when you heard very briefly, from one of the governors, Mrs Hobday. It’s a shame she didn’t have more time to discuss the school and how we feel HS2 will actually affect it. It’s quite obvious that during the busiest construction phase, pupils and teachers will be battling to get to school through the construction traffic. I know Rob mentioned it earlier, but we’re obviously in a crescent, and yet we have an informal one way system that the school and the pupils and the families have built up over the all years, because we all recognise the fact that if we don’t work together, you can’t get in and out of school. So, although it’s not anywhere written down, it’s not legal need, just as a thing that we do, we recognise that you go in one way, come out the other. Otherwise, you’re just gridlock.
174. I’m very fortunate myself to live very close to the school. However, many other families do have to drive to school and the current just school run traffic clogs up the very immediate roads around us, every day from, 8.15 to 9.15. If there’s any sort of incident on Swakeleys Road, or the roads that lead up to the school, it becomes horrendous. Large lorries at school run times are a nightmare. I personally made a public apology in the playground two years ago, when a skip lorry, delivering to our house, held up traffic for 10 minutes. And the death stares I got from the parents – because just one skip lorry trying to turn in, it’s a nightmare.
175. Once the train is actually running, the sound maps show the school is just outside of any noise effects. I recognise that today we’ve been discussing how these barriers are
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now higher; maybe it’s a little bit more just outside. I hope the sound maps are correct. What happens if they’re not? Children who are currently very fortunate to be educated in a quiet geographical area will have that taken away from them.
176. So, back to my red dots. Some of the other ones are where I take my daughter to dance class, or to Brownies, and when my son is older, he’ll be going to Cubs and Scouts, and the furthest dot away is where Vyners school is which we hope our children go to for their secondary education. All these places are in walking distance and we do walk whenever it’s possible. However, it’s very useful sometimes, to just pop to places in the car, particularly, when you’re trying to get a child to ballet which starts in five minutes. For many other residents of Wallasey Crescent, walking isn’t an option. Therefore, the additional – I had 93 lorries, I do appreciate that maybe that has changed, but the additional lorries per hour on both sides of Swakeleys Road, during the peak construction time of HS2 will make many people who aren’t able to walk places, virtual prisoners in their own homes, or the immediate streets around us; going to the village shops, the many clubs in the village, or the churches in a car will be very difficult. There are elderly people in our road that have Meals on Wheels, or need carers to visit them. These services will be also affected by the traffic.
177. In Wallasey Crescent, we have a medical centre and a chiropodist, which other Ickenham residents do drive to, so stating again the obvious, the traffic congestion will cause problems.
178. My other concerns with the HGVs is the affect they will have on the air quality. As I said earlier, I’m not going to be technical, but just as a mum, I’m clearly worried about the quality of the air my children will be breathing in daily as they walk to school. Particularly as they get older, and the route to Vyners means crossing over the Swakeleys Road. If I could have the next slide please.
179. So, this picture might seem to have come out of – where? Why am I suddenly showing the crematorium? I really wanted to draw your attention to another local facility that we don’t really every want to visit, but sadly we have to. I’ve taken this image from Breakspear Crematorium’s own website. The only adjustment I’ve done is to highlight in red, both on the map and in the written directions, the way that the crematorium actually tell people to get to them if you need to visit.
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180. I do realise that the actual crematorium itself, is not directly on any construction routes, so therefore possibly doesn’t seem an issue to the promoter. However, you can see that the route people from Ickenham and beyond use, to get to the crematorium is the same route that many of the HGVs will also be using. So when you’re dealing with extreme sadness, loss and grief, you have to make sure that you allow enough time to negotiate with the HGVs to get to the crematorium.
181. CHAIR: You are the second person to say that.
182. MS GIBBS: Second person?
183. CHAIR: Yes. It’s been mentioned once before.
184. MS GIBBS: I’m glad someone else has mentioned it. Thank you. So, the next slide please.
185. Right. So, my petition, I mentioned in the one line, my concerns for the wildlife in the area, so I was pleased that in my PRD, there was a couple of pages from the promoter, about their plans for wildlife, especially the owls and the bats, hence the picture. It’s great that it appears so much time, effort and money is devoted to ensuring protection of wildlife. They should be looked after and they should be treated as well as possible. Can I have the next slide please?
186. However, Fern and Leo, my children, are the most precious things to me. I’m here as their mum, but also I represent all the other families in Ickenham. After 10 years of construction, our children’s future, health, safety and everyday life is going to be disrupted. In my very humble opinion, there does not appear to be enough thought being put in by the promoter, on detailed plans that work to ensure their childhood is happy.
187. So, referring back to the information received in my PRD, I’m concerned that there are so many unanswered questions that will mean a very uncertain future for my children and other children in the area. Next slide please.
188. Just to sort of clarify this a little bit; obviously I do appreciate this is from the ES, and the promoter is saying things have changed and time scales are a little different, but with the information I had at the time, I made this slide up. This is showing 10 years of
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disruption for our area. This is my children’s informative years. They go from six and nine through to 17 and 20 in this timeframe. Only very recently, as I said, we learnt the promoter is adjusting their plans on traffic and construction in our area, but it’s still going to be gridlock for a good few years. Next slide, please.
189. I haven’t shown pictures of real cars in any sort of traffic jams, or real trains, but I’m here today as Fern and Leo’s mummy. I’m fighting for their future. They want to walk or cycle to school safely, use our local facilities, visit HOAC. Sadly, the promoter’s current plan makes their everyday lives and those of their friends, very different to what we had planned when we moved to Ickenham. As very scary as this whole process is, I really want to show you, that it’s not just the retired community who are concerned about HS2. The younger families are as well. They don’t all have the time needed to get so directly involved. I was fortunate enough to be able to come today, so we are all very grateful to the older generation that have put so many very many hours into looking at the detail, to help us understand it.
190. Now, my darling children here. As the mum of these two children, I very often have to referee their heated disagreements. I realise that just because the older one is more eloquent in her arguments, it’s not fair that she should always get her way, every time. As a Committee, I know you’re having to scrutinise every inch of the line, and I appreciate many other areas are also asking for tunnels. The promoter has been very eloquent in suggesting that the London Borough of Hillingdon’s tunnel option isn’t viable financially, and it won’t be the magic wand to fix the traffic problems. I am clearly not qualified to argue that it will be the right solution, but please can the tunnel option really be looked into and not just dismissed. Thank you.
191. CHAIR: Okay. Very good presentation. Well done. Mr Strachan. You can’t match that, can you?
192. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’m not going to try. So, all I – I wasn’t going to spend any time looking at slides, I just wanted to – because the issue of traffic and the effect of the traffic in terms of duration has been raised again, I just wanted to refer Ms Gibbs back to the phasing slides that I put up and showed earlier on today. It is important, I think to understand that although there’s 10 year construction programme for HS2 itself, there’s seven years I’ve identified where there is no traffic, no HGV
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traffic travelling along the roads of most concern to Ms Gibbs. And I don’t put the slides back up on the screen; we have sought to identify the peak period of activities. There is peak period of activities, but it’s principally on the Swakeleys Road, up to Harvil Road, for which we’ve done our best to minimise, and so I just put that in context.
193. Having looked at the slide that Ms Gibbs produced as to how the effects would occur over 10 years. That has to be set against the phasing programme. But otherwise, I’m not going to repeat any other answers that I’ve given, but that’s not intended with any disrespect to Ms Gibbs and her presentation.
194. CHAIR: The school you mentioned, I closed down the chairman of governors the other day. He’s actually coming back in the guise of Chamber of Commerce, soon, but clearly there are traffic problems around school?
195. MS GIBBS: Yes.
196. CHAIR: Would you like just to elaborate a minute or two on that or –?
197. MS GIBBS: As I said, I’m very fortunate that I can walk to school. A lot of parents do try to walk to school, many have to drive. Because we live where I live, and where the school is based, it effectively is a cul-de-sac, so as a school, for many, many years, they’ve made an option of like, ‘Please if possible, drive in one way, drive out the other’, because there are so many parked cars that sometimes, you know, you have mini road rage every day where people just can’t get past each other. So that’s off Swakeleys Road, off the construction route but it – then those people have to get off Swakeleys Road again, to be able to carry on to where they’re going. And obviously, I say what everyone has said, the additional HGVs just make that job which is already quite difficult, even harder.
198. CHAIR: Okay. So how many times do you think HS2 are going to have to apologise to the school for holding up traffic?
199. MS GIBBS: Sorry, say that again?
200. CHAIR: You said you had to apologise to the school for your skip. For the ten minutes.
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201. MS GIBBS: Oh, my skip. They possibly have to stand in the playground pretty much every day, I would think.
202. CHAIR: Okay, we’ll find somebody to do that. Okay. Well thank you very much, I mean you reinforced the point about traffic and about concern for your children and everything else. The Committee do take it very seriously and thank you for making the points that you did in a very punchy and elegant way.
203. MS GIBBS: Just one last thing I’d like to say, and I just really wanted to thank everybody in Hillingdon Council and all the other people that have been very supportive. I think we’ve all worked together very nicely as a team, and I’m sure if we’re given opportunity, we would work very nicely with HS2 to try and come to some agreements, if we could.
204. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Strachan, do you know what conversations HS2 have had with the school? Breakspear School?
205. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I will find out. I don’t know off the cuff.
206. CHAIR: Can you find out?
207. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’ll find out.
208. CHAIR: Okay. But I know we have some other schools coming this week also.
209. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): We do, we’ve got one this afternoon.
210. CHAIR: Right. What are your children called?
211. MS GIBBS: Fern and Leo.
212. CHAIR: And five year old?
213. MS GIBBS: Five year old is Leo, is a little boy; he likes trains, but he doesn’t like fast trains.
214. CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed, thank you for your contribution. Right. Now we move on to petition 899, Miss KJ Alonso and MR KJ West. Thank you very much both of you. I saw you here first thing this morning, so clearly you’ve followed
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the proceedings? Are you going to kick off, Mr West?
Mr KJ West and Miss KJ Alonso
215. MR WEST: Thank you. Good afternoon, Select Committee. I’m Kevin West, and this is my wife. Thank you for taking time to listen to our personal petition. We live in Hoylake Crescent and Beryl and the team have covered quite a lot of what we wanted to say, so we’ll make our brief. Our petition today will include a brief history of our live in Ickenham, why we are petitioning, and hopefully, what yourselves and HS2 may be able to do to provide us with some assistance.
216. MS ALONSO: Good afternoon, this is going to be very, very short. Most of the things that we wanted to discuss have been discussed already. Kevin and I, we made the decision to move from Central London; it took us a number of years to decide to move, and finally, in 2010, we plucked up the courage. Sold our flat and chose Ickenham, mainly because the connections into London were fantastic. Kevin doesn’t drive because he’s epileptic and our two older children still attend secondary school in Central London. And also it had a country feel, although it was still very central to everything.
217. So, we moved in August 2010, after apparently the proposal had been sort of made public. We went through Gibbs Gillespie, and – our estate agents, and nothing ever was then brought up in the searches. So, we moved in, very happily, chose a lovely house in Hoylake Crescent, lovely quiet crescent, wonderful garden for the children and the dogs, and two weeks after moving in, we got the Gazette through the door and read about the HS2 running along the end of the garden, so we were pretty horrified really, because we’d moved from Central London with all the noises you get with a city, out to Ickenham. Although we knew about the Chiltern Line, it’s not as frequent as the HS2 would be, and we didn’t find it was that bad a noise. I spoke to the solicitor; he went through all our files, nothing had been sort of highlighted in the search, and apparently, when the search guys spoke to the Council, they’d been told that notes had not been put on at that point. That was June 2010. After the March 2010 cut off, which HS2 say you could be entitled to compensation. We’ve got a letter from the solicitors, but I won’t bother showing it, we’ll just crack on.
218. So, to be honest, since the second week we moved in, it’s been quite negative really, on and off, because sometimes you think about it, and think, ‘Oh my God, how
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awful’, and then you try and dismiss it and think it won’t happen, but it will happen and basically, it sort of made living this new beginning that we were hoping to have, made it quite awful really.
219. We’re really involved in the community; it’s a lovely community. As I say, we came from Central London, having lived there all our lives, and Ickenham, within a short space of time, was much more of a community. You know, they’re very welcoming, both our sons play for Ickenham Youth, our youngest boy’s at the Ickenham Cricket Club, he attends Breakspear School and we really don’t want to move, but when you listen to how many trains, the small amount of noise – or a lot of noise that you might get, and the construction, it makes you want to move, although Ickenham, is an amazing place and it’s a shame to have to sort of upset the community with such negativity through construction down to the noise that we’ll be getting every day, you know, with the amount of trains that are coming along.
220. At the moment, I think the Chiltern Line stops about 11, and then starts again about six, and it’s one train – they’re just not that frequent at all. And HS2, it’s going to be continuous noise, with or without sound barriers, it will still be continuous noise and then to try and enjoy your garden with that noise, it’s – and just – all the slides that you’ve seen, and the open spaces, all these wonderful walkways, they’ll be completely changed, and I’m sure tunnelling is a lot more expensive, but it must be possible; if they can channel under the tunnel, I’m sure they can do – tunnel under the River Pinn and the Colne Valley. But that’s really what our petition’s about, to try and extend the tunnel, or have a fairer compensation.
221. In the slides previously, there was the rural zone; I think there’s five or six crosses, you may have seen, with the one next to the final cross, to the left hand side, so we’ll still have the same noise, light, visual blight, but unfortunately don’t qualify, as do a lot of other people, further down Hoylake, left and right there’s sort of six or seven crosses. And so it’s just seems – I just don’t know how compensation package has been organised, it just seems – it’s just not fair really, for a lot of people, it’s cut off and that’s the end of it. So, I’m petitioning really for an extension of the tunnel, or just to think about it a bit more than what they have, and better compensation
222. MR WEST: Can I just come in there, sorry. We had a meeting with two HS2
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representatives, and it was a very informative meeting, although the news was not what we wanted to hear. In fact, it was quite the opposite. We’re not entitled to full compensation, even though our – part of our garden does fall within the RSZ zone. We’re not quite sure how much, we need to apply for that, to ascertain as to whether we’re entitled to it. And I thought we do have special circumstances, i.e. a project of this nature, of this magnitude, not coming up on the search. I think it’s incredible. Can’t quite understand it.
223. We did not choose to live on what will be a 24 hour construction site, with light pollution, a conveyor belt with noise, diesel pollution, HGV and traffic jams, banned access to country walks, which we love, and of course, the frequency of the trains. Dust for us is a particular worry; Juanita is asthmatic and I believe the prevailing wind – there will be dust. If you could pull up a picture of our back garden, it’s picture 5, I think.
224. If you – where that arrow is, that’s a large oak tree that covers, when in leaf the Chiltern Bridge, or viaduct. If you go to the next picture, picture 6, in the winter, there is no vegetation whatsoever, so I thought, with light pollution, as Beryl was saying, yeah, there will be light pollution. It’s very different, summer and – obviously, as the QC said, it’s totally different.
225. So we will see it, we will hear it, we will feel it, it’s touching on all of our senses and as we explained to Analisa and Daryl, the £22,000 compensation does not help. I don’t think personally, that you can measure how we feel with a stick. The difference between our neighbour receiving full compensation is – I think we have another picture of – seven please – that, that’s the difference between whether you receive full compensation or not. We’re on the left, that house is on the right. We will see the same as what that neighbour – probably sell up and move along. It’s not fair, it’s not a fair system. Juanita?
226. MS ALONSO: Just finally, our two older children – we’ve got a 19 year old and a 16 year old, since we moved there five years ago, have used HOAC regularly. We didn’t have that sort of facility in central London, so they were really able to use – you know, experience new things, physical, make new friends in the area, great, great place. Our youngest son won’t be able to do that and there’s thousands of children that use that, and adults. It’s an amazing place, it’s been there a long, long time, that will be lost.
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And that is such a shame, because it will affect lots – thousands of children and adults, and I just thing surely that must account for something, even if it costs a bit more money, when we’re talking about people. And that’s it really. Short and sweet.
227. MR WEST: Well it is, but just that final point that you wrote, we want to live in our house in peace and enjoy where we live. Therefore, our only acceptable form of mitigation would be full compensation, or ideally, for HS2 to be tunnelled through Ickenham, saving misery for the whole village.
228. MS ALONSO: And that’s it.
229. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Was it worth sitting there all day?
230. MR WEST: Short and sweet. Yes it was actually.
231. CHAIR: Okay. Well, HOAC and tunnelling we’ve sort of done. And the compensation position in relation to this couple?
232. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. Can I – slightly different instructions as to nature of the meetings that you’ve had, that Mr and Mrs West have had, but, the important thing is just to, if I can turn to 6800, just to understand where Mr and Mrs West’s property lies in the compensation zones. You’ll see their property is marked in red. And the committee will recall, there are a number of criteria that apply to the rural support zone, one of which is that you’re not aware of HS2 at the time you purchase a property. And I understand that’s been the subject for discussions, because although the project was publicly known when the purchase occurred, as Mr and Mrs West have explained, and they’ve put some material in, they weren’t personally aware at the time, and for whatever reason, the searches that they came back with didn’t show up the presence of the HS2 scheme.
233. So, in making an application, if they want to make an application, those deciding the applications will recognise if someone’s not aware, be it through the fault of someone else or whatever the reason may be. The focus is on what Mr and Mrs West were aware of at the time. The second relevant criteria which there’s been discussion about is where not all of your property is within the zone, the general approach is 25%
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must be within the zone. At the moment, it’s very close in terms of the percentage, and certainly, what I was told, but I reiterate it today, if there’s been any mixed or misunderstandings of the messages, if Mr and Mrs West do want to apply, they should make the application, because, at the moment, it is so close that it’s likely to be a question of small measurements as to whether it went into 24, 25% and as you will appreciate these schemes are not rigid in the sense of strict rules. They’re policy schemes where we can look at the circumstances that you’ve just described. So, I can’t determine the application myself but we have encouraged, and if it’s not clear, we have encouraged Mr and Mrs West to apply, given what they’ve told us, if they want to take advantage of the scheme. I say if because, I’m not going to go through it again, but, we have sought to illustrate the effects both during the construction and operation, which I hope provide Mr and Mrs West with some assurances to the level of construction activities, the distance of it, and of course, noise barriers, all of which seek to mitigate the impacts of the scheme on their property. Ultimately, of course, it is for them to decide whether it mitigates it sufficiently. But, there is the potential to make that application under this rural support zone because of their proximity. Of course, there’s also need to sell, which applies regardless of property boundaries anyway. But, at the moment, based on the information they’ve given us and based on what they said they want to do, we would encourage them to make the application.
234. CHAIR: The need to sell, the problem with the search, would that offset things? Same thing?
235. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It would be the same thing. Looking at what they were aware of at the time. As you will appreciate, there is a line drawn in the sand of where people were aware of what was going on and decided to buy property then there’s an understandable line in the sand drawn. But, Mr and Mrs West have given us some material already which indicate that they weren’t aware. So, that’s plainly something they should put before on an application. So, I hope that gives them, I don’t know what precisely was said at the meetings, my understanding was we did encourage them to apply. If that wasn’t clear, let me make that clear to you again today.
236. CHAIR: Clearly, I’d be interested if they did make an application for them to come back and see whether they were successful or not. Okay.
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237. MR WEST: Thank you very much indeed.
238. CHAIR: Alright? Thank you very much. Thank you. Right. 731 and 701, which is Gayle Metcalfe. Aha. And Pauline Woodham.
239. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I, just while, is it clear to update you? You asked a question about discussions with Breakspear School?
240. CHAIR: Yes.
241. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And you’ll recall Wendy Hobdays is the chairperson of the governors, so, we’ve had meetings with her, I think, on 8 June, and previously with her earlier in the year. She is also a representative of the Chamber Of Commerce in the area. But, I can get you some more details about that.
Gayle Metcalfe and Pauline Woodham and others
242. CHAIR: They took your name thing out and put it in the bin, and had to pull it out of the bin, straighten it out, put it back. Right. Pray continue.
243. MS METCALFE: I have got a speech because I’m not used to doing this. I’m sorry.
244. CHAIR: Okay.
245. MS METCALFE: I’ll do my best. We are three generations, sorry, can I have the first slide up, please? I’m covering two petitions, myself and my neighbour, Pauline, or my mother’s neighbour. We’re three generations of family, mother, daughter and granddaughter, who are fighting to keep our lovely home. I’m Gayle, daughter of Susan and the late Graham Barnes. Mum and dad bought an old derelict bungalow, 107 The Greenway, in 1974, in order to build a new bungalow and create a new home for a young couple with a young daughter, me. They chose the area as it was on the outskirts of London, but had good links into town via the underground, where my father worked. My late father, who sadly passed away in August 2012, worked hard on the house, spending all his spare time when not working in London, at the Great Universal Stores, where he looked after their property empire. We moved into the house in ‘74, and it’s been the family home ever since. I of course moved out eventually but not very far. I
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loved my family home and area so I bought a house just four doors away from my parents to be near them and to enable my daughter, Caitlin, to get into the same schools as I did as a child. This was in 2001, long before we heard the dreaded phrase High Speed 2. So, we’ve been living peacefully in The Greenway since 1974. Pauline is just going to say a few words now.
246. MS WOODHAM: Yes. This is very brief, you’ll be pleased to hear. My parents moved into The Greenway in 1971. We very quickly realise what a lovely area Ickenham is, also had the added advantage, as far as we were concerned, of the easy access to London, where my husband worked. So, we were thrilled in 1976 when we heard that the property opposite was for sale, which we eventually purchased and moved into. We are really fortunate to have such lovely neighbours, of course, with Gayle here. No, seriously, they are absolutely lovely. It’s such a wonderful feeling, the whole of The Greenway, with all the people that live there. It took us ages to get the property and the garden as we wanted it. It really was a labour of love. But, we eventually did achieve that. And got it just as we wanted it to be. I can’t say it.
247. MS METCALFE: Unfortunately, Pauline’s husband then passed away, 20 years ago. She’s also got her elderly parents across the road, who are in their nineties. They live directly opposite Pauline. And now HS2 have given her the devastating news that they want to take 50 square metres of her land, where her garage is required for utility works for the proposed line.
248. MS WOODHAM: Sorry.
249. MS METCALFE: HS2 have affected all of our lives quite drastically over the last five years and three months since it was announced. It hasn’t been easy as it has been spent worrying over what will happen to our homes, when it will happen, what we will be doing when it happens. It has made life very difficult to plan, not knowing anything, and still, this far into the proposal, we know nothing. We have all been stuck in limbo land for this period of time, not knowing if our homes or gardens would need to be demolished for it. And as you will see from what I’m about to show you, really we are still living in limbo land, although we now do fall into the compensation zone. Now, that is a worry and concern.
250. Our petitions were, as you are well aware, very similar to the majority of the
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petitions from the village. Today, though, we aren’t going to go through any of the concerns that are echoed in most people’s petitions, as Brian and the Ickenham Residents’ Association and Council have already addressed those much more thoroughly than we could ever hope to. We would however like to point out that we agree with all that has been brought to you and we would like to say that we fully support and request that you, the select committee, take into consideration the numerous requests that have been made for the extension of the Northolt Tunnel. I did hear mentioned a few days ago in here that when the train comes out of the tunnel it will enhance the passengers’ experience, and I felt extremely sad hearing that, as not having the tunnel will severely diminish the local area, which is loved and enjoyed by so many residents and visitors. But, us living where we do, we can take our two black Labradors and all our previous dogs that have lived with us for long walks without having to touch a road. We’ve been in the fortunate position of being able to walk straight out of our house and down the side alley to the golf course. This alley will be closed off if this tunnel isn’t there and the beautiful countryside of the golf course will be gone forever. We are also worried about how the construction site for the West Ruislip portal will have an effect on our lives, with the haul roads, conveyors working 24 hours a day. But, again this has already been brought to you, so we won’t go into any more detail now.
251. The Greenway is a lovely quiet road. A very family orientated road, where you will find several sets of families that live in different houses, but, just to be close to each other. It’s also a road with quite a large number of elderly residents, several of whom are in their mid to late nineties.
252. CHAIR: Thank you.
253. MS METCALFE: Can I have the next slide please? Just to say again, this is Pauline and I in 1976. We’ve known each other a long, long time. And this is my late father, who was a property lawyer. He fought until the end and lost the fight unfortunately. Next slide, please? It’s just a map showing where we are on The Greenway and then a little bit to tell us exactly where we are, of each property. Next one, please? This is my mum’s house and where it is on The Greenway. As I’ve mentioned, they bought it in ‘74, when my father built the bungalow himself. We moved in in ‘74. In ‘76, my parents decided to put a 15,000 gallon swimming pool in the back garden, much to my delight, at four years old. In ‘77 they then extended the
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house, doubling the size of the land and replacing the single garage with a triple garage, to look as it is today. We were threatened that the garage would be removed in 2013. I’ll go on to that in a minute. Next slide, please? This is Pauline’s home, when she bought it with her husband, back in 1976. Pauline has requested in her petition that there’s no construction of any kind. And she’s received an assurance in writing. It says: ‘whether a plot is actually likely to be required’. So, we still do not know if that is needed to be required. Is she going to lose 20% of her garden?
254. CHAIR: So, how long have you lived there Mrs Woodham? In that particular house?
255. MS WOODHAM: Sorry.
256. MS METCALFE: 39 years.
257. CHAIR: 39 years
258. MS WOODHAM: Yes.
259. CHAIR: Are you composed?
260. MS METCALFE: Sorry?
261. CHAIR: Sorry. Carry on.
262. MS METCALFE: We are amazed with this statement is we are being led to believe that HS2 are now saying they’re not even sure if they require the garden, which equates to 20%. It’s totally unacceptable to treat people in this way and leave them not knowing if their land is required.
263. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Your neighbour was told it would be needed.
264. MS METCALFE: No. I’ll go on to it further, but we were originally, or my mother, at 107, was originally told that her house was needed. And half of her house and garage would be demolished. They then changed their minds. And said no, it wasn’t us.
265. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: For Mrs Woodham.
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266. MS WOODHAM: Yes.
267. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Were you told originally that part of your garden would be needed or not?
268. MS METCALFE: No.
269. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Not yours.
270. MS WOODHAM: The seven and then it changed to me.
271. MS METCALFE: And then it moved across.
272. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I see.
273. MS WOODHAM: It’s all very confusing.
274. MS METCALFE: But, still, in the assurances, it now says, ‘whether required’, so, we still don’t know if and they can’t tell us when. Could I have the next slide, please? This is my home on The Greenway, just four doors away from my mother’s. It’s not as affected because it hasn’t got the threat of the garden next door. I moved back in 2000 whilst going through a divorce. I moved back to be nearer to my parents, so they could help me look after my one year old daughter, who is partially deaf, and to get her into the local primary, secondary schools that I went to, how I petition you today. And also to help, in the end, I ended up helping my late father. Could we move on, thank you?
275. This is a copy of the letter that was sent to my mother in 2013. I’m not sure you can quite see, but, it is just addressed to owner/occupier. My mum had only just nine months previously lost my father of 48 years of marriage. I opened the letter because I at that point I was opening all correspondence. It was either from High Speed 2 or not addressed to my mum while I was dealing with probate. As you can see, sorry, I do feel that HS2 could have at least had the common decency to have found the names of who they were writing to with such horrendous news. I called the number on the letter to get more information and no one was able to help me. I was told that I would have to wait to request an information pack when it became available at the end of the next week and they kept referring to it as it was just a garage. As you can see, in the letter, it does say, sorry, I can’t read it there, it’s too far.
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276. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): We can see zoom it in if. Which bit did you want?
277. MS METCALFE: Oh, thank you. Trying to find it there. I’m so nervous. Yes, leave it there. And I can find it.
278. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Okay.
279. MS METCALFE: ‘I wanted to let you know that unfortunately according to the latest assessments your property would need to be demolished in order for the railway to be built.’ When I phoned HS2, the line, it seems that the maps that they were using didn’t show the full extent of my parent’s property at the time and showed a small house on one side and a garage on the other, and they just kept referring it to as a garage. It’s not just a garage. It’s a triple garage that holds the electrics to the house, the electrics to the pool. It’s got lots of equipment for the house in it. We’ve requested a full assurance that there is no construction of any kind in the land forming 107, as you have already misled let the owner in the past. We have had an assurance in writing saying that in the event of any unforeseeable event during civil works, that the sewer actually goes directly under the house. So, we are still worried that they will come back to us. Just to show the two houses next to each other there. And again, please? That’s an aerial shot of the house taken back in the eighties that we had, just to show.
280. CHAIR: Is the swimming pool still there?
281. MS METCALFE: It is, yes. And was just refurbished, literally finished refurbishment, two weeks prior to that letter arriving in 2013.
282. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Was that caravan built in at the time or can it come out again?
283. MS METCALFE: The caravan comes out. It’s not there any longer unfortunately. But, you can see the solar panels on top of the garage as well that are part of the swimming pool. And the shed behind it, which I’ll come on to, with the plant room. They originally wanted to take a swipe down the side of the land, but, they said that they would rebuild it. Next slide, please?
284. This is Pauline’s home. Until very recently Pauline and other petitioners have been led to believe that there will be no construction on the 50 square metres of land at
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the end of the garden. To be honest, we don’t know whether there will be construction land on it or not. They are talking about six by four metre land hold but they can’t tell us where that land hold will be. Next slide, please? This just shows where the sewer is that they want to move. Next slide, please? This is now an outdated version. It’s been updated since this was originally given to us, but it shows in red the 50 square metres that they want to take from Pauline’s garden and how they want to go up to use the alley next to the house for construction works. Next slide, please? This is the back of Pauline’s garden that they want to demolish. You can see the fence panel to the left of the garage. That they want to take from there directly straight across the whole of that land, destroying the garage. Next slide, please? Just showing the garden again. Once that’s gone the fence will be a lot nearer and she’s got to somehow find the space for a garage in the garden. Pauline would like to know who will pay for the new garage, who will apply for planning permission. Obviously, previously, her husband did all this for her and she did think that everything was there for life now.
285. Next slide, please? This is pictures from the rear of our garden, just showing that we can see Pauline’s garage from our garden, therefore we will see the construction zone that they want to put in there. Next slide, please?
286. This is the land at the back of the two properties. There’s a strip of land that goes all the way from 107 down to 97, it is owned by Network Rail. All this scrubland at the moment protects us from the Chiltern Line and it protects them seeing us. If these works go ahead then all that greenery will be removed so we will see the Chiltern Line, they will see us. And we will get the noise of the Chiltern Line. It’s also home to lots of foxes; and bats are up there as well. So, lots of wildlife will be re-homed. Next slide, please?
287. This shows 107 from the two different angles. Construction zone 446 goes directly across 107, across the driveway. We’ve asked that access to the driveway is available at all times. My mother is partially disabled and does require her car. We do have yellow lines in the road so, we can’t park out on the road. We’ve also asked that any construction is kept clean. We don’t want it all coming on to the land. Next slide, please? Pictures of our back garden or my mum’s back garden, again showing the swimming pool. When they do the utility works, I’ve worked out it’s going to be at least 60% of the boundary of the house will be boarded up. It’s not going to look nice.
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We’re not going to be able to go about normal life and use the garden and home as we would hope to with the construction zone around 60% of the land. And not to mention, there are also six animals living in that house who could get harmed. Next slide, please? Just a boundary showing that the plant room is and pool heater; that’s the fence that is, on the other side of the fence is the alleyway that they want to take cranes etc. down. Next slide, please?
288. This is the alleyway between 107 and 111 The Greenway, we’ve been told, albeit verbally at the moment, that HS2 plan to use this land for construction traffic for the utility road diversion. We are highly concerned as to what kind of traffic would be required to go along this small alley. As you can see in this picture it’s not overly wide. It’s around 11 metres from boundary fence to boundary fence. Excuse me. And it’s in fact a bridge over a River Pinn feeder stream. We were told again only verbally that it’s hoped that vehicles will pass down here and a crane. We are at a loss to see how you can possibly get a crane or any other motor vehicle down here. Again verbally we were told that HS2 would like to flatten out the alley and fill in the stream. We would like to point out that this stream floods even with the slightest amount of rain and when the weather is very bad it has been known to flood both 111 and 113 The Greenway. So, we would dread what would happen if this was filled in. Also, the green box there is the telephone and cable and everything works, so, that would have to be re-sited if they’re going to be taking lorries down there. Another worry is, as you can see in the bottom left hand picture, if you can make it slightly larger? It’s actually a weak bridge, 7 and a half tonnes, worry of brining cranes down it. I’ve spoken to Baldwins, who told me that their smallest crane comes in at 100 tonnes. And they want to bring that over the small River Pinn bridge and take it down the alleyway. Next slide, please?
289. This is a picture of the alleyway and the actual size that it is usable at the moment. The top hand picture shows the fence and the side of my mother’s garage and you can see briefly the shed that’s in the garden that holds the plant room for the pool. It’s just so narrow we just don’t see how they can take anything down there to do the construction work for the utility diversion. Next slide, please? It’s just more pictures of the tunnel at the end. You came to visit us and you saw the alley. This is the land at the end of our garden. They are proposing to take a crane down here to be able to pull the equipment out. As you can see, it’s not very wide and there was a wall they’re actually
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that appears to be holding up the Chiltern Line, so we would worry about what would happen to that, if you take the crane down there. Next slide, please?
290. This is just the front views taken from, the top left is from Mrs Woodham’s parents’ house. The pictures show that the Chiltern Line is completely invisible to residents on the south of The Greenway. Yet, when HS2 is built we’ve been told that there will be a sound barrier that will be five metres high and according to plans given to us recently, these barriers and the drawings that we’ve been given, show that the ground level will be level with the roof of the top of 107 and extending up by five metres. So, it will be visible to the whole road, spoiling everyone’s view, and creating possible bounce back noise from the Chiltern Line. Next slide, please? Again, this is my home. And there will be a sound barrier behind that, I believe three metres behind there, because it’s still coming out of the tunnel. But, it will still be visible from people on the south side of The Greenway. Next?
291. I’d like to bring up the subject of compensation. I know it’s already been mentioned today. But, The Greenway now does fall into the rural support zone and the majority of the road is now able to claim some compensation with regards to the route. I would like however to bring to the select committee’s attention, how unfair we as residents still feel this new compensation scheme. One example that’s come up literally in the last few days is a beautiful house at the end of our road. They’ve lived there for 30 years. They got an offer on Friday for their four bedroom detached bungalow. They received two separate valuations. And because they were so far apart, were asked to go out for a third valuation. The difference between the first two valuations was 175,000 pounds. The next valuation that came in, came in at just 30,000 pounds higher than the lowest valuation. They’ve been offered 635,000 pounds for a house that has been valued by local estate agents as 900,000 and 925,000. That 900 and 925 is the affected value and the 635 from High Speed 2 is the unaffected value. So, we really feel that this compensation scheme isn’t fair, the prices that are being given on the home. And we’re not getting a choice. We’re getting a list of who we can get to value but we’re not getting to choose ourselves. They’re instructed by a High Speed 2.
292. I’d also like to add that the homes are affected by the utility works aren’t able to claim any more compensation despite being severely inconvenienced and feel that that should also be looked into. I’ve gone back to this. Sorry. This was a map that was
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given to, when we were told, back in May 2013, that my mother’s house, 107, would have to be part demolished, they came up with this map very quickly, a few days later, to say we might be able to re-route it. I notice that they’re actually using the same map two years later, having moved on to the demolition from 107 now to 105. Yet, they still can’t tell us where this manhole cover is going to go. So, we really are living in limbo land over this. That’s it, now. Thank you. Thank you for listening.
293. CHAIR: Thank you very much. Is there anything you want to add Mrs Woodham? At all?
294. MS WOODHAM: No.
295. CHAIR: No? Mr Strachan?
296. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I just get up on the screen P6576, I think? We’re dealing with three properties, but, I’m taking, for these purposes, Ms Woodham’s property on this particular plan, 6576. And you can see the rear of the garden that we were talking about or was being spoken about a moment ago, which is affected and within the safeguarded area, as required. And if I can take you to, sorry, in the same section, 6580? Just provides you with the same plan but in the construction phase and then there’s a cross section which is shown at 6581 and this is just to show at this stage the location of the railway at this point behind The Greenway, as I’ve indicated previously, it’s in this cutting which is coming out. Then over to the left a bit, is the site hoarding for the main site and the Chiltern Line there and then there’s the vegetation on the Chiltern Line and the petitioner’s property is at that location there. And there is a temporary reconstruction boundary to deal with the utility diversions that have been discussed.
297. MR BELLINGHAM: So, that’s the, to be quite clear, that’s the shed?
298. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Exactly. That is the location of the garage area.
299. MS METCALFE: It’s not a shed.
300. MR BELLINGHAM: And where is the petitioner’s property boundary? Can you just mark it? How far to the right of the shed is it?
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301. MS METCALFE: It’s not a shed; it’s a double garage.
302. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think I’ve got a better plan to help in terms of these. If I could show you P6585? You’ll see the petitioner’s location is there and there’s an area of pink which goes into her property.
303. MR BELLINGHAM: Into her garden, yes.
304. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Into her garden, where her garage is located. And that’s taken under the proposed scheme in order to carry out some utility diversion, which I’m just going to explain. And the utility diversion itself which Ms Metcalfe was explaining, you can see on this the nature of the diversion that’s required. There is an existing Thames Water sewer which were runs across here and diagonally across the line of the route and the diversion mooted on this line and then directly across the line of route to join back up with the existing sewer. Can I just explain that as you will have heard even in relation to tunnel options, there is a need where sewers are potentially affected to divert or at least precautionally assume diversion of sewers. So, in fact, this form of work would be shown even on a tunnel scheme as a potential measure that would be required. This isn’t a form of work which is dependent upon the particular line of route.
305. MS METCALFE: Yes. We are aware of that. Regardless, we would love a tunnel, but we are aware that we would still be affected.
306. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I then just provide some further clarification of what’s proposed. We have given some details of it and again Mr Smart, who’s more expert and who’s sitting by me, can answer any specific questions you’ve got. But, if I can just show you at P6586(2)? I’m sure the committee will be aware that whilst one has plans of sewers in areas, the actual precise location of sewers is not necessarily known as a result of mapping of the sewers when they were originally put in. So, we are working with the best information we’ve got as to the location of the sewers. Unfortunately, it means one cannot be precise as to where the manhole covers that are necessarily going to be put in will be until we do the works. That’s why we need to take the locations. That’s the reason why there’s a degree of uncertainty, but, that occurs with any type of sewer diversion of this kind. And you will see we’ve sought to describe the area of work. It’s a 50 square metre area of land that’s required. And
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because it’s quite a deep sewer, in order to create a diversion one has to sink, I think it’s nine metres down into the ground and then work across to relocate the diverted sewer. So, that’s is why and that’s the reference to reception pits, because there’s pushing through, aligning under the route to arrive at the other side where there is another area of working.
307. CHAIR: So, you want the back of the garden on the assumption that the sewer maybe at that point, or the probability it is, and then you put the sewer in, and then presumably you can get your land back?
308. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. That’s the precise location of the manhole covers and whether they would be on this side or the other side is what we don’t know until we see precisely where the sewer is. We know the sewer is in that broad location. Hence, the requirement for the land. I think Ms Metcalfe and Ms Woodham were concerned that we can’t say at this stage the precise location of the manhole cover. We can’t. What we have offered is an assurance and I apologise if this has caused any confusion, but, again, it is expressed in the sort of language which assurances are expressed in. It might put it up on screen, just so you can have it, 6940, but, what we have offered is a form of assurance that if we can take the land on a temporary basis we will do so. And it’s on the next page. Because we obviously are happy for the land to go back once the work has been done.
309. CHAIR: And presumably the double garage or shed or whatever could then be replaced?
310. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. The caveat is that, and this is what we can’t give any more degree of comfort, at this stage, is it will depend upon the precise location of the manhole cover, because of course you’ll appreciate that Thames Water will need to have access in order to ensure the sewer runs. So, if there is a manhole cover in this location, what we’ve identified in paragraph 2, is the ability to take the land temporarily, do the work, which is expected to last no more than six months in duration, do the work, if the manhole cover is necessary to go in there, goes into that location, the land can go back, subject to restrictive covenants, which allow access for Thames Water for the sewer in the future. So, that’s what we’re envisaging. We haven’t got a specific need to keep the land permanently.
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311. MR BELLINGHAM: And how much compensation would be paid for that?
312. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The compensation will depend on which option is chosen. But, we will pay for compensation for the taking of the land and any injurious affection that happens to the property as a result of taking that garage and that land. The alternative mechanism is for temporary possession where we would then pay the agreed compensation for the temporary land and how it’s transferred –
313. MR BELLINGHAM: Has that been worked out, what the temporary compensation?
314. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It hasn’t been worked out yet, but we would be very happy to enter into that discussion with Ms Woodham.
315. MR BELLINGHAM: I’m slightly puzzled why this hasn’t been done before, Mr Strachan, to be honest.
316. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Sorry. Why it hasn’t been worked out?
317. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.
318. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I think the answer to that is that it obviously requires Ms Woodham to make a decision as to whether she would want the land back rather than to have full compensation. But, there’s no difficulty in having that discussion with her. She has a number of other choices. And this will partly explain why it’s not for us necessarily to dictate to her what she wants to do. All of these properties you’ve seen are in the rural support zone.
319. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes, indeed. I saw.
320. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So, another option to her, it’s entirely a matter for her, but another option to her is if she didn’t feel she wanted to stay during these works, would then be to exercise her rights under the rural support zone to require us to purchase the property.
321. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.
322. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So, we’re very happy to have discussions with her.
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We obviously don’t want to pressure her into making the decision which is really for her. So, can I just put in that way? So, if she would like to have further discussions with us to work through those things? And of course she can take our own legal advice about the compensation from compulsory acquisition, which then forms part of the claim, as well. So, I just wanted to explain, in terms of the other parts of the language, we have sought to give assurances as to what land we won’t construct or carry out construction on. There’s a lot of discussion about the form of the works. We tried to describe them in more detail in the pack so that Ms Metcalf and Ms Woodham are aware of what would happen. We don’t anticipate, for example, taking a 100 tonne crane down that alleyway. There is the need to get some construction vehicles down there because one’s having to bore through and to take our material. But, that is the nature of the access required. And likewise there’s the ability to have stored some materials on the road in The Greenway which is why we take a parcel of land, temporarily, for storage. But, all of that should maintain access along the road itself. The levels of works are ones we sought to minimise within that six month period.
323. Can I just very quickly cover past events because there’s reference to requiring more land and indeed taking a property in 2013? It’s right that previously we thought we did require more land and potentially, because of the sewer running underneath the property, we were going to have to do more work to the sewer than we’d anticipated, than originally, than we now know is necessary. Since we’ve been able to clarify we don’t need to do the more extensive work, we’re only taking these parts, to minimise the effects of necessary works to allow the railway to pass through. So, I appreciate it’s obviously upsetting and I appreciate to having the land lost in this way has an effect. But, we have tried to minimise the impacts of it and there are a range of options to cover both Ms Woodham’s situation, specifically, where land is taken, but, also Ms Metcalf, who is also in the rural support zone. I hope, I haven’t gone through the cross sections, but, again, I hope that with the benefit of looking at these plans in detail, understanding the duration of them and the efforts that will be taken to minimise the impacts they may decide to stay there and take the compensation payments because of the levels of impact. But, they do have that choice I’ve indicated.
324. CHAIR: Okay.
325. MS METCALFE: I understand what you’ve said, as we have both mentioned,
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we’ve both have got parents living in the road, so, it’s not just a case of us moving. We both care for our parents who live in the road.
326. CHAIR: Yes.
327. MS METCALFE: So, for either of us, if we both decided to move that would be four homes that would have to move. We’re still at a loss as to why there is a big parcel of land behind our homes that is owned by Network Rail that is the Chiltern Line, the sewer goes under that, why the manhole can’t be moved further up, into Network Rail’s land, and not have to use Pauline’s garden at all.
328. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, as I said, the precise location of the manhole cover is not yet fixed. But, there is a railway embankment, as I think you’ve seen from the photographs, there’s a railway embankment that has to be negotiated. So, that one puts the sewer works in, drives underneath the railway lines, and the manhole cover obviously has to be located in a suitable location for the join of the sewer, where the sewer has a turn in it, which is in this location.
329. MS METCALFE: Yes.
330. CHAIR: It’s one of those situations where they have to do rather more detailed work to be precise.
331. MS METCALFE: Yes. I realise that. But we’ve been told about more detailed work for the past two years, but, they managed to realise that they didn’t need 107 and they needed 105. They’ve done some work.
332. CHAIR: I presume, Mr Strachan, there is somewhere that the Water, the company could identify where it was, if they actually started to go and have a look?
333. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. I think because it’s quite –
334. CHAIR: It’s quite deep. Okay.
335. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Deep. And so, being realistic, and that’s what we’re trying to be, we’re recognising it is a deep sewer. We know the indicative location of it and we’ve worked around it on that basis. But, really until you start taking it up, you can’t have the certainty.
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336. CHAIR: I think the truth is until they start digging they’re not going to know quite where it is. And that’s part of the problem.
337. MS METCALFE: We were led to believe that they needed to come around the alleyway and behind 107 with a crane because, we were also led to believe that the 50 square metres of land wasn’t for the actual manhole cover, it was in fact to be able to bring the machinery out that had made the tunnel.
338. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s correct. This is a working area necessary to put the reception pits because you’re tunnelling quite deep. There is a working area that’s being taken for access for the work to take place. And I wasn’t, if I’ve given any different impression, that’s wrong. We do require that for the working access.
339. MS METCALFE: Yes.
340. MR BELLINGHAM: Sorry to interrupt your flow. Just to the preceding slide, so we can just contextualise this.
341. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. Sorry. Of the assurance letter?
342. MR BELLINGHAM: No. It’s the one which shows the diagram of the garden, just showing where it comes through.
343. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Oh, yes.
344. MR BELLINGHAM: And the small bit that is going to be nipped off.
345. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): P6586(4).
346. MR BELLINGHAM: That’s the one.
347. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Would be the easiest one, I think.
348. MR BELLINGHAM: That’s the one.
349. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): 6586(4). Sorry about that. I don’t know if that helps. So, the garden, I haven’t got the garden boundary shown, but the location of the reception pit, that’s for boring underneath the line, is the red, and then there’s a working area required around it. And the blue is the access along the alleyway to get access into
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the working area.
350. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.
351. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And I had better show with the cursor, the land taken is across here. But that is around the reception pit area. So, it may well be that the manhole is not on Ms Woodham’s property in the future –
352. CHAIR: Some other property might be required to have sufficient area to do the work?
353. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It will still be necessary to take that land to carry this.
354. CHAIR: But, this is precautionary?
355. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Indeed.
356. MR BELLINGHAM: Can we leave it, Mr Strachan, that every effort is made to prevent this manhole cover being put on Ms Metcalfe’s land? Because just looking at there, it’s difficult to envisage the actual shape of the embankment. But, I wouldn’t have thought it was beyond the wit of the transport engineers to work something out that would be more accommodating. I mean, obviously, these residents are distressed about this. And it seems to me that it hasn’t been as well handled as it might have been.
357. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, certainly we will seek to minimise the impact on Ms Woodham and Ms Metcalfe and that is the intention in terms of trying to reduce the working area.
358. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.
359. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And no doubt the same efforts will be made in relation to the manhole cover. It is unfortunately subject to Thames Water requirements to keep the sewers operating.
360. MS METCALFE: I phoned Thames Water and they say, they actually said, ‘Please, stop phoning’. Not to me. They said, ‘Please, people keep phoning us for High Speed 2 things.’ High Speed 2 needs to deal with. You can’t talk to us. I paid to
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get the plans because HS2 couldn’t give us, even show us, where these works were, so, I went to Thames Water and got my own set of plans from them to find out.
361. CHAIR: They have to cover all angles and hopefully when they start digging they will find the better place and that could minimise the impact, which I think will always be the intent. We’ve always made it clear as the committee that where land can be returned to the owner, if they wish it, it ought to be.
362. MS METCALFE: Yes, and I’m sure if that happened we’d want it back, but it would be
363. CHAIR: So, there may be disruption to everybody, but you might well be able to replicate what you had before with some compensation, but I understand how upsetting it is.
364. MS METCALFE: And we are worried at 107 as well, how they think they can get behind it, and into this 50 square metres, with that, there was a slide there that showed the trees at the end of garden. I didn’t actually say everything I wanted to say. There’s 40 conifer trees, I don’t know how tall they are now, but they are massively tall, that provide a screening for us at 107 and if they take anything down there, they have said that they may have to take the back of all the trees off. If they can’t get through into that area, then the trees could go as well, and that’s our complete privacy gone.
365. CHAIR: Well, the fact that you have eloquently raised the issue before the committee and the engineers are listening, no doubt that will be logged and they will try and do their best.
366. MS METCALFE: Thank you.
367. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): We have given an assurance to both apply the necessary measures to ensure the protection of the trees within the boundary of 107. And also another matter raised, contain and limit visual intrusion of the construction site. So, I hope.
368. MR BELLINGHAM: There was one other matter, Mr Strachan, if you could note that will we’d like HS2 to deal with the residents in a way that is understanding and
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sensitive.
369. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. I note to that. And we will certainly be raising at Thames Water. I can’t obviously speak for Thames Water but I can’t see any reason why they won’t be cooperative.
370. MS METCALFE: Can I just say something about the assurance that you’ve just mentioned because it actually refers us to paragraph 7 of schedule 2 of the bill. It doesn’t say which bill. I had to ask which bill it was in. It is the hybrid bill. You can’t Google the hybrid bill because when you look into it, it’s actually called 15004. So, unless I knew that, I wouldn’t find it. I had to be sent to link. And the paragraph, I’m just find trying to find it here now: ‘If the nominated undertaker tops or lops a tree, or cuts back to the roots’. So, although they’re saying they are not going to touch it, they’ve also got that undertaking there that they can cut it, lop it or take it back to its roots. So, it’s not really an assurance to us.
371. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’m not saying they’re not going to touch them. What we’ve said is that we’ll protect the long-term health of the trees in accordance with the construction protection measures.
372. MS METCALFE: Right.
373. CHAIR: The point is at the point they start doing some work, if they go beyond what you think they ought to do, then, clearly, you’re going to have to contact your Member of Parliament, who’s sitting in this committee room, and say, hey you’ve got to get onto HS2 or the Minister, because the assurance has been broken.
374. MS METCALFE: Right. But, in the assurance, it does say that if the nominated undertaker tops, it says that they can do it. That is what I’m –
375. CHAIR: I think the point is their intent is to do the right thing. But, sometimes, it’s impossible to carry out what they intend because of circumstances. But, as I say, you’ve got it on the record you’re concern about cranes and all the other works for the sewers. And let’s hope that when it comes to be done that it has a minimal impact and, I know it’s going to be very difficult, because it will be disruptive to you and the road.
376. MS METCALFE: We only get given two weeks’ notice of it, as well.
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377. CHAIR: Yes, I know.
378. MS METCALFE: A bit more would be very good.
379. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much.
380. MS METCALFE: Thank you.
381. CHAIR: Thank you very much, Ms Woodham.
382. MS WOODHAM: Thank you.
383. CHAIR: Alright. We now move on to 702, 723, 704, which is Ian Phillips and Susan Crane.
Ian Phillips, Susan Crane and others
384. MR PHILLIPS: I’m just wondering what timing you’re working to, Chairman?
385. CHAIR: I’m not sure about votes because they’re now on High Speed Rail London – West Midlands instruction number three, which is as you know, is controversial on occasions. It’s to do with the additional provisions and a number of people affected, and the MPs affected are talking on it. How long do you think you need to make your case?
386. MR PHILLIPS: Well, I’m probably going to be half an hour or slightly longer. And between us we are likely to be half an hour.
387. CHAIR: Okay. Well, the quicker the better.
388. MR PHILLIPS: I can be 20, we could be slightly
389. CHAIR: It’s better to be punchy because we’re stuck here all day.
390. MS CRANE: I’ve got two pages. I’ll give you a high-speed presentation.
391. CHAIR: That’s wonderful. Thank you very much. Now whereabouts are you representing, you’re representing a particular community?
392. MR PHILLIPS: Yes. Sorry.
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393. CHAIR: 86 petitioners and 58 households.
394. MR PHILLIPS: Correct. Good afternoon everybody. I’m Ian Phillips. As the slide shows, I represent 86 petitioners, 58 households. And if we have the next slide, we can see where we live? The blue is where we live. And as you can see the black arrows, I’m sure you’re very familiar with all of this, but here’s Western Avenue, here’s Swakeleys Road, here’s Harvil Road coming in, Breakspear Road coming in. High Road Ickenham coming in. And Long Lane. So, we are basically here and here. We are technically outside the bill limits, but, nonetheless, we believe like many people that you’ve heard today, we’re in for a torrid time. A disaster of titanic proportions, some might say. We have a lot of concerns. But, I’m going to be brief. I’m going to concentrate on that dreaded traffic again. If you can bear with me on that subject. As you can see from this slide, we’re pretty well hemmed in by the main construction routes and Long Lane which is very, very busy. You probably know the area as well as most residents do now from the various discussions that have gone on. But, if I just move on to the next summary slide? Traffic overview. The blue triangle is where I’m going to speak about mainly. That’s Thornhill Road. I live there and that’s where the weight of the people is. We’re going to be two main concerns. One is the ease of access through Swakeleys Road.
395. And the second thing is the impact of rat running or diversions, reassignment, whatever you want to call it. So, I’m going to focus on that. But, you know, this is a community. You know that the roads are not designed for current levels of traffic. It’s very easy to see the problems. We have 11,000 people living here who go about their daily business. On top of that we have very substantial commuter flows, north and south. We have on the far right hand side, you’ll see ringed in orange, three commuter based railway stations. Substantial traffic flows related to that. And you’ll see the blue stars which are the schools that have been talked about. They introduce their own particular traffic flows. So, what we have to do is we have to negotiate the various pinch points as they’re called along this route. They are shown by the red stars as you go around. You’ll know them very well. Swakeleys Roundabout to the left moving around to the Ickenham Junction, at the far right, the white bear, which you heard about a day or so ago I think is up there. And the various other pinch points. The red arrows indicate that throughout this route there are traffic lights. Some are pedestrian operated,
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for very good reason, others control the traffic. It just makes for a very complicated traffic situation.
396. And HS2 gets a little mention. You’ll see the little discrete red stars that to the top, across the top, six little red stars, though, of course, to describe HS2’s activities as discrete is a little bit probably out of kilter. So, all their traffic funnels through this infrastructure. People will say all the damage that they’re going to do is focused on this particular area.
397. Slide (4) is congestion. Congestion means lots of things to lots of people. We all suffer it in different ways. This gives an idea of what people suffer from. We know that HS2 will be a vast construction operation with lots of people moving lots of stuff around, producing lots of traffic, mainly HGVs which may be two, three or four times the size of a car. Quite how all that is going to work HS2 has tried to set out for us but what they do not really tell us is the quantum of damage. You can rephrase the damage, as they are doing so eloquently, but the quantum of damage in terms of delay, damage to roads etc. is not entirely clear. The phasing on that will hopefully improve on that, but it is going to be very substantial. HS2 has told us, in response to a question from Mr Bellingham a little while ago, that there will be significant effects in terms of increased queues and congestion on what are already busy roads. Yes, that is correct, but in addition we are told that it can be managed but the highway authority does not know how. We are told there are to be more traffic lights, the roads are going to be dug up etc.. Basically, disruption to the road network is going to be considerable.
398. The solution for these roads, as Mr Mould told the Committee in response to a question from Mr Bellingham again in March, is that if the tunnel is continued traffic on these roads associated with the project would be very substantially reduced. We are asking the Committee: can you encourage HS2 to follow through on that statement they made to the Committee just a month or two ago?
399. For the residents of Thornhill Road, which is indicated by the blue triangle, the consequence is mainly rat running. If I could have the next slide, please, we will talk about what I think is called reassignment that people have mentioned. We raised the question of rat runs explicitly in our petition. We raised it again at the PRD surgeries held with HS2. HS2 can provide no definitive information of comfort to us on these
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routes. The map shows the dotted red lines. Typically, peak traffic on these roads is probably in the region of two hours. It varies considerably in the course of a year, but we experience about two-hour rush hours.
400. As for Hillingdon was, I think it was David Knowles who advised the Committee. If you look at the far left of the screen, you will see coming off Harvil Road The Drive. I think he said that about 15% of traffic tries to divert down Harvil Road to avoid the roundabouts on Swakeleys. Residents on that road are so fed up with that that they would like right turns banned in rush hour peaks in the morning and afternoon to make their lives a little more bearable.
401. If we turn to the rat runs from Breakspear Road South, which is here, that feeds into us. Basically, what happens is that drivers do not like the look of traffic ahead of them. They turn off to the left and end up coming down, ultimately, Derwent Avenue on to Swakeleys Road. They go east on Swakeleys Road, do a u-turn across, come back west on Swakeleys Road and come down Thornhill Road past our front drive. They desperately try to find a way back up one of these roads back on to Swakeleys Road, ie dodging the two roundabouts here effectively. Instead of queuing over here, they try to get into queues along here.
402. In that peak period, if I am looking out of the window, I can probably count a car going past every five or six seconds. There are 600 cars per hour going down what is essentially a residential road. HS2 are unable to tell us what the impact of their proposals on us is.
403. Perhaps I could just divert from the volume of rat running and queries I have and illustrate the fragility of traffic in our area here. We had a fire on Thornhill Road and the emergency services closed the road just for a morning. The result of that little incident was gridlock in Ickenham. The traffic backs up Thornhill Road on to Swakeleys; the traffic tries to do a u-turn across into Swakeleys and backs up to the west; you have it backing up to the east. I am amazed. Ickenham ground to a halt for that period. I use that as an illustration. We had stories of people with skips digging up roads etc.. It does not take much for what is possibly a slightly tricky trip to become very difficult.
404. We were advised by HS2 to look at the traffic assessments to get comfort from that. They did that both in the PRD and the PRD meetings. That is what I would like to
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spend a little bit of time on with the next slide: traffic assessments. We are very interested in the functioning of those road junctions and in diversions that may or may not take place from those road junctions, and the traffic management that is going to be put in place to make that situation manageable. It is a bit of a battle to get to grips with these things, but I have endeavoured to do that. The first thing they tell us is that the growth projections, ie the change in traffic in this area, are likely to be very small. Absolute flow changes are typically relatively small for this area. For Swakeleys Road, in their response they say in their baseline case that traffic is going to decline, not by much. It will be negative as opposed to positive. From the studies that we have done, our data show that on Swakeleys Road over the past four or five years traffic has increased by about 20%. I concede that it is a crude amateur estimate, but we have seen significant traffic growth. I find it unrealistic that HS2 is saying there will be virtually no growth in background traffic in the baseline case they present. The green arrow going up should be going across, or maybe even down.
405. If we can turn to junction performance, the standard appraisal technology approach tells you that you do a base case and then superimpose the results of the major changes HS2 is planning to do on to that to see the difference. They have done that. The base case shows that these roads are what Hillingdon referred to as traffic super- saturated. Sometimes, particularly in the middle of the day, they function smoothly, but HS2 have confirmed that on quite a lot of these junctions they try to operate at or above capacity, particularly in peak periods.
406. Strangely, they produce some queue data for these junctions. They show what they call the mean maximum queue length, which is an indication of how long car traffic might be expected to wait. For most of these junctions the figure quoted is zero. On some occasions it is a four or eight-car equivalence. I am not a traffic expert, but I find it very difficult to equate that number of vehicles with the queues we see. At the junction of Long Lane and High Road Ickenham it is easy to see a queue of 40 or 50 vehicles in the peak period. HS2 quote a figure of about eight. When I raised that with HS2 they conceded that was probably not a very good way of looking at traffic congestion. They said that delay was. I asked why they had not looked at delay. After all, delay is time; time is money to residents and HS2. Apparently, they found that too difficult, but that is a part of standard methodology. If you look at the TfL guidance for what you should do,
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you are not obliged to do it, but it is recommended that you look at delays. Therefore, information on delays is not available, but we experience long queues on these junctions.
407. You then ask the question: what happens when you add HS2 to these junctions? You try to put the HS2 traffic through these junctions. We are told that the impacts on junctions are relatively small. If you look at the maximum queue figures, they are virtually the same. HS2 are saying that their effect on these roundabouts and junctions will be virtually nil. The impact of peak construction flows on these junctions with HS2 is relatively small. I find that difficult to believe. I am happy to be corrected, if that is possible.
408. HS2 have produced some more recent data. It is a little difficult, but I have tried to look at that. If we take Swakeleys Road, for example, with AP2, the revised traffic projections, as I think it is called, they say it carries about 1,400 vehicles in a peak hour. They then add in the HS2 traffic. That commuter traffic – the 1,400 I have just mentioned – becomes 900-odd. What is happening? HS2 are adding their 70, 80 or however many HGVs it is, and a third of the existing traffic at peak time trying to get through Swakeleys Road to the south is required to divert. That is some 460 vehicles out of 1,450-odd, or whatever it is. Obviously, the numbers vary a bit.
409. I raise two questions. Is it reasonable and practicable to expect that volume of commuter traffic to go elsewhere? If so, where is it going to go? I have just described the rat runs to you and how chocka they are. Where is this traffic going to go? I did ask HS2 for that information but they cannot tell us what the position is.
410. Transport for London provide guidance for modelling. They say that as well as looking at delays you should look at the traffic impacts on locally congested areas, which I think is an accurate description of Ickenham, where there is difficulty in accommodating additional traffic, which again is an accurate description. What you should do to support your argument is explain what is happening to the displaced traffic. You should set out what is happening and where that traffic goes. HS2 do not do that. There is no satisfactory explanation, as far as I can find – I am happy to be corrected – as to where diverted traffic goes on that scale. I say that the analysis we have seen so far fails on the grounds of reasonableness and, if you apply a rationality check to it, it does
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not work.
411. Perhaps I can move on from the fragility of the traffic assessments and perhaps talk a little about the other traffic issues. I will skip over this very quickly because you have had more than enough of this already. As to the volumes of traffic, we are not concerned so much about the phasing as the quantum, or the total damage that this traffic is going to cause: the volume of pollution, the volume of disturbance, the impact on emergencies, the damage to the highways etc.. It is the total quantum that these vehicles are going to create no matter how you spread it.
412. Similarly, safety is a major concern. Perhaps I can develop that point. It is not just HGVs. HGVs cause diversions on to other roads, particularly roads near Breakspear School. That is causing difficulty with the children going to and from that school, and the Metropolitan Police have been asked by the Mayor to monitor the situation as regards traffic displacement because of the road safety issues they generate. HGVs are a problem in their own right, but they also generate a problem with the traffic that they force elsewhere.
413. Mitigation is the next slide. HS2 have currently provided us with a pointer so we can look at what the mitigation for our area is. They provided a map detailing what they called the significant residual transfer effects arising during construction. The term ‘residual’ is used because it is after mitigation and application of the code of construction practice and other mitigation steps identified in a long list in that document. What that map does not include are the effects of HS2.
414. As to the residual effect after mitigation – I stress that – all the roads we are concerned about are shown with major effects on traffic flows with consequent delays. Therefore, you can mitigate as much as you like, but significant delays are still projected by HS2. Maybe AP2 is the magic want to transform all that. I remain to be convinced about that particular story.
415. If I look at the second bullet point – modelling – to be able to manage the situation in which we find ourselves we need to understand what is going on. You have heard the general theme in previous presentations that HS2 do not understand these. I alluded to it in the maximum queue lengths, for example. I alluded to the fact they claimed their traffic would have virtually no effect on these junctions. I think that was the expression.
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That is not to belittle modelling. You need to use it properly and sensibly. I question the way that has been done. I am not sure that the revised modelling, or whatever is going to be done that has been promised, will help us very much. I had an e-mail recently from HS2 which said they were looking at it again, but they were aiming to avoid causing any increases in traffic over those that are likely with or without HS2, ie they still persist in the claim that they are going to aim to avoid. Aiming to avoid is all very well. If they changed that wording to ‘committing to ensuring there is no increase in traffic’, or they could give us a concrete assurance along those lines, that would go a long way to help, but I wait and see whether we get a commitment of that sort.
416. I have talked about the modelling supposedly saying ‘adequately assess the impacts’. I question that, particularly the impact of diversion or digression on to other roads.
417. We are promised an awful lot of liaising, consulting, co-ordinating, co-operation etc. That’s great, but what are they trying to sort out, and when? If you pass the parcel to somebody else to remedy a problem you have caused, no doubt they will do their best but that is after the event. No doubt you expect them possibly to pay for it. I suppose the highways agency has to pick up the bill for that. It seems to me that a more constructive approach is that, instead of waiting until the accident has happened and all the congestion has arisen, you try to sort it out in advance; you try to remedy the situation before the event.
418. I’m making the argument that prevention is much better than trying to cure it afterwards. So what needs to happen is the work needs to be done now, and I’m extremely disappointed that we don’t have in place a proper assessment of these junctions and how you’re going to do anything about it. Because, yes, you can look again, but you can look as much as you like. The Local Authority has told us there isn’t a magic wand you can wave. If HS2 can devise one, that will be brilliant. I wait to be convinced that we can see a demonstration of that.
419. If I move on to the fourth bullet point. HS2 makes reference to undertakers. I must say I find that a slightly ominous description. But I guess in the case of Ickenham it could turn out to be sadly accurate. The easiest option for HS2 is to bury Ickenham in HGVs, and to bury us in spoil. What we hope of course – I’m a bit being over-dramatic
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there, of course, but what we hope, of course, is that the Committee will encourage the undertaker to actually to bury HS2 in a tunnel, please, or at least to give it serious consideration. We feel at the moment that is being dismissed virtually out of hand. Please, can we try and have a slightly more engaged approach to looking at that. And the undertaker is subject to various obligations. You can see those. They have to use reasonable endeavours, they’re expected to do things. But only if it’s reasonably practicable, and not if there’s cost or delay. So I’m not quite sure what benefit we’re going to get from this, given the way that that wording is expressed.
420. Anyway, HS2 tell us – to come to my final point on this slide – that what they’re suggesting is the least worst option for Ickenham. I think that’s a very sad expression. If we just turn to explore a little bit on the next slide, please, what the least worst option is. And I don’t mean to be flippant when I use this slide but – and I thought you’d seen enough pictures of traffic and things like that – but the pace at which a tortoise moves is probably equivalent to how much of Ickenham will move, and West Ruislip, and possibly Harefield – parts of Harefield too – quite significant proportions in the day, if this proposal comes to pass.
421. Perhaps I can say, if I may, to the Committee, what I do not believe. So I do not believe that the underlying traffic modelling, and what is proposed to date, is fit for purpose. HS2 have not understood the scale of the issues that we will face, or I’m sure they say they will but we’re not clear how they will deal with them. I do not believe that the effects that we’re going to see on Ickenham, Harefield, Ruislip, etc. – which have been so eloquently presented to – are justified. HS2 states it acts in a balanced, it acts in a proportionate manner. I think that if you look at the treatment of Ickenham I think the judgment must be that it’s wholly disproportionate. That’s all I can say. We ask for something better, please.
422. And also, looking at it from the Promoter’s perspective, I don’t believe it’s in their best interest to do this. Just simple self-interest, in terms of economics and effective operation. Unless you bottomed out the problems here, how can you believe that these sort of delays are acceptable – or the likely delays are acceptable. You haven’t costed the effects. Now some of you probably recognise the words I’ve used here. They’re taken from Victor Meldrew. We’re asking the Promoter not to – to basically amend their proposals so that it works in such a way does not have us having
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any more than just one foot in our grave.
423. In conclusion, please. As I mentioned, HS2 have previously accepted that a tunnel would make a lot of difference for us, and that’s what we are looking for. We believe if HS2 applied its considerable expertise and resources, a much better outcome is possible. For example, extending the tunnel to the Harvil Road depot, for example, which has been, I understand – I’ve heard that dismissed – I know – creating and using the West Ruislip depot as the railhead I believe. Again, I’m not sure about the – I believe that’s been pretty well dismissed, but perhaps might be reconsidered at the prompting of the Committee. Failing that, I struggle to suggest much that’s constructive other than traffic planning for this area and a very rigorous control of HGVs to minimise problems. I’m not sure, actually, what can be done from the traffic planning perspective. I’ve said I think it’s unreasonable to expect contractors and agencies to try and sort out matters after the event. I think it’s better to try and anticipate these things. But there’s some things that HS2 could do. For example, we heard about all this cement that’s coming in on the road; can’t that come in by rail? That would make a huge difference if that could be done, for example. The spoil, again, look at phasing that so more uses are made of the railhead, just to get the spoil out rather than dumping it on us.
424. So as I say, I think traffic planning is the last resort. Our preference is for the tunnel, and I would be grateful for the Committee’s assistance to assist in at last getting that explored a little bit more. And if I may end there, and if there are any questions I’m very happy to take them.
425. CHAIR: Who’s next?
426. MR CRANE: I’ll try and push through as fast as I can, Chairman. My name’s David Crane, and we all want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you and the Committee. We live on the Rectory Way estate in the heart of Ickenham. So could we have slide one on A1095, please? To be precise, you can see the Rectory Way estate is shown in orange above the yellow Swakeleys Road. Our house is precisely there, right in the corner. We’ve been in that house for 35 years, and in fact my wife is born in Ickenham. And once again, like most people, we have to preface all remarks by stating just how completely we do endorse the presented views of Hillingdon Borough
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Council, and everything that’s come from Ickenham Residents’ Association, and the other petitioners today and on other days.
427. We feel, really, that we need to highlight with something of a passion, just how and why the elderly, infirm and vulnerable residents that we have on our estate are so upset, and in some cases very angry. In many cases, from the very elderly, they’re very frightened in fact of the plans that HS2 has in store for our community. So what we’re going to try and do this afternoon is present to you the views of what we would call real people in a real world, who are very concerned for their future. And in doing so, we’ll try to avoid any exchange of engineering and technical data – except possibly one statistic later on – for as you know, like virtually all statistics they can be manipulated beautifully to endorse and probably blind us to almost anything that is said by anybody at any time. We all know that.
428. Now, as you can see from the map that Rectory Way, in fact, it consists of 147 detached houses built in the 1960s. It’s in yet another enclave directly off Swakeleys Road, in the heart of the village, opposite the parade of shops. And as you can see from the satellite picture there, everywhere, including us, is densely populated. With the estate set back from Swakeleys Road and no additional means of exit or entry of course, Rectory Way and Eleanor Grove shown there are our only means of accessing a really congested highway.
429. Could we have slide two, please? The estate also includes The Buntings, which is a group of 35 sheltered housing units, which can only be accessed by vehicles via Boniface Road on the estate, and a couple of those are shown – pictures of those are shown on the slide for you. Could we have slide three? And in addition to that, on the estate, there is a business office which is there, and also a large premises called Little Buntings, oddly enough. And that houses the borough’s careline emergency call and contact offices, and the building also acts as the community centre for the sheltered housing residents. Now, as you probably realise access is incredibly important for vulnerable people, and elderly people. Meals on wheels, visiting care workers, nurses etc., Age Concern representatives – they all visit weekly, or even more so – regular hair dressers, chiropodists, and there are many other visitors from the NHS and social services.
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430. On our estate, by far – overwhelmingly – the majority of people are over the age of 60 years. Considerable number – very considerable number – are well over the age of 80. And quite a few are actually in their 90s. And as with us, many have lived in their houses for 30 plus years, some since the estate was built round about 1964 or just before that. We had 128 signatories on the petition. They all have serious worries and concerns about the effect that the construction of HS2 will have on their health, their safety and their wellbeing.
431. Now, many of our residents have got mobility and health problems, which so often accompany advancing years, and thus they have regular, frequent appointments at all three of our local hospitals. Count me in that, as well. With their GPs too. Now three of our local hospitals – Hillingdon, Mount Vernon and Harefield – as you know, have no train station in the proximity. So how do they get there? Road transport is the only way; it is essential. We’ve got residents who are unable to walk more than a few steps. They depend on the use of wheelchairs and buggies. Others depend on bus services, and they’re already subjected to delay because of the existing congestion. The construction route from Ickenham High Road – from Ickenham Road, I should say, to High Road Ickenham is also the site – which hasn’t been mentioned, I don’t think – of two residential nursing homes, two sheltered housing complexes; there are two more retirement homes under construction. Charlotte Gell’s cottages are on the Swakeleys Road, and it’s a listed almshouse. It contains 12 very, very elderly residents indeed, and they’re very frail. And it seems to our petitioners that HS2 Ltd has given almost no consideration for their tranquility of mind. The current implementation of the scheme actually seems to us at extreme variance to our Prime Minister’s concern for this age group.
432. Of course, we are aware of the very recent and very late plan from HS2 Ltd to change the number of HGVs on our roads. Maybe there is a very late understanding of just how many juggernauts in a congested area just will derail the company’s plans and its timescale, even though of course this has been pointed out right from the very beginning. So it has to be said, from our point of view, the new figures they’ve come up with simply claim that now we can expect a huge number of extra HGVs, instead of a colossal number. Great. If our Local Council experts and consultants have not yet found a working solution why on earth does HS2 think it can come up with one?
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433. Now, in 2007 there was a Hillingdon Cabinet report referring to the T-junction at Swakeleys Road with Ickenham High Road, and it stated – and I’ll paraphrase this: the proximity of a number of local historic features and façades, including St Giles’ Church and the pump, and the complex layout of the junction, and various adjacent accesses, have made it difficult to achieve workable options. In the past a mini-roundabout’s been tried at the junction; this has proved unsuccessful. And it goes on to say that signalisation then became the preferred option. However, as we know, that experiment didn’t work – not well, anyway – and neither has the current configurations taking place. They have tried quite a lot. A borough consultant’s site visit on that occasion – and that was a long time ago, 2007 – revealed there were more than 20 conflicts in 15 minutes. Most of the conflicts were near misses that would have resulted in an accident. And very significant queues were observed during the very overlong a.m. and p.m. peaks on every approach. As I say, that was 2007. And since then the traffic of course has increased exponentially.
434. Next slide, please. Now, the next slide, very quick, shows you this is the typical morning, evening – almost any time – weekends, of the traffic, the normal traffic, that simply blocks the exit onto Swakeleys Road from Rectory Way and Eleanor Grove. And we have to say, the traffic and its subsequent pollution is of grave concern to those who are suffering from breathing problems caused by asthma and heart disease. We know that Swakeleys Road already has pollution levels in excess of EU regulations during the peak hours. As I said they extend well beyond those considered by HS2 Ltd. Sadly, of course it’s often – and it is often – necessary to call an ambulance for some of our residents, particularly bearing in mind the problem faced by the overloaded NHS service at this time, it’s the additional worry that traffic congestion will add further delay to response times.
435. And the same applies to the fire and the police services. Literally, as we returned home from this Committee’s sitting last Thursday, we came across a paramedic in a terrible hurry trying to get across Swakeleys Road to get on to our estate. He was absolutely stuck. Nothing could move. Valuable moments are being wasted by these traffic jams. Could I have next slide, please? This slide, what you’ve been seeing all the time, just shows what normal traffic is like and parking in the village. These were all taken by me in the quietest parts, midweek. It is far worse than this usually. That’s
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the quiet time. Gives you some idea.
436. Next slide, please? It’s been mentioned already that, about Ickenham, so, we’d like to thank, actually, the committee for visiting Ickenham, hope they might have gleaned a bit of an idea, actually, how strong the community spirit is there. You see although Ickenham is on the edge of Greater London and inevitably, suburbia, it remains very much a village at heart, as you’ve heard.
437. You can see from the slides what you’ve seen actually before that Ickenham has a biannual Ickenham festival, the summer festival, lasts a week, in June. We have a festive night before Christmas. All these things bring the village together. There are hundreds, hundreds of activities that make Ickenham a really, really special place to live. But, we feel, all our residents feel, that this lifestyle and strong community support for one another will be absolutely devastated by the construction of HS2 unless really, really serious thought is given to mitigating this chaos that’s likely. Elderly residents, in particular, are going to have even more problems crossing Swakeleys Road. Very few will wish to walk about, use a wheelchair or buggy along Swakeleys Road. It’s going to generate so much noise, dust and fumes.
438. Just imagine the scene, and to be a little bit flippant, possibly, the tabloid headlines actually. To the distress of onlookers, infirm and elderly folk are pictured battling an endless line of large lorries. The mind rather boggles. I was speculating a little bit and wondered could we read in the Mail and The Sun headlines: ‘Is Ickenham the most dangerous and congested village in Britain?’ ‘Are the emergency service refusing to enter the village unless issued with gas masks?’ Is there going to be a public inquiry called for by residents?’ And finally, eventually, come back from HS2: ‘We deny all responsibility, not us, guv, said a spokesman, blame the contractors.’ But, really seriously, to be serious, it was literally, only last Wednesday when one of our neighbours, in her nineties, just home from hospital, been months in hospital, asked me to help her across the road, Swakeleys Road, because she was literally too frightened to do it alone and she was unable to walk just the short extra distance to the crossing. She had to go one way, across the crossing, back to get where she needed to go. It was the dentist. She was frightened.
439. Now, our PRD, confirms in fact that the closest household, on Rectory Way
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Estate, probably ours, is roughly 400 metres south of the proposed line. But, we have to tell you that on most days, and especially at night, we’ve always heard the Chiltern Line. Always heard those trains. Railway traffic and works noise always seems to travel rather further than the data suggests. And whatever that scientific data might be, I’m sorry, it’s simply does.
440. The entire HS2 project, we consider, might have been viewed in a different light if HS2 Ltd. really had a genuine environmental care, vision, common sense and imagination for our community, which is going to be affected so dramatically and so much for the worse. It would have helped of course if during consultation processes we’ve received accurate answers to our enquiries. You’ve heard about this. Too often the officials we met weren’t able to answer our questions. They placed the onus on as yet unknown contractors. Responses were often unreliable. They often differed between officials. And basically are signatories believe that HS2 Ltd has created a very poor plan indeed and really has not done its homework properly. The construction plans for the Olympic Park, Cross Rail and the Channel Tunnel, I might say, showed vision and imagination in their early planning and methodology. Why not then for Ickenham? All that’s responded to us seems to be based on the siting of the existing sites for the project. None of them has to be sited where stated. Alternative sites are known.
441. Now, some examples of the confusion that followed. In the early days of the HS2 concepts we were told quite clearly that tunnelling the 20 feet or so under the River Pinn and then onwards towards HOAC was far too complicated and difficult a task because of the geological nature of the area. But at a very recent PRD surgery meeting we were told by the tunnelling engineer there, I will quote it, we all make sure we wrote it down: ‘Boring your tunnel is easy, but, it won’t have trains running through it because unless we have the West Ruislip portal, we can’t lay down the long sections of expensive high grade rail lines.’ And this was followed up by a quote from the other member of the same panel: ‘Well, even if you have a tunnel, it won’t make much difference to the number of HGVs needed on the construction route’. So, of course we asked the question, what difference? Back came the answer: ‘Well, maybe 30%. By one statistic.’ Now, we’re told, it’s going to make things worse. So, what exactly has changed? And is it any wonder that we are not inclined to believe all are we hear?
442. A further comment suggested by HS2 committee was the usual one that traffic
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will find an alternative route. And then we were said, for example, the M25. Are they serious? The busiest and most congested motorway in Europe? HS2 know it. We know it. Everybody knows it. There are no alternative routes. None.
443. We all realise of course that change is part of life and we have to adapt whether we like it or not. However, as far as our signatories are concerned the proposed plans constitute not just a change to our lives but literally a devastating disruption for many years to come. So, is it any wonder that we are seeking real mitigation for every one of these hazards, losses and disruptions? In the view of our petitioners and most others except HS2 Ltd, it’s become obvious that the only viable solution would be an extension to the Northolt Tunnel to run under the Colne Valley, and, to add to it, changing the currently proposed sites for the railheads and portals. We all hear from HS2 in response to our petitions that their answers relate only to the current plan. There are others. As some would say, better ones.
444. So, I can only say chairman and honourable members of this committee, we do call on you to incline to protecting our ancient village by accepting the above form of mitigation as the only possible resolution and by doing so we believe that you’d be reducing to a minimum the long term despoiling of our community. You see, while we have a tunnel vision for Ickenham, that is boring a tunnel, as the only reasonable solution to an otherwise insoluble problem, unfortunately, HS2 Ltd’s obsessional tunnel vision relates entirely to a thoroughly despoiling the viaduct of an unknown design, as part of a purely over ground solution and nothing else. The company seems to be lacking in imagination, utterly reluctant to visualise any sensible alternative regardless of its merit. And we do have to ask, is the company simply blind to the alternatives because of the time and money that’s been spent already on developing the current scheme? In fact, it occurs to me, as we heard a little bit earlier, if the cutting they propose at the portal is so darn deep and it’s going to come up, and then it’s going to go down, what’s the point? Just go straight through. And that does conclude my remarks. And I’ll hand you over to my wife who has a separate petition to tell you about.
445. MS CRANE: Will you hear me alright if I stay here?
446. CHAIR: You can stay there. Just carry on. Carry on.
447. MS CRANE: Okay. Alright. Pardon.
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448. CHAIR: Yes.
449. MS CRANE: Okay? I’m speaking on behalf of Mr Richard Howard, who’s petition number 704. Richard is a retired gentlemen who lives on the Rectory Way Estate, just around the corner from David and me, in fact. And he asked if I’d present this petition as he has a severe hearing impediment, communication can be difficult for him, hence you’ve got me. I hope that I can convey the strength of feeling which led him to write his own separate petition and to request a tunnel for Ickenham. As he is a near neighbour, the majority of his worries and concerns are similar to the ones you’ve just heard from David. I won’t go over them again. I’ll cut to the chase. Richard is one of the fitter residents of our Estate and he has been a regular cyclist for over 30 years. He chooses to cycle as an efficient, economical, healthy and environmental friendly way of getting around, which, I’m afraid leads me to the subject of traffic. But, heavy traffic poses a different problem for cyclists to that for motorists and pedestrians. Richard feels that cyclists are important road users but they’ve been given no real consideration by HS2.
450. As you’ve heard Ickenham is still basically a village at heart and its road system is totally unsuited to the construction traffic planned by HS2. There was an article in last Sundays Times, I’m not going to read all of it, but an LGA spokesman is quoted as saying: ‘There’s been a spate of accidents involving lorry drivers driving irresponsibly and bringing bedlam to small, rural communities’. It goes on in that vein. Although Ickenham and Harefield can no longer be classed as small, rural communities, they do still have small, rural roads. And I’m thinking of Harvil Road and Breakspear Road South here. The very roads that Richard uses. And that HS2 proposes to use.
451. We heard last week, briefly, Boris has been very successful in recent years, in promoting cycling in London, but, unfortunately, that’s been accompanied by an horrendous increase in accidents and cyclists’ deaths. Even more worryingly, nearly all these accidents have been shown to be linked to heavy goods vehicles, particularly, at junction points. Now, Richard isn’t expecting a sudden boom in the cycling population of Ickenham but, HS2’s plans will bring a huge increase in HGV traffic through our area.
452. Richard cycles to Uxbridge every weekday and to Harefield every Sunday. He
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avoids peak traffic hours, but, he’s had many near misses cycling along Harvil Road and there have been several occasions where lorries and vans have actually brushed against him. I know you’re aware that both Breakspear Road South and Harvil Road are narrow, with no pavements. They remain country roads in reality. They have drainage ditches on both sides of the road. There’s no room at all for a cycle path or a footpath. They are already hazardous with accidents of all types. For cyclists, they are already a potential death trap. Flowers can regularly be seen by the side of the road, pushed into hedges or pinned to fences to commemorate the death of a loved one. And I really don’t know how Richard is going to get to Harefield without using Harvil Road or possibly Breakspear Road South, which is almost going to be as bad. Also, Richard’s hearing impairment means that it’s sometimes difficult for him to be aware of vehicles on the road behind him.
453. Of course, cyclists face additional hazards negotiating their way around parked cars and vans and we’ve got plenty of those in Ickenham. Cyclists are sandwiched between parked vehicles and passing traffic and they face the possibility of being crushed if a driver or a passenger opens a car door without due care. The larger the vehicle passing by, i.e., HGV, the more dangerous and potentially life threatening the situation. Richard describes the roundabout at the junction of Harvil Road and Swakeleys Road as scary. And he also has to negotiate a mini roundabout at the junction of Breakspear Road South and Swakeleys Road. As for the huge Swakeleys Roundabout on the A40, well, that’s a problem on a different scale altogether, of course. Road surfaces are already bad in places, what are they going to be like when HS2’s HGVs have used them for a while? Once again, this is a more serious problem for cyclists than other road users.
454. Of equal importance is the matter of increased pollution which is a big worry for Richard. He’s keen to keep fit and active. He regularly visits the gym. But, the heavier the traffic, the greater the exhaust output. He knows HS2 has stated that it will use low emission Euro 6 vehicles at all times. But, these will still generate a huge increase in fumes and dust. I told Richard that HS2’s environment director and routes section manager, Mr Peter Miller, was called to speak on the subject of cyclist safety last week. He made many assurances to the committee about mirrors on HGVs, additional driver training, hosing down lorries in the depot and covering their loads to avoid dust
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dispersal. But, I don’t recall him, I might be wrong here, but, I don’t remember him ever addressing the subject of deadly diesel exhaust particularates, which Mr Mearns had also questioned at that time. Richard has read the contribution of our MP, Nick Hurd, to the Westminster Hall debate on air pollution in London on July 9. I quote: ‘According to Defra’s own models, the plans for the construction of High Speed Rail 2 will increase emissions of the most dangerous pollutants in my constituency by 40%. Is that not gross irresponsibility?’ Swakeleys Road, Harvil Road and the Swakeleys Roundabout where then named as the areas which will be worst affected.
455. Richard detailed many other concerns in his petition, but, I feel these have already been brought before the committee by other petitioners and they need no further amplification. Although he is a raising the cycling issues on a personal basis, he would ask you to consider the health and safety of all cyclists. We have many cyclists in Ickenham as well as commuters cycling to their places of work or to one of our local stations. The bike racks at West Ruislip station are completely full every weekday. Our cycling community is numerous and varied.
456. I will conclude by reminding you that Richard is petitioning for a continuation of the Northolt Tunnel across the Colne Valley. He does not feel that HS2 Ltd has explored all of the options as far as this is concerned and asks it to do so. The planners have produced volumes of statistics and used traffic modelling for our area, please, just use some common sense. It’s obvious to residents that these plans just will not work. Residents will be living with the reality of the situation, not merely the statistics. HS2’s plans will be disastrous, not only for thousands of people, but, for its project as well. Thank you for listening.
457. CHAIR: Thank you very much. I’m sure my colleagues will correct me but I have a feeling that cycling in London has doubled over the last 10 years. I mean, there is massively more cyclists on the road and I think that’s some of the reason that there is more publicity about people getting. There is more of them everywhere.
458. MS CRANE: Yes.
459. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The number of deaths in London has dropped on a secular basis over the last 10 years or so and you’re right in saying it has increase a lot, not to say that the number of deaths we still have is acceptable, but, the risk for each
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cyclist has dropped significantly.
460. CHAIR: Right. Mr Strachan?
461. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I understand a lot of the issues that we’ve covered to relate to traffic, which I’ve dealt with. So, I will try and not repeat things I’ve said already, although, I refer you back to what I’ve said. Can I just leave it in this way, the phasing plans that we looked at earlier, and showed the levels of traffic, particularly affecting the residents that are speaking now, P6669 shows you the area of the residents Mr Phillips was representing, off Swakeleys Road. And P6522. Have you got that? Mr and Mrs Crane. And you’ll recall, although I don’t go back to it, the levels of traffic, HGV traffic, that were running along Swakeleys Road and High Road here. It is that three year period of the levels that we were looking at. That doesn’t mean there isn’t another effect at Swakeleys Road, further down, but, we’ve discussed that previously.
462. Can I just deal with a point I think made by Mr Philips? He made a number of points about traffic modelling. And I think it’s important, we all have responsibilities to set out what’s actually happened. I think it’s important that I correct the impression that he gave in relation to traffic modelling. There is a considerable body of information in terms of traffic modelling that has gone into the assessment of the construction work in this area. It is contained and summarised in the environmental statement. It is set out in Volume 5, the technical appendices. It includes the traffic model, which was produced in consultation with the relevant highway authorities and TfL and the traffic model is one which is built by the traffic engineers, the experts, in consultation with TfL, for example, and it builds in what’s called the Welham Model, which takes into account planned growth in London. And indeed transport changes in the local areas, local consented things.
463. And one of the things, I just give it as an example, but, if one cares to look at the technical appendices, you’ll see that for 2021, one other things that is built into the Welham Model is, of course, the introduction of Cross Rail in 2018 and the effects that that has on the traffic in the area. Those are all part of TfL’s Welham Model approach which is then used to build up a picture of the baseline flows. So, the extracts you had from the technical appendices don’t actually reflect the full detail that has gone into the
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model which is being looked at. And the project does take very seriously modelling, correct modelling, and anticipating traffic flows, that work has been done, contrary to the impression that was given. And it’s a model that’s been compiled and developed in the way I’ve indicated and it does, for example, demonstrate that there would be a 5% increase in baseline flows in 2021, which is one of the things that was identified in southbound flows on the Swakeleys Road and it looks at the affect of traffic into that.
464. And the second point, just to make very briefly, is that in the environment statement that HS2 has produced, it recognises the effects of construction traffic on these junctions. It identifies where there’s going to be a significant effect, or it’s predicted to have a significant effect, and that’s all reflected in the environmental statement. The environmental statement, of course, is a worst case scenario and as you have been looking at over the course of time it makes a series of assumptions about the worst case construction traffic. If it were all to take place at the same time at a peak hour, in the way we’ve looked at. We’ve produced the more the detailed phasing models which show the more realistic picture. So, if I hope, I do feel that it’s important to recognise the work that’s gone into the traffic modelling and the care that’s gone into it. That all said, of course, HS2 has subsequently provided an assurance to Hillingdon to revisit the junction, the key junctions, which, in question, I’ve already referred you to that. That’s work that’s ongoing. And, of course, we will continue to look at those junctions to see what the true effects will be and what measures can be introduced, if any, to mitigate the flows in those junctions.
465. CHAIR: And the work on the junctions is the HS2 working with Hillingdon and working with TfL? The solution has to involve everybody.
466. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Certainly. The assurance was given to Hillingdon because they’re roads that are particularly the junctions of concern, as opposed to the TfL road, which is the A40. But, certainly, the modelling, the consultation work takes into account the local authority and the TfL. So, there is a body of work that’s already been done and further work to be built upon that. And the final point I want to make, just for the record for, is alternatives. HS2 has diligently considered a number of alternatives, both of its own ones it’s selected, and of course those that have come forward through the various consultation processes. They range from, in the very early stages, route alignments. They’ve moved through to detailed consideration of tunnel
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options; detailed consideration of alternative working arrangements; and where we certainly have looked at them, and you’ve heard, for example, HS2’s position on why certain alternatives have not been considered acceptable and do not cure the problems. And I just remind you, as an example of that, that in traffic terms, the Colne Valley Tunnel was looked at in terms of traffic generation. There’s a slide you’ve seen previously, which actually analyses the traffic that would continue to be generated if a tunnel were produced and that is, of course, because it’s traffic to set up the tunnel into Northolt, which is the peak traffic which is generated in this area. And that would have to occur in any event. So, those are the only points I wanted to make. Other than that, I think you’ve probably heard probably enough from me on the subject of traffic today.
467. CHAIR: I think I could become a traffic engineer in Hillingdon with all this today. Any brief final comments Mr Phillips?
468. MR MEARNS: Sir?
469. CHAIR: Yes, sorry about that. Yes.
470. MR MEARNS: I think, you know, the residents groups and individuals who have petitioned us from the Ickenham area have emphasised the point that, and we’ve witnessed it, I think, as well, that the traffic can often be static in and around the area. And the modelling that has been done by HS2, and the planning which has been done by HS2, may well be fine, if all things remain equal. But, it seems to me, that, you know, that the pinch point nature of the traffic going through Ickenham mean that unforeseen but fairly regular eventualities prevent the traffic flows from flowing, as it were. And I think that remains for me, Mr Strachan, a major concern in terms of the movement of heavy goods vehicles in the area, because it is already heavily congested. As I’ve said, we’ve witnessed it. And there are so many variables which affect the traffic in the area. It’s very, very difficult to plan out all of those different variables.
471. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I readily accept that and I do emphasise that the project’s well aware of the traffic situation. It’s not – this is a known feature of the area. It’s very well known what the levels are, there have been detailed accounts and there have been modelling work. Of course, there are things that can occur which aggravate traffic flows. There are also effects which occur in the peak hours, as opposed to other parts of the day, and all of those things are factored into the assumptions which are –
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HS2 has to work with.
472. But there is a mutual – there is a point of mutual interest here, which is important to note. It is in HS2’s interest because it has to get its construction traffic into this area to carry out – particularly that nine month period, it needs to construct the trace, is in its interest to get the traffic modelling right, to get the assumptions right, and to look further again at the junctions, which is what it’s doing, to ensure that it can get the traffic through. So, this mutual interest, it is as much in HS2’s interest to get the position right and understand what the effects will be, in order that we can construct the project and that’s why I emphasise we take it seriously, and we’re doing the work, and have done a whole body of work, to look at that.
473. MR MEARNS: I think additionally, you know, when we can actually look at trying to manage the road systems and the junctions in the immediate area, it seems though as well, that traffic feeds in from further afield, depending on what’s happening on the wider road network, the trunk roads in the immediate vicinity, and the M25 even. So, you know, those additional variables go beyond Ickenham itself, as it were.
474. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s certainly the case. It does also work the other way, in terms of the traffic modelling, because, as I indicated earlier, it’s a well established principle that diversionary traffic does occur, on a much wider level, so people travelling further afield will divert if there’s considered to be an increase or problems in the area, and this is of course, something of a complicated subject, but that is part of why the Welham traffic model assumes a degree of diversion on the wider road network, and that’s one of the factors that’s looked at. So, I accept your point there’s rat running and things of that kind, but equally, there’s diversionary traffic that can result as a consequence of construction projects. But I’m not saying it’s an easy thing, but is something which we’ve looked at in considerable detail, and will continue to do so. Let’s be clear, it’s an ongoing process, hence the assurance.
475. CHAIR: They’ve been there repairing the Chiswick flyover and you appreciate what difference that makes when they close it. And so I think that we may have to be looking at some of the junctions that fly over the underpasses and things like that, just not – you know. I think we have to be able to be creative. Mr Phillips, do you have any final points?
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476. MR PHILLIPS: Yes, I would just like to elaborate – I accept a lot of what’s said, but I would like to elaborate on the diversion point. I made the point about a third of commuter traffic going south onto the roundabout at Swakeleys, being expected to diverge to make way for HS2 traffic; I do not believe that’s sensible or possible, and where does that traffic go? HS2 has not addressed in the detail they’ve provided, where this traffic can or will go, other than to generate gridlock. It’s unsatisfactory.
477. CHAIR: Right, you made your point and something the Committee are going to have to dwell on before we come to final decisions because clearly there are problems in this area. That you all, thank you all three of you.
478. MS CRANE: Can I just ask about particulates, which still hasn’t been addressed? They are a problems for cyclists, even –
479. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): We did – I think we did look at air quality and particulates. There is an air quality assessment that was done as part of the Environmental Statement which models the effects of particulates, amongst other things, and there is a further modelling that’s been done and I indicated I was going to let you and the residents have copies of the updated model which shows the latest predications in air quality, taking account of, for example, the Euro 6 issues, so Mr Miller did – my recollection is Mr Miller did deal with that, but that is the position.
480. MR MEARNS: I listened quite carefully what Mr Miller was saying the other day and I think he largely answered the question regarding, I think it was nitrogen dioxide, was the problem, in the Euro 6, but in terms of the particulate matter, I’m not convinced that the answer was necessarily satisfactory.
481. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, can I – well, I don’t have Mr Miller here, but we can certainly come back – we’re going to come back to this issue again, I can ask him to cover that. The air quality modelling does cover particulates as well as NOTs, so the same modelling will assist, but I’ll come back to you if I may on that, to see if Mr Miller can fill you in a bit more.
482. CHAIR: It looks like I may be forced to rick Nick Hurd’s debate as well.
483. MR CRANE: Could I just ask very briefly? Mr Strachan, do you accept, in terms
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of pollution, that regardless of all the who’s and what’s and why for’s, we’re basically given, any additional HGV to the existing traffic, causes more pollution, both of nitrous oxide and particulates. Isn’t that logic, common sense?
484. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, indeed, additional – additional traffic or HGVs create more emissions, undoubtedly. The position is, however, that particulate emissions are measured at roadside locations and their effects are at roadside locations, what can change beneficially, is introduction of cleaner technology, to reduce emissions, which is what Euro 6 is about, and also diversionary traffic routing, can actually have beneficial effects in lowering air quality, but I – air quality is an important part of the Environmental Statement and the assessments that have been done, and I emphasise that and that’s why it’s in the Environmental Statement, so we’re well aware of the importance of it and the effect on residents.
485. MR CRANE: But you accept that any additional traffic produces more pollution? Yes, or no?
486. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, I think I’ve already answered that question.
487. CHAIR: Okay. We’re going to have to crack on. Thank you very much. We now move onto the governing body of Vyners School, which is the last petitioner today. We’re going to have a two minute break for anybody that needs it. Order, order.
Sitting suspended.
On resuming—
488. CHAIR: We’re now on the Vyners School. Mr Gardner.
The Governing Body of Vyners School
489. MR GARDNER: Thank you very much, Mr Syms, Mr Chairman, members of the Committee. Thank you for listening to me. I’ll endeavour to get through it as quickly as I can because I’m conscious of the time, that you’ve been sitting here as long as I have today, so, there you are.
490. A word about myself; basically, I’m a governor of Vyners School, I’ve been on the Governing body for 30 years plus, I’m still serving.
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491. MR MEARNS: Is that all? Thirty years.
492. MR GARDNER: My two – I’m chairman now, my two daughters attended the school, my granddaughter is in the school, my eldest granddaughter, and I’m hopeful that the youngest one will follow in pursuit, because they’re been the right time, so they’ll be there. It’s a fantastic school. My wife worked there for 20 odd years as well, as a librarian, so I’m talking as the governing body, so to speak. And I’m conscious of the fact that I live in Ickenham, I live in Bushey Road, that you were talking about. I live right at the top, right adjacent to Hoylake Crescent, so I’m very close to HS2, so I shall be talking about that towards the end of it, but my first mission is based on this. So, can I have slide 1 please, or slide 2 now, the purpose?
493. I want to make this statement, Mr Chairman, because I believe there’s been a lot of publicity about HS2, of getting to Birmingham, some 20 minutes earlier. I think what they failed to tell the general public is, the station for Birmingham is 20 minutes outside, at least. It’s not actually in Birmingham, you’ve got to get into Birmingham, so the time you save to get…
494. MR MEARNS: Sorry, that’s not true, that’s not true.
495. MR GARDNER: Isn’t it?
496. MR MEARNS: I mean, we’ve actually visited the site of the Curzon Street station, and it’s inside of Birmingham…
497. MR GARDNER: Fine, I’ll take it back then, sorry, I’ll move on.
498. MR MEARNS: And four minutes’ walk from New Street station.
499. MR GARDNER: Okay, fine, I’ll take it – I’ll take it back and take it on from there. Sorry, and thank you very much for correcting me. Okay. I just point out the fact though that many trains travelling in rush hour, currently are not full, or they may be full, but non rush hour traffic is not full, so therefore you can get up quite easily. Now, can we move onto the next slide please?
500. I think this is very important in terms of where we are in terms of Ickenham itself. You’ve probably heard a lot about the traffic, but it’s the commuting, it’s a dormitory
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area, a lot of people have to come through us because of living outside of it, coming through to get to Heathrow, the cost of houses in Ickenham, are £400,000 plus for a standard three bedroom. You’re asking us to deal with 460 extra vehicles, workers’ vehicles to cope with. It can also increase if Heathrow is going to be developed. You’re losing 45 car parking spaces in Ruislip golf club and we’re losing the space at Phoenix Research Centre.
501. So, one of my questions to HS2 is how are you going to cope with your workers’ traffic and adding to our congestion, and they say they’re going to use public transport, but it’s only going to be one way in, or via the buses. And it was raised on Thursday about the lorries at West Ruislip, I would just ask, are the washing facilities off road, very much so, because of road sweepers having to come out on the road which is slowing traffic up at the same time. We’ve had experience of that at the West London sites where they’ve been building golf courses etc and it does slow traffic down considerably. Okay. Next slide please.
502. You’ve heard a lot about traffic flow today and the time it takes. This was just put in because when I spent time putting this together, 20, 30 minutes to get from Ickenham to Swakeleys roundabout, 30 minutes to get from Swakeleys to Ruislip, and all these regularly get jammed up. When you have an accident on the M25, because they come down through from Maple Cross etc, and quite regularly, on the A40 we get accidents going into town in the morning, and they stream through.
503. It was rather ironic at our PIB meeting, when a member of their committee came up, well they were quite unaware of the accident issues on the M40 and on the A40, and they’re only solution was, ‘Well, we’ll perhaps put up avoidance signs’, ‘Avoid this area’ signs. No, really, putting up ‘Avoid this area’ signs back on where the accident is, is not going to be very good.
504. I’m just questioning the figures that Welham have used in terms of the rat runs etc, because I was monitoring every time they were putting in counting stations down, where they were, and a number of times, they avoided where the first rat run off. I mean, coming out from Swakeleys – on Breakspear Road, coming out just after Swakeleys Bridge, they missed the junction into Copthall Road West where a lot of people turn down in the rat runs. Again, they didn’t have one right at the end of Swakeleys
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roundabout, so that people coming up from Warren Road, or coming up from the – may be from Woodstock, maybe avoid the count, etc. So, people who actually use the rat runs were avoiding the count, so to speak, so I questioned the normal flow of traffic figures that they may have used. And that’s one of the things here.
505. What worries me most about the effects of this, a certain number of contractor’s lorries will be at standstill, when we come to this. They say in the Environmental Statement of 5.4.2(i) that ‘there will be no cumulative effects etc’ and 12.4.2(vi), ‘There will be little impact on bus routes’. I think that really is a statement which we do need to take into consideration, because there will be an effect on the bus routes, the children use the buses to get to school. And if they can’t get to school on time, they can’t get the right buses, the buses get held up because of traffic, they’re just not going to get there.
506. I want you to bear in mind that also that there are four schools in the area, which is a total of something like 3780 students, which involve a minimum 7560 movements each day, home and back. And the other thing you pointed, Douay Martyrs, who actually have a school either side of Long Lane, they have movements of pupils across the road, across Long Lane, during the day time. As they travel – I think they’re aware of that because the actual increased traffic in these student movements could lead to accidents and that’s a real concern of ours.
507. MR MEARNS: I’m a school governor as well, and in the school I’m a governor of, which is a primary school, of about 370 pupils, 96% of those youngsters actually walk to school on a daily basis. What’s the sort of figures for the schools in –
508. MR GARDNER: Well, I would say or – for us, in the high school, on that, a good 60-70% actually walk or bike. Because that’s what you do. But, for the primary schools, I would say that might drop down because there are a large number of people who actually transport the pupils in. I live in Bushey Road, so I have the effect of the morning, lunchtime, afternoon effect of the dropping off at the primary school. But I would say they are 50%. They do their best to try and get people to walk, but young parents with two or three will tend to use the cars to drop them off. Can we have the next slide please?
509. You’ve heard a lot about the major effects of the amenities, the residents. You’ve heard about Harvil Road, Breakspear Road South and Swakeleys; I don’t think I need to
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go into that. What concerns me is, in the Environmental Statement or – they said there would be moderate problems at Woodstock. Now, I find that a little bit incomprehensible that you can have major problems in Harvil, you can have major problems at Swakeleys, but you can only have moderate in the middle.
510. And they also impact on Vyners. It says in the Environmental Statement that all receptors would be consulted. HS2 has not even had the courtesy to send a letter to our school, or to the chair of the governing body, or to the headmaster, regarding consultation. So we have not been consulted one iota on this issue. How it will affect us.
511. Is it, I wonder, because they said no schools are affected in the Environmental Statement? I just wonder about that. When we went to Winston Churchill to see the set up there, we couldn’t get all the answers to questions. When we had the PRD talks the other day, they were still passing it back to the constructors’ Code of Practice and it’s too detailed at the moment, it’s detailed planning. All I’m saying is that really, there need to have been some consultation with us. It says in the Environmental Statement, the local traffic flows are anticipated to be severe with congestion anticipated. Ruislip and Ickenham will be one of those such areas, and especially when you start looking at utility works which will appear in West End Road when they close that road for about six months, because all of that’s going to come back through Ickenham, or somewhere. It’s going to have to find its way down through because of the commute in north, south. Okay? Next slide please.
512. This purely highlights my previous statement about Woodstock. This is in the morning rush hour. HGV and lorries, you cannot get out because that’s a continuous flow, nose to tail, all through the time. Next slide please.
513. And coming out there, this is the tail end of that slide, which is three quarters of the way down to Heythrop Drive, which is one of the rat runs, etc. Next slide please.
514. Right, you see where Vyners School is? Breakspear School is very close to the proposed line and we’ve heard information today about where Breakspear School is. Mrs Hobday asked me to allay to you that Breakspear School also use the King George V playing field, which will be called the Top Field, which is just off Hoylake Crescent there. They use it for additional sports, because they have very little field space; they
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use that there, so they will have to contend with the noise issue of the trains if they use it for curriculum sport and activities during the day. And I know they use it for football, they use it for games, they use it for cross country etc, so there will be impact on the primary school there, using that facility. Can I move onto the next slide, please, actually talking about Vyners?
515. So, we’re right in middle of the through way for the traffic. I just want to say, how can there be no cumulative effects? There will be cumulative effects, because Woodstock, Warren, Thornhill, are all the key routes for children travelling to our academy, they will be affected because of the congestion of traffic which is built up from day to day use, because the heavy goods lorries will actually drive the cars off down the rat runs. Next one, thank you.
516. Those three roads are heavily congested between – I say eight to nine and three to four; in actual fact, when I go off some mornings early, at quarter past seven, there is congestion in Thornhill and Warren at that time in the morning. And also, when I come back in the afternoon, there is severe congestion trying to get into Swakeleys from the A40. Right? They have long – experienced tailbacks and delays between seven and nine and four to seven. You come back on the A40 about half past three, trying to turn in to Swakeleys Toad, and you will find you are queuing up the slip road, sometimes from just off the A40, right up the slip road to get into the thing. It can take well over 30 minutes to reach Ruislip or Uxbridge during these key times, from the centre of Ickenham.
517. Again, this emphasises the fact that there will be – it says in the Environmental Statement, ‘there will be severe and moderate congestion in Harvil and Swakeleys’, but why is Woodstock only moderate? I just don’t understand that. Next slide please.
518. Which takes me onto the construction. Now, from my PRD, I was given information about 93 lorries, so I went on the web and looked up the size of these lorries, these muck away lorries, which are standard, I think is what they would probably be using. They are 9.1 metres long, they are 2.6 metres wide and they are 3.5 metres high. I also went on Google maps and measured the distance from Swakeleys Road to Harvil, which is a distance of 0.4 miles, 643 metres; doing my sums right, you can get 77 lorries in there, nose to tailboard.
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519. So, if you’ve got 93 going in along that road, during construction period, what doing to happen to the rest of the traffic? Where’s it going to go, where are we going to move? How can we move around when that sort of thing – how can my children get to school? It will mean one lorry every 39 seconds, each way.
520. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I just ask Mr Strachan, how many vehicles a day do we expect there?
521. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): This is at Swakeleys Road. In the peak period –
522. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, HS2 HGVs.
523. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): In the peak period at Swakeleys Road, it’s 530 daily, each way.
524. MR GARDNER: Okay, thank you. I’m just saying, with that number, just getting to Harvil Road, without the ones that have to come off in West Ruislip, without the ones that have to come off in Breakspear, how in the heck are the residents of Ickenham supposed to move around? I just think that HS2 do need to think about the problems of traffic, and they will seriously have to think about the contractor. Will they employ somebody who’s going to have some of his lorries standing still? That’s going to be important as well, because they won’t always be able to be on the move.
525. If I looked at the Ickenham A and B statements, which I received on Thursday evening, there is a significant number of HGVs using Swakeleys. Especially the part A mentions excavating materials to the total of 473,000 HGV trips over the construction period. If we go to the next slide, I think there’s only one thing: gridlock. Can we move on?
526. You’ve probably seen variations of this slide, and you’ve obviously, all of you, heard about the rat runs, etc. That’s just in there to look at where traffic displacement goes, etc. I think you’ve heard enough about that already, in my view. Can we move on to what Vyners is, please, because now I’m going to talk about the school?
527. This is one of the, as it says, top three secondary schools in the authority. It’s the only school that participates in Saturday fixtures in the borough. I think that’s significant for a school of our size, to say we are continuing the Saturday fixtures.
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We’re consistently oversubscribed. We’re a great school. We provide education for 1,100 pupils, 200 staff. We have an extensive range of extracurricular activities and we do use HOAC for rowing and other activities related to educational team-building, etc. And I’ve got a letter from our head of PE, where she said, ‘In order to enhance our PE curriculum, we use the facilities at the Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre. We are devastated that this facility will no longer be in existence if HS2 goes ahead and we will have to travel great distances to be able to continue this important part of our curriculum.’
528. It will seriously affect our curricular offer, etc., and we’ve got to balance a potential loss to our future generations, as well as the present. It’s not just about the time and the opportunities that have been developed and honed by HOAC. Hillingdon, Ealing and Harrow recognise that, and I was listening to the HOAC presentation last week and support very much everything he was saying. In my view, the extra 6.6km of tunnel is a small cost. I’ll just say to you, as part of Vyners School, we have a swing band, which has raised over £500,000 for charity already. It’s quite phenomenal.
529. Can I go onto the next slide, please? We’re commanded by law to provide a quality education. How can we do this if we can’t get our staff to commute effectively? Our staff have to come in and travel, and some of our staff have to leave significantly early in the morning to get to school, to be able to set up to do their work. We’re starting school next year at half past eight in the morning. That means staff are normally expecting to arrive around about half past seven, so therefore they’ll be leaving homes quite often 6.15 in order to get to school and be able to do the time. Already, they’re saying to me that it’s going to take them extra time, with all the congestion, because they can’t get through the traffic.
530. That’s significant to us. How can we challenge our students with the best education provision if we can’t get them there? This cannot be achieved if we cannot attract high quality staff to come to our school, and we pride ourselves – we have an extensive CPD programme, coveted by many schools. We have a big continuation programme and teachers are forced to commute, most of them, 40 minutes plus to get to us. But they like the school. We have a fantastic school and they want to come and teach there, but it has its repercussions in terms of that.
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531. Can I have the next slide, please, which takes me onto attendance? The law commands the local authority to fine parents for lateness and absence. I just wonder if HS2 and the Government will pay the fines for the parents if they can’t get to school on time. If the gridlock there stops them from getting to school because they can’t get through, will the Government or HS2 pay the fines that the parents will have to? This would be exactly the same for Glebe, exactly the same for Breakspear, the two primary schools, and probably the same for Douay Martyrs, which is the other secondary school within our locality.
532. So, I mean, that’s another factor that we need to take on board, which takes me on to the next slide, please, which is to do with the environmental statement. 5.4.18 says, ‘Swakeleys Road traffic will give rise to a major adverse effect on the amenity of residents, which is significant’. I think we’ve heard a lot about the amount of HGV going through there and how it’s going to be. It will have an impact on us. As we all know, when you drive a car, if you’re going uphill, you’ve got to put your foot down to actually start it in momentum. When you’re moving a 40 tonne lorry, loaded up with spoil or with concrete you must give it more stick, so therefore you’re putting out more pollution, etc., so you’ve got to bear that in mind. If it’s a constant stop/start, stop/start, there’s another issue there with more pollution coming out.
533. So we move on to the next one, thank you. Gridlock – it’s going to increase their exposure when they walk to school if there’s an increased level of emissions. It’ll also mean that the parents and the children who walk to school with pushchairs, etc., will, again, face the increased levels. And our cycling students will also face the increased danger of traffic, with lorries, etc., and increased pollution, so we’ve got that issue to take on board at the same time.
534. Can I have the next slide, please? This is one of the rat runs that people have been talking about. This is Thornhill Road, with a white vehicle turning off into Gibson. Our students there are walking along the road. I took that one morning. You can see a constant flow of traffic.
535. Next one, please. Then the gridlock – if we have this gridlock, we will restrict the curriculum we can offer. It will affect our ability to host other schools for matches and commute to other schools for fixtures. That’s important to us, because not only do we
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have them on Saturdays; we also have them after school. If we finish school at three o’clock, as we anticipate, and allow another hour and a half for extracurricular activities or matches, we’ve got to get to other schools within the borough or outside the borough. It’s still going to restrict us getting out of Warren Road or onto the A40, the other side, or actually going up into Harrow, etc. We’re going to have restrictions there to do that.
536. Our educational visits, of which we have quite a number, will need to depart earlier and arrive back later. That’s going to make big issues with coach companies, etc. If that happens, perhaps our staff are going to be reluctant to undertake these, so therefore we’re going to reduce the educational experience of our students, and that’s something which I don’t want to see, as chairman of the governing body, to see the school lose its reputation, because it was commended, in our last two Ofsteds, about the extracurricular activities that we supply here and the great process we have in allowing our students to prepare themselves for the outside part of life as well. Lots of people have written to me on that, to say that they welcome my presenting on that.
537. Can I move on to the next slide, please? So HS2 will seriously affect the education of our pupils and their health. It’ll impede the success of their futures, affect the quality of staff available, because they can’t get there, etc., incalculable day-to-day problems with traffic congestion and the health and welfare of people on the site, and I’ll come on to that one later, when we do it. This is especially for those who suffer from asthma, and lung problems as well, but we have quite a few who suffer from asthma on the staff and on the student body.
538. Can I move to next one, please, about pollution? We know the school is in a low-emission zone. We know there are criteria for low emissions in West London, with the airports and the road traffic – A40, etc. Congestion will increase the emissions; you’ve already heard about that. The new vehicles cannot meet EU regulations. Gridlock, etc., and even the previous Labour Government admits they’ve made mistakes over diesel engines. Now, in your environment statement, they say, in 4.2.4, they assume 2017 emissions cannot be guaranteed. I think Defra have used 2008 and 2011 maps. They predict NO2 and PM10 to be lower than 2012 data, which is unlikely to be obtained, so Defra, in their 2017 statement, predict that NO2 and PM10 is unlikely to be obtained – a lower statement, and NO2 impacts substantially along Swakeleys Road, Warren Road and Roker Park; it was in the statement, 4.4.11. So I would ask you to
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really seriously think about that, because what they’re saying is, in 4.4.15, ‘no permanent effects’. Who can tell, any individual, some 20 or 30 years later, what exposure to emissions will bring on for those people, especially our younger generation, especially those who have asthma?
539. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You and I are of a generation who have survived the smog.
540. MR GARDNER: Exactly, sir.
541. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I don’t think our grandchildren will be less healthy than we are.
542. MR GARDNER: Well, I don’t know –
543. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You made your point, but don’t overdo it.
544. MR GARDNER: No, I’m saying the point is that perhaps we were a little bit more energetic in our time. We have a serious problem, really, with crossing the A40 at Swakeleys, and that’s an important issue we have got, because all the students who come from the south of the borough have to cross that zebra crossing. We then have a serious problem, because our sports field is the other side of the A40, and we have to go across, and the head of PE says already that, when they take the classes across there, some of the instances there – it’s really significantly bad when they have to go across, the experience of the fumes, etc., from the road. Although they go over a bridge, it’s still a problem.
545. Can I move on to the next slide, please? We come to the Clean Air Act. It was passed to reduce sulphur, smog, in the air we breathe. The improvements have stalled. The UK has breached the EU limits since 2005 in NO2. HS2 has no viable plan to achieve compliance, I don’t think. I just think it’s one of those problems. The process of measuring pollution, which is referred to – the code of practice. I think we need to measure the pollution at Swakeleys Road and along Swakeleys Road to be sure that it’s not going to be so deadly serious, and we know it’s high there already, but I think it could get a lot worse, and that’s one of the things.
546. If we have the next slide, please, I think that says it all – the pollution – about
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asthma, cardiovascular, reduced brain power for the children, later effects, the EU, the pushchairs, etc. And recent articles I’ve read – the current air pollution is blamed for 50,000 premature deaths a year, and the concentration levels in London increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and asthma, in adults as well as children.
547. Can I move on, please? This is the actual one which is significant, so far as I’m concerned, is that, in trying to reduce NO2, we haven’t got anywhere near it. The A40 doesn’t meet it. You can see that by the red zones, exactly there. It’s only going to be getting worse. The traffic congestion will add to it, because we have difficulty in crossing the road at Swakeleys, and if we’ve got gridlock there, it’s going to make it even 10 times worse, and I just want to say that we do need to seriously ask HS2 to look at this issue, if this construction goes ahead.
548. Next slide, please – and we all know about nitrous oxide and ozone, particle matters, etc., from diesel engines. The new engines cannot always meet… There’s been some recent articles which says the new EU6 requirements cannot be met, because they’ve done on rolling roads, and yet, when you put them on the actual road, they actually do not meet, and there is no plan to meet compliance until 2030. I also read something this weekend about the fact that, when engines get hotter, they produce more nitrous oxide, because they’re burning more oxygen by standing still, so that’s something which some of our experiments, which have been carried out by various people, are saying.
549. Next one, please – just a picture of the children waiting for the bus. This is children waiting for the bus in the evening, at the end of the afternoon, three o’clock. It takes 20 minutes for the next bus, so our children are going to be queued up there for 20 minutes plus, if the traffic is delaying the bus. The timetable at the moment is 20, so the exposure… You might say, ‘Well, there’s only one minibus shown there’, but the bulk of the traffic at that time of day is going the other way, on the opposite side of the road, and the next slide actually shows it, just the bulk of the traffic. The bus has arrived, but the traffic is flowing the other way.
550. Can I move on, please? That’s the queues in Warren Road. This leads down to the school.
551. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve seen longer queues than this.
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552. MR GARDNER: Oh, exactly. They were taken at different times, Mr Bottomley, probably. It just depends on when you’re taking it. Can I move on to the next one, please? I’m just saying that the research has been backed up by King’s College, by Martin Williams, Frank Kelly, professor, so environmental health people have backed up all the statements I’ve made, because I’ve been reading their articles, etc. That’s what they’ve been saying, so they’ve been carrying out research into pollution on air quality within London, and you’ve got David Newby from the British Heart Foundation, professor of cardiology at Edinburgh University, who’s been making similar statements.
553. If we go to the next slide, please, which is, again, things I’ve picked up. London’s got some of the worst NO2 levels. The Department for Transport is taking new measures to meet EU standards. Defra has been ordered by the Supreme Court, etc. You are well aware of that. Officials have long known that their policy to cut traffic pollution cannot be met, as shown in tests by King’s London. And the most important thing: Defra have a knowledge of the high figures, admitting they have the final report, which will be published in due course, and they’re waiting for review for the new Minister. I also add on the fact that our MP, Mr Nick Hurd, referred to the comment on the 9th about the pollution, mentioned HS2 and the A40. That’s important that that’s taken on board by that Committee as well.
554. Hot engines burn more oxygen and therefore emit more NO2. Vehicles in gridlock will burn more. There’s been reports which said that tests have shown that one-litre engines average 0.2mg on NO2 per kilometre, which is four times the maximum allowed under the European emission standards. So not only are we talking about lorries; we’re also talking about cars, because they’re talking about cars – one-litre engines in cars burning more NO2 than they’re allowed. And NOx contains nitrogen dioxide, etc. Defra just said that they were trying to slash the traffic pollution, but they can’t find a way of doing it, and I think that’s appalling, that they can’t find a way of doing it.
555. So can I move to the next one, please? So we move on to the construction. We’ll have problems for our children and people of Ickenham, because the air quality management, AQMA, that the borough’s taken up – we’re a part of it – it goes from the Chiltern Line right the way down to the south of the borough, but the measuring station is down by the Polish war memorial, I think, and obviously down by the airport, so
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there’s nothing to the north of the borough, and that’s something I think we will have to ask Hillingdon to look at, but I think it’s important that we realise that we are in the low emissions zone; we are going to be adding to it; and we need to be aware that the changes in the atmospheric emissions would be negligible – that’s what the environmental statement says in 5.5.6 – ‘Changes in the atmospheric emissions would be negligible in this context.’ Which one, I’m asking.
556. In 7.1 of the environmental statement, ‘The economic aspects are more important than the community.’ That’s a statement in their environmental statement, so that says to me a lot. It’s more important to have an HS2 railway than it to look at the community in its vicinity. It says, in 7.2.4, ‘The baseline will include collating all information on both resources and receptors, education, health, emergency services’, etc. Well, as I said to you, they haven’t contacted the school. We’ve had no contact whatsoever.
557. Can I move on to the next slide, please? So, basically, gentlemen, I could’ve gone on about the traffic, congestion, etc. I haven’t, because you’ve been hearing that all day long. I’m more concerned with the emissions and the effects on children and on people. The prevailing wind in relation to the school is a west or south-westerly, so any congestion on the A40 actually will be blown onto the school premises, blown through the side roads, so the school will get it if we’re actually on the playing fields; we will get it when we cross over to the playing fields, so that we’re going to destroy the quality of life for the people of Ickenham, which is where our children live.
558. The gridlock will add stress and accidents; I’m sure of that. We’ve got long and short-term health pollutions. I don’t think HS2 have fully investigated the issues related to the construction but have passed them on to the contractor, and I think that’s going to be an interesting appointment later on. One of the other things which has come about, and we’ve been doing some of this, is that, as I was saying to a member of HS2 this morning, not all the websites have allowed us access. We’ve been trying to get on to Government access to find out some solutions, and you can’t get access; it’s denied. The archives are not working.
559. If we go to the next slide, what I’d like to see is cast-iron guarantees there’ll be serious monitoring of NO2 and PM at all times, and I want that, basically, in conjunction very close to the school and where our children go. They’ve already said in
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the Ickenham document statements that all the lorries will have EU6 and they’ll have ‘64’ plates, etc., and they’ll be monitored. That’s a good point to actually pick up. I’m just hoping that all the subcontractors make sure of that.
560. I’m asking for guarantees of no haulage between 7.30 and 9.30 and 14.45 and 16.15 each day. This is to allow our children and our staff to get to school on time, to be there and to get home safely. I think that’s important to allow that sort of variation. That may be difficult, but I think there are ways in which you can look at it, which will then allow us to guarantee to the staff and pupils they’ll be able to get to school. And, also, I seriously think that we should ask you to consider the tunnel extension, which, in the long term, would lead us to this.
561. NO2 – I’ve looked at the PDFs in the Ickenham one. I live in the current HLP2 area. I would think that the compensation bands for that need to be expanded a bit more, a bit wider, to allow for more people to be involved, because I think they’re very narrow at the moment. The aspect of noise, etc., and the construction – you could ask people to look at that, to make it wider. The NO2 will be substantially adverse to receptors in Warren Road and Swakeleys Road. The noise is going to be substantial. I think the West Hyde area is less densely populated than Ickenham and West Ruislip, so therefore the tunnel extension avoids the diversion – if you did the tunnel extension, it would avoid the diversion of Harvil Road. It reduces the traffic on Harvil and Swakeleys Road during the nine months. It may increase the traffic on the M25 and 412, but these are major roads and wide enough to accommodate HGV vehicles.
562. They talk about the longer tunnel restricting speed and increase of time for the journey, but by how much? It’s probably a small price to pay when HS2 has failed to mention the time taken… Well, I’ll ignore that one for the moment. That’s a small price to say if you’ve just got to restrict it a little bit. The maintenance sidings is the other one which will need relocation to the intervention gap, rather than Ruislip. Does this mean that we will be subject to more noise and people and traffic for servicing the trains?
563. I’ll pick up, from P6202(13), the difference in costs from that Ickenham statement were some £19 million. I say to you it’s a small price to pay for the sake of the existing community, enable all our future generations to use our fantastic facilities available to
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us now. I think, if you actually look at those figures there, you get a difference of £19 million, between the tunnel PPA or the tunnel HS2.
564. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s without passive provisions, Heathrow spurs.
565. MR GARDNER: Well, okay. So last slide, please. When it happens, I’m saying to you, hopefully use HS2 – sorry, the route 3. When I looked at the environmental statement, route 3, they said, was shorter and cheaper, but yet they rejected it. Now, route 3 went a little bit further north of Ickenham, I gather, but, in the environmental statement, you’ve said it was a cheaper option and it was a shorter option, but it was dismissed. So I’m asking perhaps that needs to be reconsidered. If HS2 goes ahead as it is, we must extend the tunnel into the Colne Valley to 34km, because of the inconvenience that we’ve caused to the people of Ickenham during construction, and I’m saying to you this is a small cost compared to length of the Channel Tunnel, which is 50.5. If the Government can do it for HS1, then they must do it for HS2.
566. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I just query that figure of 50.5 for Channel Tunnel?
567. MR GARDNER: Yes. I looked up the Channel Tunnel and that’s the measurement it gave me.
568. MR BELLINGHAM: Really? I thought it was 21 miles across.
569. MR GARDNER: Well, 50.5km –
570. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The tunnel doesn’t come out on the beach; it goes in further each way.
571. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Gardner, for your presentation, and sorry you had to wait for the end of the day.
572. MR GARDNER: No, that’s fine. Thank you for your time as well, Mr Syms.
573. CHAIR: Right, Mr Strachan.
574. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): P6552, please. Can I just show you – I think Mr Gardner was referring to this – Vyners School is here and the playing fields are here, and there’s a pedestrian bridge, which comes from the school; you follow it round a
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slight dogleg over the A40, to connect the two sites. There is, of course, no interference with any of that. I’ll come back, if I may, just in a moment, to the question of emissions. Traffic generation features – first of all, in the slides, Mr Gardner referred to 93 HGVs in an hour. There is a slide in our set which looks at an AM peak, with 93 HGVs from HS2 added in, but, as I explained, I think, earlier – so that’s where his figure came from – as I explained earlier, that’s assuming that all sites were operating in that peak period. The phasing plans that we produced and which I quoted in answer, giving daily flows, demonstrate that, in phase 2, the busiest period of activity on Swakeleys Road, it would be 530 HGVs in the day each way, so that’s just to clarify where Mr Gardner got his figure from. It’s from one of our slides, but the position is as set out in the phasing plans.
575. MR GARDNER: My figure came from your reply.
576. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, and can I just then pick up on air quality? Air quality has been assessed and the effects of emissions – I hope this may answer an earlier question that was asked of me – is chapter 4 in the CFA report, and there were various quotations made from it. The position is, if one reads chapter 4, that, for the future baseline, i.e. what will happen in 2017 and then 2026, the predictions are that there’ll actually be a reduction in emissions in the baseline situation, as a result of, amongst other things, improvements in engine technology, so there are predictions of lowered emissions. But the effects of adding in HS2 construction traffic are assessed. I was asked about PM particulates – PM2.5 and PM10 particulates. That has been part of this ES assessment, and, in fact, the predictions were that the particulate production from construction traffic would have a negligible impact – there’d be a negligible increase in particulates, in answer to an earlier question.
577. I’m going to leave Mr Miller to pick up on that in a future session, because I know Mr Mearns has asked a question about that, but it’s important to note that, in relation to air quality and the effects Mr Gardner was identifying in relation to schoolchildren in this area, you’ll recall the position that Hillingdon itself has presented is roads operating at, or indeed above, capacity now, and increasing in the future. So, insofar as there are existing traffic problems in the area and air quality effects as a result of them, it’s not something HS2 is introducing. It does introduce further traffic, and the effects of those have been assessed, and the air quality effects of those have been assessed, but it’s
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wrong… I think the assumption is that the effects that HS2 are introducing are causing a significant problem.
578. Can I just take you back to A1119(25) in Mr Gardner’s exhibits? You’ll recall the air quality mapping, which is the red – I think this is principally into particulates, or possibly not; he hasn’t explained – but the red areas represent air quality issues. The school is here, where cursor is, and it’s having air quality impacts from the A40. That’s an existing impact, which will no doubt continue, but subject to improvements in technology. HS2 construction traffic is not materially affecting the school in that respect. The HS2 construction traffic is on Swakeleys Road and predominantly goes westwards, or coming in from the west, from the A40. We’re not sending material amounts of additional traffic along the A40, affecting the school or indeed the bridge that Mr Gardner was referring to. Where there are effects on the roads, those have been modelled in the way I’ve indicated. I don’t go over that again.
579. If I just then turn to slide 34, where I think we came to what Mr Gardner was requesting from the Committee, can I just take them in turn? Monitoring is a matter for Hillingdon in terms of air quality in its area, and you’ll be well aware of the way in which local authorities have responsibility for that. The guarantees that all lorries will have EU6 engines – that’s already been provided and I think Mr Gardner has recognised that, the commitment to abide by Euro VI requirements.
580. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Does that mean that all lorries have to be new lorries?
581. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): All lorries have to be compliant with… I’ll check the precise terms, but it’s Euro VI –
582. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Euro VI for heavy goods vehicles is normally done with Roman, and Euro 6 with Arabic is normally done for light vehicles and cars. The Euro VI requirement came in, I think, in 2014 or 2015 – 2014, I think. Whatever it is, the level of NOx allowed, even by Euro V, is one fifth of what it was Euro I, so most of the gain has come; a bit more gain is to come.
583. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’m certainly not going to argue with that assessment. What I was referring to was in relation to Euro VI – I’m just trying to
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locate it – there was an update to the information paper as a result of the introduction of Euro VI, where, in relation to – yes, it applies to designated zones, low emission zones, such as the one that occurs in London. I think some parts of these sites are outside the low emission zones, but, because we’ll be using lorries that will be entering into low emission zones – heavy duty vehicles, to be precise, rather than HGVs – yet another definition – but heavy duty vehicles in those designated zones must be powered by Euro VI – Roman numeral VI – or lower emission engines.
584. CHAIR: Carry on through.
585. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s reflected in the information paper. Guarantees of no haulage between certain hours – that’s not a guarantee we’re offering, because, of course, the timing of traffic is a matter for future approval, and, of course, it might be counterproductive to restrict oneself to particular hours at this stage as part of an effective traffic management plan.
586. CHAIR: That’s a discussion with Hillingdon, then.
587. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That is the discussion and agreement with Hillingdon. I don’t think even HS2 can guarantee staff and pupils attend school on time, so that’s clearly not something we’re in a position to offer, but the acknowledgment that HS2 has got it wrong – we certainly don’t acknowledge that. We refer you back to the detail of what we have modelled. Serious reconsideration for route 3 – I’m not quite sure what Mr Gardner is referring to there, but various route alignments were looked at in the route alignment decision, and, of course, the tunnel extension we’ve dealt with in relation to our response to Hillingdon, which I don’t repeat for you again here. So I’m trying to take it as quickly as possible, but I hope that gives you a flavour of our response.
588. CHAIR: Right. Brief final comments, Mr Gardner.
589. MR GARDNER: I accept what Mr Strachan was saying but the fact is the Swakeleys roundabout – these HGV lorries are going to be going west – is still going to have an effect on the school, because the prevailing wind is westerly, south-westerly, so it will push it onto the school, so they still need to bear that in mind, because it will come down across the school and it will come across. And, wherever we’ve got the
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bridge, we still have the effects of those extra HGV emissions coming down the road, coming down the A40, through natural dispersion. So it still will have an effect on us.
590. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much indeed.
591. MR GARDNER: Thank you.
592. CHAIR: That’s the end of our session. Order, order. I’d be grateful if you could withdraw from the room and let the Committee have a few moments on its own to review the day.
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