Public Session

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Tuesday, 17 November 2015 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby ______

IN ATTENDANCE

Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport

WITNESSES

Mr Robert Lewis Mr Greg Porter Mr William Avery Mr Mark Dearnley Ms Sophie Maggs Mr Peter Bassano Mr Neil Duckworth Mr Martin Thomas Ms Marian Elwood Ms Helen Blakeman Ms Rosanne Adam ______

IN PUBLIC SESSION

INDEX

Subject Page

Springfield Farming Limited Introduction from Mr Strachan 3 Submissions by Mr Lewis 4 Response from Mr Strachan 15 Closing submissions by Mr Lewis 18

The Wood Lane Residents’ Association et al. Introduction from Mr Strachan 22 Submissions by Mr Porter 23 Response from Mr Strachan 41 Closing submissions by Mr Porter 44

The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Mary the Virgin Wendover, and others Introduction by Mr Strachan 46 Submissions by Mr Avery 46 Evidence of Mr Dearnley 61 Evidence of Ms Maggs 63 Evidence of Mr Bassano 64 Evidence of Mr Duckworth 66 Evidence of Mr Thomas 67 Evidence of Ms Elwood 68 Evidence of Ms Blakeman 69 Evidence of Ms Adam 71

(At 9.30)

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee, another bright and sunny day. We start off with petition number 15, AP13, Robert Lewis, Springfield Farming Limited in person.

Springfield Farming Limited

2. CHAIR: Could you do a brief introduction please, Mr Strachan?

3. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. P10280 on the screen now shows the location of Springfield Farming Limited land, and you can see we’re just north west of Wendover. And if I just show you the original construction Hybrid Bill plan to give you a bit more detail, P10283, this shows the construction plan that was proposed under the Hybrid Bill, and again the petitioner’s land shown outlined in red. You can see that the line has come out of the Wendover green tunnel at this point. The line itself doesn’t go over the petitioner’s land, but there is, in the top corner of the petitioner’s land, there was at this point provision for a satellite compound, and just to the north of that the haul road, and to the south of that you can see the pink line there. That’s utilities works. There are the pylons across the land, and as a result of diversions of pylons further down the line there has to be some restringing of the pylons or the conductors, and so rights taken in order to enable one to do that.

4. The petitioner wasn’t content with the proposal, and as a result of changes that are now reflected in AP4 the compound is proposed to be moved. Can I just show you that? P10284. So this is what’s currently proposed under AP4, and you can see the orange compound that was on the petitioner’s land we’ve proposed to put to the north west in that location. The pylon works of course remain, as does the need for the haul road in the top part of the petitioner’s land, and the pink area just to the south of it is where the compound would have been, which we’re retaining in the Bill in case there’s some overriding objection to the proposal for AP4. But assuming AP4 is successful as a proposal then we wouldn’t need to use the land for the compound on the petitioner’s land. We would just need to use the land for the haul road.

5. And finally, just in case it would shorten things, could I just show you P10290(1) and (2), because we have been in discussion with Mr Lewis on behalf of the petitioner,

and we have provided a number of assurances to Springfield Farming. If I just skip to the key points, at the bottom we provide an assurance about maintaining access to the petitioner’s property across the haul road as far as reasonably practicable. That’s at the bottom of the page. P10290(2), we’ve explained that the use of that pink land for the pylons is only for the purpose of restringing the pylons, and then we provided three assurances about returning land to the petitioner, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, all about we’re using temporary powers if we can. And the last assurance relates to the movement of the satellite compound that was previously of concern.

6. And just finally, can I show you the operational picture P10285? You can see that once the railway is built and the Nash Lee Road has been realigned there’s a new access onto the petitioner’s property but the petitioner’s property is not affected by the scheme.

7. CHAIR: Alright. Thank you Mr Lewis.

8. MR LEWIS: Good morning chairman, gentlemen on the Committee. Allow me to say please up front that you’ll hear this morning – you’ll hear from me some harsh things said about the promoter. After the way they’ve treated me, and no doubt others, over the past two years, or more or less two and a half years now, I trust you’ll understand just how frustrating a process this has been. Could I have the slides? Thank you.

9. This is actually Springfield Farming petition, both of them, not me as an individual. I’m a director of the company. It’s a small family business and owns about 130 acres, which Mr Strachan has just depicted on his graph, which is prime arable land, grade 2, grade 3, off Nash Lee Road. 1595, slides we need, sorry.

10. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): You want this one? 1595, that one?

11. MR LEWIS: That’s the one. Thank you. And before I get into the arguments, I should like to say, chairman, that it should have been possible to avoid the arguments you’re going to hear this morning through negotiation, but the other side here is the promoter, HS2 Limited, and no doubt you’ve already been told by other petitioners that they pride themselves on not negotiating with affected parties. They just like to tell us what they intend to do, and that’s as far as they’re prepared to go.

12. I’ll start with petition 50 and slide 2 please. Thank you. As proposed in the environmental statement, this storage compound marked blue would effectively put us out of business. The promoter proposed to acquire our entrance and just under 10 acres of land just within the boundary, which would effectively – and they would have done that for seven years. That would totally obstruct our access to the rest of our 130 acres and they failed to make any adequate alternative provision. Appendix AG of the technical appendices claims under disruptive effects that there were no impacts on agricultural activity, and under severance that there was none. Well, patently those claims were not true. There are more details set out in the petition, but, chairman, may I take that as read?

13. We’ll deal with, if I may, the pink areas shown here in the second petition. Slide 3 please. This, chairman, is what I’m asking, and after two years of disagreement it appears the promoter has at last accepted that there is a better solution for the siting of the compound, which would allow us to continue in business. They’ve brought this forward in AP4 and I believe the purpose of this morning is for me to briefly outline what was wrong with the original arrangement and otherwise reserve my position for any hearing that’s required on AP4.

14. CHAIR: Do you actually need to do that, because they’ve actually moved the compound, told you that unless there are other objections to moving – they’ve got to reserve their position. They’ve actually done what you want.

15. MR LEWIS: Well, if I may, chairman, just for a few minutes, I’ll take you through the story because I think it’s important for the rest of what I’m saying that you hear what actually happened. Could I have slide 4 please? This is a view of the entrance from across the road and one of you only, Chairman, you were on the coach, so you’d have been parked opposite this on the original visit to the Wendover area. Please note the excellent vision splays giving access to the present road. Could I have the next slide please? This gives you the view from further into the entrance, and they would have taken the entire area from that hedgerow along the left right across to the fence on the right. And there’s no guarantee at the moment – although it’s been proposed under AP4, there’s no guarantee that isn’t still going to go ahead unless we persuade you to the contrary.

16. Briefly, the sequence of events were as follows. The original proposal for the siting of this compound was not, shall we say, diplomatically, fully detailed in the environmental statement. The promoter knew full well there was a problem but refused to talk to me in the period following publication of the draft environmental statement right through until the final version in November 2013. They did then agree to a site meeting on 2 December, but the promoter refused to have an engineer present and chose to be represented by two ladies. Now, I’m sure these ladies had important roles within their organisation but neither had any qualifications in agriculture or agricultural engineering. There was an immediate impasse in that the promoter refused to recognise there was any problem with their proposal, and my response under the consultation process, which went in on 12 January, was of course ignored.

17. Many months followed and there was no recognition still by the promoter that it was a problem, and so I enlisted the help of my hardworking MP, David Lidington. He found the time to come out and have a look and was duly incredulous at what had been proposed, and wrote to the then chief executive of the promoter. Ms Munro’s reply on 16 April was full of beautiful prose, reassuring my MP that the promoter was always striving to find ways of reducing the impact of their proposals on affected parties, and promising that an engineer would come out and meet me. The reality, however, was rather different. Can I have slide 6 please?

18. In this email dated 1 July you’ll see that the promoter’s staff stated clearly they had no intention of changing anything. They also cancelled the meeting, which by then had been arranged, as promised by Ms Munro. I don’t blame the staff member. This lady was not acting alone. She was no doubt simply carrying out the instructions of her management. I therefore invoked a complaints process, on 4 July 2014 sent in a complaint. Then for over six months it went upwards through the box ticking exercise of the complaints process at the promoter, and finally on 19 January my complaint was referred to an independent claims assessor for the Department for Transport. This person moved much more decisively, despite the promoter’s further delaying tactics. The assessor’s report was sent to me on 20 March, I think the promoter had had it a few days before, and the assessor told me that his report could have been done in one month rather than two months.

19. Could I have slide 7 please? This slide tells me that the assessor’s report

recommended that a board member from the promoter should telephone me with an explanation of what was going on. And at 6 p.m. on Monday evening of the 23rd Ms Munro herself, now managing director of development, rang me, so you’ll note the speed of action when the promoter’s sufficiently motivated. Ms Munro stated the promoter had now found a much better site for the compound and the promoter would not be troubling me further. It was arranged that Mr Wells from the promoter and, at my request, the excellent engineer from Atkins would meet me on site on the 25th, so only two days later.

20. At that meeting I was given a fleeting look on a handheld computer of what was proposed and told it was far too sensitive for an affected party to be shown anything more. That was the location proposed for the new compound. But far from the promoter not troubling me anymore, as stated by Ms Munro, Mr Wells then verbally came up with the requirement for a haul road. No maps or explanations, but a haul road right across our land and right through the very entrance that we’d sought to protect. It took until 20 August before I was finally given a map showing both the new site and the proposed new haul road.

21. At the March meeting, however, I did learn that the promoter’s original choice of location for the compound was a last minute decision made by the promoter’s management against the advice of the highly qualified engineers, who’d recommended a different location. I trawled through the internet, chairman, and here is the drawing of precisely what the engineers had originally proposed. That didn’t block off anyone’s access and it used land that the promoter intended to keep long term to plant trees on to screen the railway. So it was clear that the management of the promoter had stubbornly refused and defended their original design because it was their design and they’d overruled their own experts. Slide 8, please.

22. In this slide dated 13 July it’s stated that the promoter’s revised proposal can be found in AP2, published that day. I trawled through AP2 and of course that it was again false information. I don’t blame the lady. She deserves credit. She is the one person at the promoter who’s tried very hard to communicate, but she’s clearly hampered by internal confusion, shall we call it, within the promoter’s management. Anyway, AP4 has been published in October, finally promoting a different compound location, and a consultation process is underway. In fact I believe the petition deadline was last Friday.

23. There have been various promises and assurances, but not a single assurance had been produced until Thursday afternoon, two working days before today’s hearing. The letter would not win awards from the Plain English Campaign, so I’ll end up with yet more expense over legal advice, but as I read there are effectively only two assurances within that recent letter, neither of which are satisfactory and neither of which accord with what the promoter has told me verbally and in emails. And then the three paragraphs that Mr Strachan bracketed, loosely translated, as I understand it, it says they might or might not acquire land temporarily or permanently, and they might or might not return the land to us after they use it.

24. The removal of the compound will still leave two lesser issues. The first one is we question the safety of the new entrance. Could I have slide 9 please? On this slide you’ll see that the highways department of Bucks County Council also question the safety of this new junction. Now, the issues will come up in detailed planning, so it’s yet another issue that’s been kicked into the long grass. I just want to point out that we currently enjoy an unrestricted view for 500 metres. Slide 10 please. Under the new proposal the junction is here and the visibility is down to about 170 metres only. That happens to be pretty close on the legal minimum, but special attention is supposed to be paid when slow moving agricultural vehicles emerge onto well-used roads. There appears to be no special attention, a point that Bucks County Council agree with.

25. So unless the Select Committee rules otherwise, chairman, as I understand it the promoter reserves the right to increase the height of this bridge here over the railway line by up to three metres, and what’s causing the visibility problem at the moment is the hump is already five metres in height. That’s pretty much up to the shoulders of the gentleman on the painting to my right. Any reduction in the height of this new bridge over the line and any ability to move this junction to the left, which is the sensible thing to do so that we get more visibility, would be welcome improvements to road safety, because this is likely to be a future accident blackspot.

26. The second point, chairman, is the haul road. Could I have the promoter’s slide 10283 please? And could I ask you to zoom in on this area there? Can you go any more or…? Okay. I don’t see much wrong with the original plan for the haul road, which of course they’ve changed under AP4. With a minor adjustment this haul road could be off our land and off our neighbour’s land. The route then would appear to be satisfactory,

and what I have in mind is whether they would cross the road here rather than here – you note the crossing there is right on the apex of the bend. I couldn’t think of a less safe place to do it. If they cross the road here the other side of the road there are no houses, there are no commercial buildings, there’s a very wide verge.

27. They could then reconnect with their haul road here and that would avoid – I’ve spoken to the three neighbours affected. The first one here, Craycraf, chairman, they have four children aged between three and 10. The haul road goes straight up their driveway past the stable block and turns more or less in front of their front door, so as you imagine the lady is extremely concerned about the safety of her children. Two more people on the other side of the road also have young children. None of these people have been told about this haul road by HS2 Limited. I found out by accident at the meeting in March. This new haul road in my view needs to be justified, and the only justification I’ve seen at the moment is they want to avoid crossing the edge of this pond. I think that’s a very poor justification for putting children’s lives at risk and causing disruption to us. Could I have slide 10 of my own slides back now please? Thank you.

28. As far as we’re concerned the – no, I need to go to the right. Yes, here we are. The bit that’s of concern is just here where they’ve rerouted the haul road across our land and across the entrance. Now, if this haul road is so essential in that position, which is contested by myself and by my neighbours, we, for our part, could live with our section subject to assurances on five detailed points, but we don’t know how long they’ll need it. They refuse to tell me what they need it for, how frequently they’ll use it and for how long they’ll use it. The promoter, in the shape of Mr Sebastian Jew, on 20 August verbally agreed my emailed list of these five detailed assurances, only verbally and that’s the last we’ve heard of it. What we need, chairman, is unfettered access to our land. What they promised in March was a set of traffic lights giving us absolute priority over the entrance, because even the promoter can’t control the weather or the seasons, and being good farmers we need to timely carry out certain activities, and we don’t need to be waiting until it’s convenient for the promoter to be able to get through our access to our land, and the promoter has failed to deliver that assurance.

29. Under the AP4 proposals all that they now need is this small area to the top right of our land and, as I say, that’s contested and our neighbours contest even more. If the

compound is agreed under AP4, chairman, I would like please to ask you to remove that pink area. That’d give us absolute assurance. If you take it out of the Bill the promoter will not be tempted to make further mistakes. That’s what I wanted to say, chairman, about petition 50, which is concerning the entrance, and if I may now… If we could now move on to the other slide set please and go onto slide 2.

30. The subject matter for the second petition, chairman, is the restringing of these pylons. That’s a picture of it. You see an aerial view of the conductors. This is a 400,000 volt National Grid electricity line, which passes right over our land and normally doesn’t cause any trouble at all. As pointed out in the petition, this work is only required if the promoter is allowed to build a cut and cover tunnel at Wendover. If there was a bored tunnel or a mined tunnel of sufficient length they would go underneath the pylon rather than through it, and this work wouldn’t be needed. According to a Freedom of Information request this work will cost many, many millions of pounds. Slide 3 please.

31. That’s what I’m asking you to do, chairman. I’m not disputing that the conductors might need to be restrung but I am disputing the land take required to achieve that. Could I have slide 6 now? They’re slightly out of order. Thank you. This petition now logically takes in the pink areas which were on the petition 50 map. What the promoter wants to do is to acquire this feed in track here, a 50 metre strip all the way down to here, and then 50 metres all around the pylon that you’ve just seen a picture of, 100 metres across, and you’ll note that that it also – the red lines also go across the road and through the road.

32. Can I take the detail of AP1 petitioner’s, Chairman, and just highlight a few details? Can I have slide 7 please? These are the issues that concern me, six points. Could I take the first one, which is slide 4 now? We have a contract with Vodafone, chairman. This green box here contains electronics that run mobile phones in this area. This is fed by power cables coming in underground from the right to this box of electronics. That’s in an area that the promoter intends to acquire, and from this cabin to the pylon there are a series of underground communication cables, which again is in an area that the promoter wishes to acquire. Could I have the next slide please, slide 5?

33. This is what it’s all about. Up here is a microwave dish, which – it controls

signals over a long distance and these two antennae here, chairman, are the ones that keep your mobile phones going in that locality. Now, Vodafone pay us a rental for the provision of this equipment on our land, which is important to us, and you won’t be surprised to know that there’s a clause in that agreement which says that if we restrict access to it for them to maintain their equipment then the agreement is voided. And this is an income stream that could go on in perpetuity for us, so it’s a very important point from our point of view. Can I have slide 8 now please?

34. Vodafone have access from this very small gap that you see in the hedge. They built this access. It’s suitable for light vehicles only and you’ll see it’s not very wide. Can we go on to slide 9 please? Another reason it’s only suitable for light vehicles is that the culvert is formed of very thin concrete rings with a thin strip of concrete above and then soil, so it’s made for vans, light vans, car, pickup trucks. It’s certainly not made for heavy goods vehicles. Slide 10 please.

35. A third reason why we’re concerned is this provision which HS2 have in their environmental statement that they will dig up the land and create roadways and then take it away and put the earth back again and so on. Under the ground here, for instance, there are three utilities which are rather important. One is from this brick building, which is a Thames Water pumping station. There’s a foul water sewer which runs towards us along here on the edge of this grass strip, underground of course. The cables I’ve already told you about from this Vodafone cabin here go across to the right where the pylon is, also underground, and a whole series of land range moving from right to left from the – taking water from the springs at the outfall of the Chilterns under our land and into the ditch which is the other side of that hedge. All those are important. What we’d rather than do is use trackway, which is a proprietary system, interlocking system of metal tracks on the ground, which would support heavy vehicles, rather than digging it all up and all the consequent problems that might occur. Slide 11 please.

36. Sorry, I’ve lost my… Farming in the UK is only financially viable with support from Defra and the Rural Payments Agency. With the promoter taking – acquiring all this land, there’s ample scope for them to upset the rules. As you imagine, Defra don’t part with money without us keeping to various strict rules, so there’s ample opportunity for the promoter to upset all that, which is another reason why I’d rather they didn’t have the land. Also, chairman, they’ve shown neat rectangles and right angles for the

land they want to take. I’ve spent two years explaining to them that agricultural machinery doesn’t turn through 90 degrees. It requires a large radii, and therefore we will lose production of considerably more than is shown on this map.

37. Finally, the issue of Nash Lee Road. You notice that the lines go across the road, so they’re taking – acquiring it says in the Bill, that road as well. We need it to be kept open at all times and so do the local businesses around us. Now, on 25 March, chairman, this meeting with Mr Wells, he suggested it was time to involve the promoter’s property department. My land agent made four attempts to arrange a meeting with their land – property people before August, and was rebuffed at every attempt. At a meeting arranged by my MP, because the only time I ever get to see HS2 appears to be with my MP organising it, at the promoter’s office in London, I pointed out what had happened, and eventually, towards the end of September, the promoter’s land agent did ring my land agent, but that promoter’s land agent had not been adequately briefed about the subject at hand.

38. He was sent all the papers by my land agent and there was no further contact until Thursday, when their agent rang me. Despite me pointing out it was rather late in the day to be suggesting a meeting he assured me that this was normal, he’d many times on the day before a hearing. So I arranged for my land agent and myself to be available for a meeting on Monday at 10 o’clock, then at six o’clock on Friday the promoter cancelled the meeting. The rationale now is that they might agree for a meeting after royal assent. As will be obvious, chairman, that’s no good to me. I get one opportunity to make my point to you and the Select Committee and after royal assent the Select Committee will have finished its work. If the promoter doesn’t listen to me now you can be sure they definitely won’t listen to me if they get royal assent on their terms.

39. The promoter also sent an email on assurances during the afternoon of Thursday, after the land agent had rung. I’ve already told you about that in the earlier petition. You’ve got a simple solution to all this. The rationale for my ask is there’s no need for the promoter to have the powers requested in the Bill. The promoter wishes to acquire the whole area marked pink for 12 months, maybe even longer. There’s another reference to two years. They want the right to cut away all the crops, to dig up the surface soil to create roadways, with all the attendant risks that I’ve explained to you.

40. National Grid have a wayleave agreement with us. That same agreement has been in place since March 1957 when this pylon line was built. This agreement stays with the land through whoever owns the land at any point in time. It gives National Grid the right to access their equipment at all times, no matter what particular operation they need to perform and no matter why the operation needs to be performed. Chairman, you’ve got on your Committee a graduate of an important UK university specialising in agriculture. He will, I’m sure, know all about wayleave agreements.

41. It so happens that National Grid are at this moment planning to restring this line anyway in 2017. They’ve already opened discussions with me about it. This routinely happens for maintenance reasons. The National Grid don’t start by having a special Act of Parliament with red lines on maps. They’ve got all the powers that they need. National Grid rely on the wayleave agreement and they take relationships with farmers seriously. They do write to us. They do come and see us. They do sort out precisely what needs to happen and when. The work is only likely to take two to three weeks, not 12 months or two years and we’ll hardly know. I’ve talked to other farmers when this has happened locally. We’ll hardly know that they’ve been there.

42. Now, National Grid’s a well-structured organisation with clear lines of command. There is one person responsible for this line, and they go to a lot of trouble to survey what needs to be done and to agree it with me, and they do pay very promptly if they cause any damage. I doubt that National Grid will let the promoter anywhere near their pylons, so the sensible way forward in my view is to let National Grid take control of this work and keep the promoter well away. National Grid have earned my confidence over the years by how they actually perform. The promoter has not.

43. So my ask, chairman, is can you please take the land out of the Bill. In the past two years we’ve seen at first hand, and that’s why I wanted – I’m sorry if I went on, but I needed to explain just how they operate and how they behave. No one takes responsibility. They don’t care one jot for affected parties. They’re only interested to dictate how they intend to build a railway without genuine consultation or concern for anyone else. It’s taken on average six months to arrange a meeting for anything, and it usually ends up with my MP having to get involved to force the issue. So apart from not caring, the promoter doesn’t seem to have the organisation in place to deal with us. Chairman, please keep the promoter out of this.

44. The promoter issued well-scripted prose about their good intentions, but the management doesn’t behave in that way. They do not deliver remotely acceptable communication, and having the promoter involved will simply mean that they get in the way, they’ll be as destructive as possible, as I’ve explained, with the land, they won’t consult me and they will cost us money. So in asking you to take this land out of the Bill the railway will still get built, if that’s what Parliament decides. There are only good consequences resulting from what I’ve asked you to do. It will actually cost less money if the promoter’s not involved. The work will get done very much more efficiently.

45. If, however, you decide that the land has to remain in the Bill then my fall back ask is that each of the six key points that I described is dealt with please, with firm undertakings from the promoter. Assurances are no good really. As I understand assurances they will simply oblige the promoter to use their best endeavours, and I’ve yet to see them use their best endeavours. No doubt they’ll be able to wriggle out of any assurances if they decide it suits them, and I don’t see any consequences for them.

46. I give you a final example of how the promoter operates. We decided, chairman, last May to do the honourable thing and give the promoter access to this land for ecological surveys. Many land owners have chosen not to but we did the honourable thing. You’d have thought they would reciprocate. The promoter has conducted a lot of ecological surveys looking at the plants in and near the streams and looking for newts, water voles, badgers and so on. I’ve saved them hours of searching by pointing out the salient features, the springs and water courses, and it’s been a good relationship on site, in sharp contrast to most of the people I meet over the railway itself. Slide 12.

47. The promoter’s administration is very poor. You’ll note from the slide that the promoter gets around to attempting to pay for a service provided in June some three months later. The promoter’s letter states that they credited our bank with a payment three days before their letter, and also that they sent a remittance advice by email. In fact no such payment had been made electronically, nor had an email been sent. This happens routinely. On a previous occasion I rang up, got the usual voicemail, and so I left a message enquiring what they intended to do. It took a month for a further letter to arrive, enclosing the remittance advice this time and enclosing a handwritten cheque. Can you believe it? It was actually a handwritten cheque.

48. Chairman, this is an organisation that’s asking Parliament to appoint it to run a £50 billion project at 2011 prices, probably £80 to £100 billion before it’s all over. I hope that Parliament will think long and hard before letting this organisation be in charge of such a serious venture. That’s my case. I’m sorry to have been so blunt but the last two years have been very trying of my patience, and I hope that you’ll see fit to direct that the promoter now enters meaningful negotiations with me now and not after royal assent. Thank you.

49. CHAIR: Mr Strachan?

50. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Thank you. I’m not proposing to revisit all events of the past. I know Mr Lewis obviously has strong views about the promoter. The way I can hopefully deal with this as neutrally as possible is this. There is a lot of correspondence, there’s been a lot of meetings, there’s been a lot of disagreement; Mr Lewis referred to some of that. He referred to a complaint he made as a consequence of that, and, if I put it as neutrally as possible in this way, that complaint was referred up through the system and then to an independent complaints assessor, who reported in March 2015, and who rejected Mr Lewis’s complaint and found there’d been no maladministration on the part of HS2. Now, underlying that there is a lot more detail. I don’t think it’s necessary for the Committee to get into it but I just merely put it on the record as we don’t accept the account, but I don’t want to raise temperatures by going through it again, but there is a process which has been gone through to look at what happened in the past, and that process has concluded.

51. Taking things forward, if I can do that in the most constructive way possible for Mr Lewis and the farm, what – there are two issues. The first related to the haul route and the satellite compound, and the second is the pylon works. On the question of the satellite compound, I think you’ve already heard and I’ve explained that we have moved the satellite compound as a result of Mr Lewis’s raising the matter with us, and that’s the proposal in AP4 and we just wait to see whether there’s any sufficiently strong objection to that, which would then potentially require the case for the original location to be looked at again, but we are not proposing to move it back, absent those objections. So that brings me onto the haul route. There’s always been a haul route proposed on the petitioner’s land, and the reason for that is because it’s skirting around the edge of the construction works as close as we can get it as possible, but inevitably here it clips

Springfield Farming Limited land.

52. Can I just show you P10283 again? This was the original Bill proposal, so this has always been there. It’s not a new haul road and it’s always been there for people to comment on, including anyone in Nash Lee Road. It’s marked on the plans as – the bottom down here as a temporary site access and haul route, and it always was crossing the top of Springfield Farming land, then it has to go round, down past Nash Lee Road in this loop and back up, and the reason for that is that under the scheme we are keeping Nash Lee Road open whilst the alignment, the realignment is constructed. And so in order to keep the road open whilst the construction work is going on, we have to bring the haul route away from the elevated section of where the new overbridge is being constructed, bring it south and then cross in what is a safe place. And of course you’ll be aware that our proposals will – are subject to road safety audits and we’re satisfied this is a safe location. We don’t understand the highway authority to differ from us on that.

53. I think Mr Lewis was suggesting taking the haul route across here, higher up on Nash Lee Lane. That’s not possible, both because of the construction work that’s going on to keep the bridge open – sorry the road open, and indeed it would potentially be more unsafe than what we’re proposing, so that’s the construction Hybrid Bill proposal in AP4. 10284 we have a very similar arrangement. The satellite compound’s gone so we can take the road slightly straighter, but the same arrangement of crossing Nash Lee Road, and we have provided a series of slides, which Mr Lewis has, which show how it is that we keep Nash Lee Road open.

54. P0286(1), can I just show you very briefly? This explains how we’re achieving a permanent realignment with a permanent offline overbridge, and I’ll just take you through this series of slides, if we could go through to 2 first of all. This is the current situation. 3, we are constructing the Nash Lee Road overbridge offline, so we continue to keep the road open, hence, as I explained, why we need to have the haul road where it is. 4, there you can see the offline diversion of Nash Lee Lane comes into use once we’ve constructed it, and that concludes the construction. So it’s carefully designed in order to keep that road open, which I think Mr Lewis earlier said was important to the farm and other businesses, and that’s the reason for the location of the haul route.

55. In terms of access to the property at Springfield Farming Limited at this point, we did – Mr Lewis didn’t refer to this, but we did have a meeting with him on 19 August, and I’ll just show you some minutes of that P10757. We had a meeting with Mr Lewis and we discussed a number of things, including about the assurances, which I’m going to show you again in a moment. If we could just go to the second page of these minutes, we dealt with the issue about visibility of the access. It’s in this penultimate paragraph. Mr Lewis raised his concerns about the visibility from his exit onto Nash Lee Road. BS, that’s someone from HS2, confirms the road had been designed to highway standards. Mr Lewis was concerned there wouldn’t be enough time for his slow agricultural vehicles to exit the farm, the road was not designed to agricultural standards. And BS said the road had been through the road safety audit and that with the road gradient plus the height of the agricultural vehicles visibility would be more than the required 160 metres. NC noted that detailed design there may be an opportunity to slightly reduced road levels depending on bridge design requirements. And so whatever Mr Lewis may think we have actually designed that road, that access to meet the road safety audit requirements and the road requirements for agricultural vehicles turning in and out.

56. I now understand Mr Lewis is concerned about it. We have sent him some plans of that access road in profile to show the visibility splays. If he’s got any further questions about that we’re very happy to answer those, but we have endeavoured to show him some of the – more detail as to why that access will be available and a safe one whilst the construction’s going on.

57. Can I turn to the pylons? The land required, as I’ve shown you, for the pylons is for restringing. And the important thing to note about restringing work – if I show you P10284, the restringing of the conductors requires, as you can imagine, access underneath the lines of the pylons as they run across Springfield Farming land. At this point here, if you just zoom in, there is a larger area of pink shown, but that is where the lines would cross, the conductors cross Nash Lee Road. And you may have seen this around and about but what happens is that it has a scaffold erected at the road edge, obviously for safety reasons. If you’re going to keep the road open you need to have the scaffolding and a slightly wider area of works in order to do your restringing, and that’s why for these purposes a slightly larger area of pink is shown to enable those works to

go ahead.

58. The pylon de-stringing takes place first. The pylons are moved further down the line and then the restringing takes place one those pylons have been moved. So it’s in duration for that whole period expected to be two years, but actual works on the land itself will be limited to the de-stringing and restringing, which will be a much shorter period for those works to take place. What we’re taking under the Bill are the rights to do that work for this project, for this statutory project, rather than National Grid doing it for their own purposes, which is why we take, this location as anywhere else, the powers to do it. And it’s important to do that because this is an HS2 project not a National Grid project, and that’s why we require the powers in the Bill. That said, the works that will be carried out we would expect to be of the – exactly the same sort that Mr Lewis was perfectly comfortable to take place by National Grid. There’s no reason why they’d be any different in substance.

59. CHAIR: We discussed this issue with another farmer a few weeks ago. Essentially, providing there’s an agreement with the landowner, there is no intention at all of buying the land or –

60. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): No, absolutely and we’ve made that clear. Can I just show you P10290(2) just to make that clear. We have tried to give Mr Lewis the – that reassurance. If you look at the top assurance: ‘The Secretary of State will require the nominated undertaker to use the land identified on plans 232 and 233 only for the purpose of reconductoring pylons, except in unforeseen circumstances outside the nominated undertaker’s control.’ That’s the only reason we require that land and that’s the nature of the work that we’d be doing.

61. So I appreciate Mr Lewis doesn’t see eye to eye with us on many things, but we have so far as we can at this stage given him comfort and assurances in this letter, and I hope I’ve explained some of the other points that he’s raised today, why we have actually looked at them without burdening the Committee with the many other parts of correspondence and minutes of meetings that exist.

62. CHAIR: Brief final comments?

63. MR LEWIS: Yes. The assessor, chairman, indeed didn’t find maladministration,

but he did give a very strong recommendation to the management of – or the directors, the board of the promoter. And I wasn’t going to mention it but since he has, the reason it took two months was that the promoter claimed to have a complete dossier of their internal complaints procedure, and when the assessor asked to see it it didn’t exist, so that’s why it took two months.

64. AP4 and the haul road, we asked for five detailed assurances, assurances on five detailed points. They’ve not responded at all, so we don’t have this absolute control over the access that we’ve asked for. Now, whether they could move the haul road to a position that doesn’t inconvenience our neighbours, and their children in particular, which is the worry, is, I think, a matter of contention. The road has very wide verges. One would have thought completely sufficient for the promoter to build a haul road there and not put children at risk. I think that’s terribly important, far more important than our access, that those children shouldn’t be exposed. We don’t know what the road’s going to be used for. They won’t tell me. They won’t tell me how frequently nor for how long.

65. Regarding the pylons, chairman, I understand exactly – when I was an undergraduate engineer I worked for one of the old electricity boards for one summer. I’ve worked on this kind of thing. I know exactly what’s done. They don’t need to acquire the land. That’s my basic point.

66. CHAIR: They’re not intending to acquire the land.

67. MR LEWIS: I’m so sorry –

68. CHAIR: Not intending to acquire land. We’ve told them they shouldn’t acquire land which they don’t need, all the way up and down the line.

69. MR LEWIS: I know it says that but I – the basic problem is that I don’t trust them anymore.

70. CHAIR: Well, there is one way you can get them to acquire the land. That’s to refuse an agreement for them to access the land to do their work. If you refuse them they will – in the Bill they will take the land, so it’s actually up to you.

71. MR LEWIS: The problem, chairman, is the term it’s under. They say they want

to dig up the land and they want to cut away the crops. It’s completely unnecessary, but they won’t listen. This is the problem. This is what you’ve just heard that I made these various points, all they do is come back and say, ‘We’ve decided that’s the best thing to do and that’s the end of it.’ Well, you know, I’m sorry but I’m not satisfied, so what I’ve asked you to do is to prevent them taking the land and have asked you to insist that they do consult with me instead of avoiding me.

72. CHAIR: There are discussions with the NFU, and the Country Land and Business Association provide a template document that sets out how the approach will be taken for the project with farmers. And all the way that we’ve discussed this, with quite a lot of farmers up and down the route, is the approach the project will take is to cooperate with the farmers as far as possible, not to disrupt their businesses, because if they disrupt their businesses there’s potential compensation claims. So the reality is there has to be some give and take, but I don’t see that there’s the problem. I understand your concerns and your worries, Mr Lewis.

73. MR LEWIS: I see plenty of take and no give, chairman.

74. CHAIR: Okay. Alright, Mr Clifton-Brown?

75. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: I don’t know the merits of this correspondence and how you’ve been treated, Mr Lewis, but in order to try and give me and the Committee a flavour of this, could I ask Mr Strachan how many cases like Mr Lewis’s have been referred to the panel and how many have been upheld?

76. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Is that the panel, the independent complaints assessor?

77. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Correct.

78. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I don’t have that information obviously at my fingertips but I can find out.

79. CHAIR: Okay, good. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Okay, Mr Bellingham.

80. MR BELLINGHAM: Mr Strachan – and I apologise I couldn’t be here earlier, I had to go to the doctor – but I’m a bit concerned about Mr Lewis’s comments about not

having correspondence responded to, having a breakdown in communications, only being able to get through to HS2 through his MP. Now, I really don’t think that is acceptable if that really is the case. I mean, what more can HS2 do to make sure this – you know, regardless of the merits of the case, to actually make sure there’s a proper dialogue going on and Mr Lewis’s reasonable requests are taken care of and heeded?

81. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think there’s an element of proportionality in how I can respond to these sorts of things, because I did make clear at the outset we don’t see eye to eye in relation to his account of events. And I can certainly agree that it’s important that there is dialogue and we like it to be constructive. Sometimes because there are two sides and sometimes people are agitated about certain things it’s not always possible to reach agreement in correspondence, but the important thing is to try and maintain dialogue.

82. In this particular instance things obviously – Mr Lewis wasn’t satisfied, so there is a process, as I indicated, for taking complaints further and he did, and the consequence of taking it was the complaint was rejected by the independent complaints assessor, who had the opportunity to review all of the correspondence that took place. What I don’t – I could of course provide the Committee with that sort of material, but it’s unnecessary to do it in most cases because that’s really the function of the independent complaints assessor, and it will add to the burdens of the Committee to have that sort of satellite issue to resolve.

83. So what I can assure you – what I can provide comfort to the Committee on is that there is that process there for people who are concerned, and it is an independent complaints assessor, and I’ll provide the Committee, as requested, with a flavour of how many complaints have been referred and how many upheld. For Mr Lewis, he did exercise that, and the complaint was rejected. So beyond that, unless I were to provide with all the material again –

84. MR BELLINGHAM: I don’t think, Mr Strachan, that’s necessary, but we don’t like petitioners coming to the committee and saying they can only get meetings with HS2 through their MP. I think that is something that really does need to be addressed.

85. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I quite understand that, and certainly that’s not our intention; it’s not our position and we do have very, very many meetings with all

petitioners throughout this process, most of which the committee, thankfully, doesn't have to see. But it’s a very detailed exercise. But we can’t make everyone happy all of the time, but there is a process to deal with that.

86. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Nevertheless, Mr Strachan, basic courtesies is arranging meeting within a reasonable space of time, responding to correspondence, making payments expeditiously when you say you will and they’re agreed. These are basic courtesies. I do get the flavour from Mr Lewis that these haven't necessarily been followed?

87. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s certainly his perspective; it’s not our perspective. But I totally agree with you that in principle – and we certainly endeavour to follow those processes – we should have meeting when people want to have them, and they’re going to be useful, and we should try and have meetings and arrange them in suitable timescales. But I hope, from what I’ve seen from a large number of these things, that the process is one that’s going on behind the scenes.

88. CHAIR: Right, we need to crack on. Thank you gentlemen. We now move to petition 1165, 679, 1067, 1091, 649, 648, 1071, 1092, 1069, 1086, 128, 1068, 1070, Greg Porter? You’ve got a fair number of slides. We are familiar with South Heath, so I hope you move through in a speedy way?

The Wood Lane Residents’ Association et al.

89. MR PORTER: Measured progress you said?

90. CHAIR: Yes. Right, Mr Strachan, can you do a brief introduction then we’ll get on with it?

91. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, sorry. Can I take you to P10320? Sorry, I’ve taken you to the wrong plan. Can I just outline that we’re in the region of South Heath – we’ve got the wrong plan, we’ll just get the right one up for you in a moment. If I take you to P8120(10)? Sorry, we’re just getting the right slide. If I just explain? We’re back at South Heath and the petitioners are at Wood Lane, which is a location we looked at in South Heath before. It may be easier to get their own slide up. A1599(6) I think is going to be quickest.

92. Wood Lane is shown to the right, over here; it’s a road running down South Heath and they’ve helpfully drawn the distances from their properties to the edge of the tunnel as it comes out to the west of South Heath at this point here. You’ll recall from what we previously discussed, that the promoters have proposed an extension of the bored tunnel to this location to mitigate the effects both in construction terms and in operational terms on South Heath and Wood Lane as well.

93. MR PORTER: Thank you gentlemen, good morning. Can I have the first slide please, go back to the start? Well, gentlemen, I’m here to represent the Wood Lane Residents' Association, in South Heath. It is a group petition, covering a number of petitioners. Next slide please? There are 15 petitioners represented here; they all live in Wood Lane and the average length of time they’ve been there is 18 years. Of those 15 petitioners, eight are retired, so just over 50%.

94. Next slide please? Where we live, Wood Lane, is a 400 metre little lane; it’s unadopted, and it’s a no-through country lane in the village of South Heath. It has 21 properties along its length, and South Heath itself – as you probably are aware – about 340 dwellings, approximately 900 people. They are totally dependent on access, particularly the nearby facilities of Great Missenden, Chesham and Amersham. The last point there: members of South Heath REPA organisation, who you’ve heard of regarding the tunnelling parts.

95. Next slide please? Wood Lane – here’s an aerial map with just a montage of the petitioner’s properties along the length of Wood Lane, coming in at the end, to Kings Lane, and the other end obviously a no-through road.

96. Next slide please? The proximity to the C6 portal is key to much of what I’m about to say, in the next few minutes. The portal is shown there as planned with the dotted line, as regards to the tunnel extension, reflected in the decision under AP4. So the tunnel portal is just on the left hand side of the slide; and there is the village of South Heath and our Wood Lane. Obviously one of the points I will be making is the close – very close – proximity to that portal. Next slide please?

97. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: What distance is that please, sir?

98. MR PORTER: Actually it’s the next slide. It’s 650 metres to the top end, sir, and

just over one kilometre to the far end. Now, on the right-hand side, as part of AP4, there’s going to be a vent shaft constructed and an auto-transformer. That is 700 metres from the far end, and 550 metres. Again, that will come up because of not so much the construction side of it – although that will have a bearing – it is, are there any noise implications there? We’ll touch on that later.

99. Next slide please? Why do we live in South Heath? Usual reasons you’ll have heard before, so I won’t dwell on it very long: it’s obviously a beautiful area, it’s very, very tranquil and we have great, outdoors quality of life. It is very close to London, only three-quarters of an hour; good transportation, excellent education facilities and leisure and a lovely place to bring up your children.

100. Next slide please? So, the central Chilterns area really is a typical example of quintessential England. You’ll have heard that the very successful TV series Midsomer Murders was and continues to be filmed throughout the Chilterns villages, within our area. It principally does this to reflect the image of the typical English rural countryside living. Location filming has been taking place over the last few weeks; and our beautiful countryside landscape and pretty Chiltern villages are a key element in its international success. It is now sold to over 200 countries worldwide.

101. So this slide in front of you – in the beginning, when it all started. Completely unexpectedly, March 2010, the announcement was made. The promoter as you know, on behalf of the Secretary of State proposed to construct a high-speed railway line that traversed 24 kilometres through the widest section and the highest points of the Chilterns AONB; directly adjacent to our South Heath village. As you have heard, within 500, 700 metres, and as far away as 1,000 metres, from the tunnel portals. Our properties and lives were immediately blighted and five and a half years later, they remain so.

102. Next slide please? The proposal is outlined and summarised there and I won’t go through every line there. Suffice it to say that it was an incredibly extensive plan and a covering period of five to seven years was involved with building of electricity transformer stations, tunnel vent shafts, deep cutting embankments, in fact the whole gambit. So it was incredibly powerful, shall one say? So as you can imagine, this was somewhat of a seismic shock to almost everybody.

103. Next slide please? Then came the July 2015 proposal for the extension of the Chilterns tunnel by a small but significant 2.6 metres. They were a very, very important 2.6 metres – miles, beg your pardon – kilometres, even! Now, this slide shows really what it removed, and it was a very extensive impact to the local area. Besides the 1.4km green tunnel not being necessary, material stockpiles, satellite construction compounds, one million tonnes of spoil not having to be removed, extensive number of heavy goods vehicle movements etc., several new bridges, new roads, tracks, and associated lighting that would have gone up. And then the creation of a 100 acre, one million cubic metre spoil dump; and the demolition of 14 properties, etc. It was enormously appreciated. In fact, we were sad to actually say that the local residents put up quite a lot of banners, and constructions for your site visit which didn't quite go to plan, and in fact, you were sadly missing it when you were there; you were somewhat rushed through the programme.

104. CHAIR: That was the second one was it?

105. MR PORTER: It was the second one, but there was quite a lot of appreciation being shown, so on behalf of everybody, thank you.

106. Next slide please? Now, if we move onto the five major Chilterns construction sites that are proposed and the village of South Heath is in red as you can just see here; and there are in fact five sites. If I point to them individually, the cursor can follow me, going along the trace. The tunnel portal one, at South Heath, is just here. The transformer station is just to the right of that. So you can see the village of South Heath is really sandwiched between the two. Now I will come on later to the roads that go down to the main A413 road which traverses the whole screen, because that will be a key pinch point down there where the two access goes on to the A413.

107. Can I just say that anxiety and uncertainty prevail throughout the community at the moment and even with the C6 extended tunnel it is feared that severe, adverse consequences for the environment, the quality of our lives, the wellbeing and our properties does still very much exist. So, a considerable number of concerns exist and if I could just have the next slide please? I’ve tried and endeavoured to summarise these under two key headings. This of course is still with the extended tunnel and the latest AP4 proposals. I've tried to build those in. The two sub-headings they will appear

under will be the impact on quality of life and the environment; and secondly, the impact on our properties and the values.

108. Next slide please? Well the quality of life, it’s a bit of an over-busy slide there, but number one on the agenda, which you’ve probably heard before, Committee, is the noise. The plan is for tunnel bursts every 100 seconds. Of course, we have the C6 vent shaft now, which is unknown. The lives of our children during construction, certainly their leisure and safety is a key aspect and concern and then we will have road closures, new builds and traffic congestion, some of which I’ll come onto in a moment. Access is a major potential problem, to all our principal townships because all will be affected to a greater or lesser extent. HGV and LGV construction traffic is going to be involved in 2.3 million cubic metres of extracted spoil; some 270,000 heavy goods vehicle movement equivalents will be necessary. There’ll be a lot of dust, dirt, detritus, light, water pollution etc. – water pollution less so because I think this committee has received assurances about that already. Accessing countryside walks, I’ve already – now, not as great as they were, thanks to your decision in July. The community health and safety, particularly airborne pollution, is a key factor; and obviously the stress of the work going on. Then we have the risks to our essential utilities, particularly the electricity and the re-siting of pylons etc. You only need to have some problems on the electricity these days; your computers go out and I think we all know how we can’t live without these things nowadays.

109. Next slide please? Property blight is the second key factor. You can see that in Wood Lane alone, the 21 properties, we’ve had the five and a half years of property blight. Now the blight assessment is very difficult; and there’ll be a separate presentation I think over the next two weeks on that very subject, to you. But I've taken consultation with them, and they believe that in the area we are losing up 30% in real terms, given inflation on both cost of living inflation and also inflation in the housing market. Our properties in fact are frozen or have lost value. So we are a blighted community, not only today, for five and a half years, but then we see a plan for 10-plus years going out; that’s 340 properties, another 10 years of potential blight. It’s a very heavy price to pay.

110. Then one says, well if you do want to move, compensation schemes do exist, and I will touch on the Need to Sell scheme, but that at the moment gentlemen, is very, very

protracted and extremely onerous.

111. CHAIR: I would only touch on it because we are looking at it; I have letters coming back from Members of Parliament giving examples, so we will be making further recommendations.

112. MR PORTER: I will make one or two comments just for you to take on board, but I won’t dwell on it because of that comment.

113. Next slide please? Now, environment noise, as I said is the single largest concern to everybody. Yet, it is perhaps the most difficult to get precise details about and to understand those details. It’s surrounded by ambiguity and uncertainty. The promoter I have to admit has gone to enormous lengths in supplying volumes and volumes of data. The difficulty you’ll find at the moment is actually extracting the data you need, firstly; and then secondly, understanding it when you do extract it. The levels of environmental noise, though, will be little different, it is postulated, than those we experience at the moment. The prophetic words are used generally, ‘No adverse impact expected’. Therefore, why are we concerned?

114. Next slide please? This is a slide of the environmental noise, operational noise, as provided by HS2. You can see the Wood Lane location very faintly, I’m afraid, gentlemen, but it’s where my pen is on the screen now. In relation to the portal operations, 1km away – that is Wood Lane; and the portal operation is just to the east of that; that’s the tunnel, that’s the portal operation there. You’ll see here that they have got the various zones around the portal of noise and in fact they've got the inner zone for the high noise levels, day and night, at the top in this chart. Then they have the light grey area, which shows the lesser affected ones. So you can see Wood Lane is unaffected; we’re not going to hear noise. It’s not going to be of any significant impact. But then when you look at this table at the top, it’s got, at night time, 40-55dB; and during the day time, 50-65dB are the limits to which they only measure – and anything below that is not shown. Well, that’s key problem number one: night time at the moment in our tranquil environment, can be extremely low, down to 30 or 35dB. Daytime, we know, can be less than 50-65dB; it’s not a persistent noise but it can go up to that, it must admit. But with train bursts every 100 seconds, and the construction noise, we are pretty concerned about the potential there. But given that picture, there is

no reason to obviously be worried.

115. Next slide please? It’s only when you drill down into the assumptions behind the data – and they are many – that surface noise levels have in some of it, been averaged over a period of time. 24 hours, 16 hours, eight hours, one hour, five minutes, you name it. There’s masses and masses of data out there noise, some of it even monthly. Sometimes the noise calculations have been measured to the centre of dwelling rooms, the windows are closed or the windows are open. But we live in the country and our windows are generally open all the time, 12 months of the year. So, again you get different sets of statistics. Then we find that HS2 use decibel levels there in terms of measuring adverse impacts, and you have other complications in terms of WHO guidelines, which are slightly different. Then there’s the question of night-time averaging, and this can mask or give you a different picture. I’m really explaining all this sort of data without going into decibels and going into a technical conversation, because you get experts that have come before you, who have spoken about the topographical and the meteorological impacts as well. That combined with phenomena of background masking can change all the data we’ve provided anyway. So all of these can have a significant impact on the theoretical calculations. So we ask – and have been fully accounted for – what is really the real situation likely to be? I have a suggestion in a moment.

116. One of the reasons also we’ve mentioned is that the data itself, when provided, is in extremely complex form. So what we’re really asking for is the data on the next slide, please? Sorry, can you go one forward? Slide (17), I beg your pardon. That’s it, gentlemen. The issue we really want to try and get a fix on, are the peak tunnel boom noise impacts as trains enter and exit the portal. Really, we want to sort of get a feel for those maximum levels by distance, permeating out from there. And obviously then there’s the open embankment section along the actual portal itself as it comes out, along the open embankment – and we’ve mentioned the vent shaft operational noise levels, maintenance noise levels at night; and then basically, what happens if those noise levels are not actually achieved in practice? Is there any redress? Are there any contingency actions in place? Now those are the questions we’ve been trying to get for over 12 months; and we have got good replies with masses and masses of data, but they don’t address those questions. I have actually put them in that format that you see before you

now. So there’s a good chance that the information being there, as I’ve said; it’s just a case of knowing where it is and then understanding it.

117. I’ve also submitted email evidence of the response I’ve received from HS2 noise team in October this year, regarding my request, as the potential maximum noise associated with a vent shaft operation. A response was quite extraordinary. It said, ‘Under the relevant information paper E22, there is no requirement to define the maximum potential noise levels. It will, however, be necessary to establishing the rating level, as defined by E22 which will be part of the detailed design which is likely to take place after Royal Assent’. Well does that mean, basically, we can’t tell you but we will tell you after Royal Assent? In other words, we have quite a large construction operation, it’s spanning three or four years, where we have no information regarding potential noise of the vent shaft. If this is going to be insignificant, only 25dB or 30dB, whatever it is, then it’s problem solved. But at the moment we have no information regarding it.

118. CHAIR: We have discussed this on other occasions, and essentially, there’ll be little noise; there is machinery, air conditioning machinery when a train is stuck down the bottom or there is some particular problem, and then there’ll be a hum. But all the way around London and other places, there are hidden vent shafts that people are unaware of.

119. MR PORTER: So really, it’s insignificant?

120. CHAIR: I don’t think it’s the big issue you think it will be, but I hope HS2 can still reassure you. If you are concentrating on issues you want to be concerned about, I wouldn't worry too about that –

121. MR PORTER: Too much about that one?

122. CHAIR: No.

123. MR PORTER: I will pass the word on, thank you. So, another reason why we slightly remain unconvinced about the overall conclusion of no significant adverse noise impacts relates to the current tranquil environment we have and the fact that we can hear the Chiltern line railway running at only 50-60mph in the distance some two miles away

on occasions.

124. You’ve been exposed, I believe to the phenomena of noise refraction and the subject of masking and various other theories as well. But all these theories don’t tell you that the fact that, with a train running very slowly, two miles away, we hear it on occasions. So when you’ve got something that’s only going to be three-quarters of a mile away running at 220mph, every 18 seconds (sic), you get slightly nervous.

125. Next slide please? Slide 18 just confirms – and because we’ve discussed the peak noise information required, just reiterating that the village of South Heath with the construction portal works as shown here with the cursor, the whole village of South Heath really is not far off 1km from the portal, and that’s the only thing I think we need to take away from that, and the peak noise data that we require.

126. Next slide please? Well we really do seem to have somewhat of a perverse situation where the tunnel rises up a steep gradient, emerging at this South Heath village, C6 exit, only then to proceed downhill to Wendover Dean via an open cutting; and the viaducts that are actually sited further down the track. In so doing, it doesn't protect in any way the South Heath village community as you’ll see in that photo montage there, which is as I've just mentioned, mostly 1km from the portal. Nor does it protect the last 8.5km – that’s 25% - of the central Chilterns AONB. So there’s a twin advantage, perhaps, to a potential solution, but it does beg the question, why have the C6 tunnel portal so close to the village?

127. Next slide please? I’ll dwell, very, very quickly on this one; I won’t go through it in any great length, except to say that quite a lot of discussions has taken place in comparing HS2 versus HS1. HS1 route follows a transport corridor; I think that is the M20, but about 84% of it, I’m told, follows along that corridor. Now, HS2 does not follow, generally, any motorway corridors; I think there was a small section along the M40, about 13% higher – or further north. But the point is, the phenomena of masking is not a big issue. Given our tranquil environment, we do not have motorway masking nearby. Train frequencies are obviously different; you have the HS1 running at three or four times; and HS2 is running 18 times an hour during the peak parts of the day; and speed obviously. The speed, I was interested to find out, HS1 runs at 300km/h, which I thought was quite fast; and then against HS2’s plan for 400km/h. So we really have two

different scenarios there. Then you have the residents who live in the locale of HS1; but after some 20 years, they don’t complain about the noise because basically, they didn't know what it was like beforehand, and the tranquil environment they had. That is the key issue; it’s what is the existing community used to now, and the current level of environmental tranquillity. Regretfully, this is patently what HS2 are struggling to come to terms with in providing some of the noise data.

128. So in summary - next slide please? – will our tranquil living and recreational living environment be adversely impacted? Will the train-generated noise be audible, intrusively so? Will the acoustic character of a wider area of an area of outstanding natural beauty be adversely changed forever? And we have received quite a lot of assertions but what seems to be the case is, yes, there will be some impact.

129. Next slide please? Now the operational noise is one issue, but the construction noise is by far, potentially, the most pernicious. The latest AP4 construction phases for the vent shaft, the transformers, and the C6 tunnel now span nine years. Now obviously not totally all the nine years; there will be some interruption, I’m sure, there. But from the beginning to the end, it’s going to be a nine-year time horizon now. Originally, it was going to be seven years, so it’s quite a long time. There’s very few appropriate environmental noise details available. They’re almost certainly going to have an even more profound impact during both daytime and late evening operations. Sound barrier protection is not really applicable here, but we will have the construction operations – the five I’ve mentioned along the line – HGV and LGV traffic flows and excavation and movement of 2.3 million cubic metres of spoil. Noise levels are bound to be profoundly evident, despite the best intentions of the Code of Construction Practice. HS2 have worryingly stated that there is no requirement to consider construction noise for assessment and in any event, there is no data available for this to be done in a meaningful way. So we are going to have a nine-year operation, where basically, as we sit here, we don’t know what the noise impact of those nine-years of operation is likely to be. We say, what about HS1 when it was constructed? What about Crossrail? There must be some indication as to potential noise during this phase. Next slide please? Again, we don’t need to go into that: peak noise impacts. Again, it’s the same question on the construction noise aspect.

130. So if we can move on please, (24)? If we now move on then to the central

Chilterns AONB. I know you must’ve heard extensive amounts on this, so I will be brief. But, the summary chart there says it; the Chiltern AONB is masked in yellow, overlaying a map and the HS2 line is shown through it, a 24km, the widest and the highest sections. You will know how the AONB is designated; it’s one of 31 in England. You know it’s there to be for the protection and the enjoyment of everyone. But perhaps more importantly, our Chilterns communities also recognise that we have a duty of care and do go to lengths to protect it and preserve it in our day-to-day lives.

131. Next slide please? Again, I will quick summary there. Natural England, a government organisation, considers those six technical criteria. You may have seen this already; Chilterns does qualify under every single front; and is definitely an area of area of outstanding natural beauty. Should it be protected is the big question?

132. Next slide? Does it adversely impact on our area of outstanding natural beauty? Will there be any effect on noise, visual beauty, ancient woodland lost, flora, hedgerow destruction etc.? In fact, on all those criteria, it does have an impact. So, again, you ask, should the Chilterns be protected and if so, do we put any special value or credence on it?

133. Next slide please? AONB landscape, by any yardstick should be valued more than natural agricultural countryside, yet this does not seem to be acknowledged or quantified within the promoter’s ES. In fact, it really doesn't get much recognition at all, and that is really I think, when we look at it, why you have had to hear emphasised so many times by your petitioners. It is little reference appears in any of HS2’s rhetoric or its publications. But if you then start to give higher monetary values, then the land take affects the overall project costs. I suspect that that is not something HS2 or the government would perhaps want to concede. So the question remains: has any special monetary or aesthetic value been put on this landscape? If not, should it be?

134. Next – and I’ve got the next slide, thank you. The quality of impacts – sorry, can you go back again? (27), thank you? The quality of life, well, I’ve mentioned the outdoor lifestyles and the permanent train operations and to some degree the construction operations in particular will impact on all those criteria, all those pursuits and activities. And the common theme through them all is of course their outdoor characteristic. The other factor is, not only doing these activities; they do have a

significant associated health benefit. Given our community is probably of the order of 40-50% senior citizens, it does have a hidden very much health plus to it all. The considerable number of earlier petitions – and how passionately we all feel about the threat to our current lifestyles. But it is the very essence of why we all chose to live in the Chilterns. Weekends in particular are awash with visitors and tourists and locals, taking advantage of the special environment. They represent to so many the core of our lives and are passionately valued.

135. One moment worth mentioning involved, actually, a REPA viewing of HS2’s central Chilterns fly-through back in June of this year. Martin Wells and Marianne Bowtell of HS2 attended and took questions on behalf of HS2. This was arranged in our village hall early one evening and, much to Martin’s credit, he persevered through almost all of his presentation with the delightful sounds of ball on willow in the background. It proved a delightful distraction and lightened the mood. The quality of life impacts – Next slide please?

136. Well, the construction phase impacts is the one that we all are in fear of; we’ve covered noise extensively, so I will go on in the next minutes to the light and air pollution aspect, road closures and diversions, new builds; and then we’ll talk about, very briefly, the access to Great Missenden for all our facilities there and then onto the gridlock potential at this very, very important point for us all on the road network. Health and safety impacts, obviously, touch – that’s shown there on the air pollution and light, and also access, so I will touch on that also.

137. Next slide please? This slide attempts to represent the two key roundabouts along the A413 and to the left, east side, we’ve moved through one roundabout, one, across the A413 to roundabout two to the right hand side, access road to London. So that’s the main road to London going south. If I come back, the Great Missenden village centre is down on the, sort of, southwest, and you have just to the right of that, the recreation ground; you have the park, the tennis facilities and the children’s area generally is in this right hand corner. The proposal for the A413 haul route is the C6 tunnel portal is just up from here. And the road intersection comes down to that key pinch point roundabout where it’s proposed heavy goods vehicle and light goods vehicles, we’ll come on to. If you look to the right, on Frith Hill, the B485, in the mornings, already you have severe tailbacks of traffic and it can, at the wrong time, take 5-10 minutes to get down the hill

and onto this roundabout. We have severe problems in that area already at the moment.

138. The point really is, here, it’s the core lifeline to everything we do in terms of access to Great Missenden, London and motorways. It really is inconceivable that the A413 Great Missenden roundabout can act as one of the main conduits for the C6 portal construction works, as reflected in AP4. HS2 presumably have conducted traffic surveys live on the ground; and they must, surely, be aware of the potential gridlock situation and the one we actually face today, between the hours of 07.00 and 09.30; and the tailback of the eastbound traffic almost as far as Wendover. During the same time that the adjacent roundabout, the B485 one there as I’ve mentioned, tailback of traffic can invariably go back and take 10 minutes to get onto the A413. The evening situation is not so severe, although the school evening times are very peak – about 4.00 to 4.30 – and then certainly upwards from 5.00 to about 7.30 as westbound traffic comes from London on the way to Wendover.

139. So construction traffic – Next slide please? – not only do you have – we’re revisiting this one because you’ll see the A413 stretching across the slide, and the pinch points that the previous slide has just mentioned. You’ll see across this, all those operational and construction sites will have potential large movements of vehicles, both heavy and light. These tables here give an indication of the volume of traffic over the periods. It’s just, basically, not a workable solution. The AP4 vehicle transport proposal as it stands is just not viable. The potential disruption to our life and daily journeys will be too onerous and potentially grind to a halt. A revised HS2 spoil disposal strategy is therefore most certainly required. Is this recognised? Is it being considered? If so, at what stage is it at?

140. Next slide please? If I move on briefly to the issue of air, dust and pollution – dirt pollution. South Heath, in effect, is going to be surrounded by those five major construction operations. There will be considerable high levels of airborne dust and there will be considerable mud and debris on the roads. Can we attain assurances on these factors, that they will be stringently monitored, controlled and managed to the extent that work will cease if maximum levels are exceeded against pre-set health standards? Are they embodied within the COCP? Will they be independently monitored? Your Wood Lane petitioners are very anxious on this matter. I won’t go into the other general health effects at this stage – I will go just to the right hand side

there and say, our last small consideration is that where do residents stand in relation to reimbursement of costs associated with the time, effort and money of maintaining our properties and our vehicles during this nine-year time horizon?

141. Next slide please? Now comments here on the blight aspect are really only restricted to the construction phase. Given, really, the uncertainties that will exist beyond this, and we do know that from some information that, say, in 20 years’ time property values will equalise. But Wood Lane has the 21 properties; they have been blighted for over five years to varying degrees; and as of today Wood Lane petitioners are facing real, reduced property valuations of up to 30%. Look there, the 21 properties; I’ve mentioned the potential of reflecting 30%. If we just took a 10% factor of that, it would equate to £1.5 million lost value in just Wood Lane. Two have been taken off the market that have been attempted to be sold as unsellable; and two are currently up for sale. Two are currently rented after protracted failed attempts at selling over a period of a year and a half. All in Wood Lane consider ourselves as locked in. Next slide please? As if this is not bad enough, we have the potential of at least a further 10-plus years of blight. So be in no doubt, South Heath is blighted.

142. The next slide shows – probably you may remember it from your visit – the Annie Bailey site, which was a thriving pub five or six years ago – in fact, I've sat in the garden there myself. There it is today. I put this up as an aside, together with the other two slides, to say that it’s a good example of neglect and disrepair that is now associated with our blight-affected area. Many other examples exist in the village. What is happening is that as more blighted properties do not sell, the owners look to rental income as a means of relocating. The regrettable consequence sees incoming, transitory tenants, rarely maintaining these rented properties up to the same high standards as perhaps an owner-occupier would do. So the properties, devoid of care and maintenance, gradually slip into a state of disrepair. 50% of our Wood Lane petitioners are retired, as you’ve seen; so the balancing of our finances is particularly critical. Releasing capital here, via house downsizing was a key element in our financial planning. But in reality, our properties have lost a great amount in value. Residents who choose to move are faced with either burying a loss or running the gauntlet with the current Need to Sell compensation scheme.

143. Next slide please? Now much public and political reference is made as to just

how generous the government’s compensation schemes are. This is regrettably just not the case. In particular – and the one relevant to most residents – is the Need to Sell compensation scheme. It’s the one you have mentioned, that you are actually going to be looking at and which, therefore, I will shorten. But it is a great cause of concern for worry; and we’ve had many conversations with those people actually going through the Need to Sell scheme. They identify a number of recurring anecdotal observations emerging. This slide attempts to encapsulate just a few of their observations of personal experiences, which hopefully may come up – I’m sure they will – over the next few weeks.

144. Next slide? The first one, obviously, is the 120-300 metres which is not really part of the NTS scheme now as nothing beyond 300 metres applies. That’s when, actually, it can trip over into Need to Sell. It’s a very complex process; it’s very onerous; it’s time consuming; and basically, it can take up to 12 months or longer. If we look at the stressful and trauma that’s caused by – that the applicants face, there is an enormous amount of paperwork involved. This is not specifically because HS2 are asking for the paperwork, but they are asking for the need to meet the evidence that’s required. It’s the evidence that you’re having to provide, apparently, which is causing masses of time and effort. It’s very protracted; it can take well over 12 months, as I’ve said. Then we come back down to the onus on property owners to demonstrate a compelling reason to sell. Why do you have to demonstrate? Why should you have to demonstrate a need to sell? It’s a totally unreasonable criteria. Why should individuals be asked for enormous volumes of paperwork to support the premise of need to sell? Why are they, the very people who have been put through five and a half years of anxiety and stress be denied the right of want to sell without financial penalty? The scheme as it stands is really unjust and not very fair.

145. There is a lack of clarity regarding a true establishment of an unblighted property value. We are finding, in practice, according to people who have been through it, that surveyors and property experts are being brought in from outside with little or no experience of the area. Why go outside for the expertise? There are plenty of people within the area that know it intimately. Consequently, the estimated current realistic market price valuations are almost invariably coming in at a very, very low value. It doesn't recognise the true value of the properties in the adjacent, non-affected areas. So

then, you go in another loop of negotiating what is a realistic price. It just clogs down the system, more paperwork, more meetings. So, the inadequacies in comparative valuations and the low initial property valuation is a key concern. I’d like to establish: do they ever come in with a valuation higher? I suspect that’s not very often.

146. There is, lastly, the point there of any acknowledgement of the benefits of a property bond scheme. PWC supported and wanted this – or, no, recommended it. But it is wanted by all of your petitioners. It is recognised that it would settle the market and return it to unblighted levels. At the very least, if we don’t go down the property bond route, we should amend the system; not a Need to Sell please. It should be a ‘Want to Sell’ scheme.

147. In the meantime, HS2 or the Department for Transport, have apparently over the last week, advised constituency MPs affected, that they wish to make certain changes to the compensation schemes, particularly in relation to AP4. I haven't seen the precise details of this, so we would like to ask for clarification from HS2. Will it endeavour to toughen up the ability for the community to apply through the ‘NtS’ scheme even though it is the only one available at the moment? In the meantime, however, many within our community and throughout the UK have spent their lives with mortgages of 25 to 30 years, and suffered considerable thrift and austerity in their younger years. This is in order to settle down to an enjoyable retirement with dignity and peace. It’s not been possible for your petitioners over the last five years to actually do this. So we ask you to put yourselves in our shoes, gentlemen, and just think of the further 10-plus years of uncertainty and despair. So we really would like to see, at the very least, a ‘Want to Sell’ scheme introduced if at all possible, and the management of the whole process be considered as being handed over to a truly independent body.

148. Next slide please? Mitigations, I've left to the end rather than deal with them one by one, and I’ve tried to just wrap them up here, by saying that – which is something you’ve heard before many, many times – it’s the plea for a fully extended bored tunnel that will go right the way through the Chilterns, protecting 100% of it, extended to the other side of Wendover. It means another 8km from the South Heath C6 portal and a few extra miles – and yes, some extra cost – but it is the only genuine solution that recognises and protects everything that we’ve said over the last few minutes. All local residents would still be faced, though, with huge levels of disruption, but given the long-

term impact and the effort to actually do this, it would be tolerated and in fact, welcomed. So, a wonderful legacy for all, if that were possible.

149. I’ve slightly gone off-piste for the moment, here, next slide, in terms of, in one sense, why does everybody feel passionate about the countryside in England and about areas of outstanding natural beauty? I sat back and thought, we are a finite country; we know that basically, like many other countries in the world, our largest single problem is over-population. We have a small island here and if one says, ‘The countryside, why do we value it so much?’ It really comes down to, basically, the fact that if you look at England, just alone, and extract England as a sovereign country – and I know it’s not quite clear because of being part of Great Britain – but taking England, because that’s where this line is effectively going from in Phases I and II – we now have the largest population density in mainland Europe. Now, I certainly didn't realise that. I’m a bit surprised that we don’t express that politically or in other forums, that we really, really are very heavily populated. The only one in the European Union that’s higher than England is Malta, and you can see they are off the chart – you couldn't even put it on. In the context of world population data as well, where does England feature on that? Well, if you take out Malta and Monaco, then we’re number five in the world. I mean, that is a massive, significant reason for why we value our countryside so greatly. So, really, we’d like to really just put on record that it is something that our green countryside, and particularly the AONB is something that is worth protecting.

150. Next slide please? The second mitigation, again this might not come as any surprise to you. You’ve heard from REPA a few weeks ago about the C5 proposal which basically said, ‘Alright, if the large extended tunnel through to the other side of Wendover is not potentially agreeable, then a compromise mitigation would be to extend that C6 by only 1.5km to a lane nearby called Leather Lane and in so doing, protect the village’ – that is the 340 homes and the 900 people; and a further length, a small one, mind you, of the countryside. That is the REPA C6 proposal. In the total scheme of things, there is little or no extra cost in that proposal and it also will not delay the construction programme.

151. CHAIR: When you say 340 homes and 900 people, where are you referring to with that?

152. MR PORTER: That is the community of South Heath.

153. CHAIR: Okay, right.

154. MR PORTER: Just the area around South Heath.

155. CHAIR: Right, okay, because I was trying to think of the other bit, which you want to extend it – Potters Row and other areas – but I couldn't find where we had 340…?

156. MR PORTER: I’ll try and point that out on the next slide if in fact it’s the one I’m thinking of.

157. CHAIR: Okay.

158. MR PORTER: Next slide please? Yes if I point to the village of South Heath just to the right here, see the two – that is the village there, 340 homes, about 900 people in that village.

159. CHAIR: Which we’re already tunnelling past?

160. MR PORTER: To that entry point there – exit point and entry point.

161. CHAIR: Okay.

162. MR PORTER: But if you look at this chart you will see that two brown arrows represent the pinch effect, the sandwiching between the portal and the vent shaft, so you have – you’re up to nine years of construction, and then you have the ongoing operation after that. So South Heath is potentially squeezed in between there. What we’re really making a plea for is to extend that portal, just that 1.5km, just that one mile, down the track, and that, gentlemen, is debatably, not going to cost us any extra money.

163. CHAIR: That is pretty debatable.

164. MR PORTER: The arguments you’ll have heard from all sides on this, and I sat here a few weeks ago listening to the various debates on tunnelling rates, costs etc. And the estimated on cost by the promoter was £53 million against REPA’s calculated saving of £18 million. How many times have we all been there in that situation before?

165. And in my experience, my professional experience, you will find that the financial executives on the one hand believe that any new incremental work – in this case the extra 1.5 kilometres – should bear its proportion of R&D and start-up costs, i.e. the fixed costs. Whereas on the other hand you have the commercial sales executives who argue that the fixed costs are already sunk into the existing financials and that any additional new capital work can already be costed out without those elements being included.

166. In this instance, the fixed and variable costs have already been financially accounted for up unto that C6 portal. And therefore it is not unrealistic to consider the REPA figure for an extra 1.5 kilometre tunnel as reflecting the actual situation more pragmatically, i.e. cost neutral or maybe even a small saving.

167. I’ll get off this subject, gentlemen, on to the last one.

168. CHAIR: I hope we’re not going to spend too much time on this.

169. MR PORTER: This one is the property bond. And it is a very quick one because you will have heard about this already. But those are the benefits that actually have been penned and are seen by the professionals in the businesses in our area. It will basically placate the market. It will remove the compelling reason to sell prerequisite. It will remove the enormous government costs in terms of the endless meetings and the heavy process: the surveyors, the experts in the Need to Sell scheme and just the sheer time and money that must be spent on that. So a property bond was actually something also that was recommended in the HS1 considerations. It wasn’t introduced, I understand, but it was recommended by a specialist panel that was commissioned to do it.

170. So, as a basic principle that underwrites that, it’s only right, we all believe, that the promoter takes on the risks and responsibilities that they themselves create. A bond scheme is professionally recognised as being the best, most cost-effective here.

171. And finally, gentlemen, last slide. That says it there basically: it’s appreciated that basically all the costs, the technical feasibility considerations. But, in the context of a high speed rail line that will span hopefully many centuries, we hope you will agree it’s worth actually protecting it and giving it a worthy legacy to actually protect our English countryside. And we’re hoping it is a compelling enough reason – your words. Thank

you, gentlemen.

172. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Strachan.

173. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I’m conscious the Committee has considered this issue in some detail so I don’t intend any disrespect to Mr Porter if I don’t repeat all of the previous points we’ve made in response. But, just by way of summary, the Committee will have seen that in this location we have proposed the extension of the tunnel west of South Heath so it’s now a twin bored tunnel past South Heath. And the effects of that have obviously been looked at in the AP4 proposal.

174. But I can just highlight two things because they are obviously of concern to Mr Porter. First of all, if one looks at P8133, you will recall that the proposal has a construction benefit because under the AP4, which is on the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see we managed to stop any construction traffic routing into South Heath or indeed Hyde Heath Row or Potter Row. And so the construction traffic routing now is along Chesham Road for the vent shaft and then down on our haul route southwards to the A413. And so communities such as those at South Heath or on Wood Lane will benefit from that change that we’ve introduced in construction terms, both of course in terms of activity of vehicles but also in terms of consequential noise.

175. So that’s the first point to make. And the second is operational noise effects of AP4 which I think were referred to by the petition themselves. A1599(16), if I can get that back up please. This comes from the Environmental Statement that was being referred to. If I just remind you again where Wood Lane is over here. It’s this stretch of properties. And you can see that Wood Lane in the operational phase is well beyond any of the contours that were being referred to by Mr Porter. These contours reduce the effects. Sorry, the proposal here reduces the effects on Potter Row which were of concern by the introduction of a deeper cutting and a noise barrier. But Wood Lane would not have any material effects from the resulting railway in operational, as can clearly be seen from this diagram.

176. Now, I know there’s a wealth of information about noise and I know the Committee has heard a lot about it in the information papers: E20, which deals with the operational noise; E22 which deals with fixed plant. Because they’re slightly different, E20 explains the thresholds for the lowest observed adverse effect levels both in terms

of averages and indeed maximums which are set out in the appendix, which the Committee is very familiar with. Now, E22 deals with fixed pants and for the vent shafts, for example, the operation of the vent shaft fans, the E22 explains that for stationary systems, of which vent fans and vent shafts would be a stationary system, with a rating level of the fixed installations in the normal operation at the worst affected residential sector minus the background level is not more than -5 dB determined in accordance with the ES4142 of 2014. That’s the objective and that sounds quite complicated but of course in real terms it means seeking to have fixed plants which operates at below -5 dB to the ambient levels in the area. So there shouldn’t be any concern and you can see on this there isn’t any concern about the vent shafts and properties in Wood Lane.

177. CHAIR: Can I pick up the point that Mr Porter seemed to be concerned about whether or not there was a boom when trains came out of the tunnel?

178. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. As the Committee has heard, the portal, the design of the portals at these tunnels, are there to stop the boom effect which the petitioners are referring to. And I think the Committee has heard in much more detail from Mr Thornely-Taylor about that and the way in which the aerodynamic design of the portals with the ability for the air to be pushed out either as the train enters or leaves prevents that phenomenon which has been referred to as ‘sonic boom’. So the operational assessment of the railway includes the maximum levels and those are available in volume 5 because I think Mr Porter was concerned to understand what the maximum levels are. But the operational design of the railway is designed to eradicate any sonic boom through the tunnel portals. And that forms part of the assessment that was designed in accordance with the environmental minimum requirements.

179. So that really deals with the question of noise taken together with all the other elements you’ve heard which I’m not necessarily going to repeat now. So if I can just remind Mr Porter of E20 and E22 and I’ll happily provide him with some of that detail if it would assist.

180. I know the Committee is very familiar with this but just, for example, the concern about nine years of construction, that is the overall construction programme for the railway. As we’ve explained, and as the information in the Environmental Statement

shows, it is not nine years of construction activity throughout that period. The vent shaft is a very good example of that. The vent shaft is constructed and there is a peak period of activity of HGVs where one is taking excavated material from the vent shaft away from the site. And that, as we’ve shown to the Committee before, is effectively a three month period of peak level activity. And so, when we’ve looked at those slides showing traffic down the Chesham Road at, I think, 110 HGVs, that is a peak period of activity for a very limited period. And, of course, we are going to have to manage that traffic in our discussion which we’ll have to deal with; and we’re dealing with Buckinghamshire, as the Committee has heard, to ensure that that traffic can get through the traffic system without causing material or significant delays. And it is in the promoter’s interest to achieve that because we have to use the roads as well as everyone else to construct the railway in accordance with our timetable. So there’s a mutual benefit to ensuring we get the traffic right. But it isn’t, as Mr Porter appears to… and I just want to reassure him that it isn’t a period of nine years, for example, of construction and HGVs coming from the vent shaft in the way that’s been described.

181. That level of detail is in the material and if Mr Porter wants further information we’ll happily point him in the right direction.

182. So those were the key concerns, I think, about the effects on Wood Lane: construction noise and traffic and operational noise. There was quite a lot about the Need to Sell scheme and the Committee has heard our position on that.

183. CHAIR: Air quality is monitored by local authorities and you have to comply with –

184. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Indeed. As is, of course, construction noise. And I was just going to mention E23 which deals with construction noise and the levels that are identified were, again, lowest observed adverse effect levels. And the regulation of work sites under the Control of Pollution Act which the Committee has also heard about which is explained in the information paper. So in terms of construction activity there’s a wealth of other controls that are applied to the work sites.

185. But, coming back to the map, for Wood Lane the position is very much better as a result of the proposal where what was a green tunnel going past South Heath, which would involve construction activity whilst constructing the tunnel, that is now a bored

tunnel. So we don’t anticipate any material effects on properties in Wood Lane for the reasons I’ve just shown on this map.

186. CHAIR: Okay. Transport plans are agreed with the local authority. There’s work going on on junctions.

187. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Indeed, and there’s a list of junctions which are the subject of, I think, work assurances which we’re getting close to. We haven’t yet agreed but I know the Committee is getting some update correspondence from the parties on that. But discussions are continuing where we would be looking closely at, for example, the junction that Mr Porter referred to.

188. The costs of the REPA tunnel extension, those are controversial. You’ve heard quite a lot of evidence about that and how we get to our costs. And it is, in our calculations, a considerable extra expense to achieve a difference for a very limited number of properties. And Mr Porter was good enough to explain – he was talking about the community of South Heath – but you can see from this diagram itself that the community of South Heath is already protected by the twin bored tunnel emerging where it does. And that’s why, plus the lowering of the line and of course the noise barriers that are shown currently going on the top of the cutting - that’s again subject to consultation.

189. So no disrespect to Mr Porter in not going into more detail but I just wanted to give you those summary points.

190. CHAIR: Okay. Brief final comments? You got through quite a lot, Mr Porter.

191. MR PORTER: I did. Thanks for listening. It’s a very final point and that is that this issue of noise, you’ve been confronted with this endlessly for the last 12 months, absorbed with LAmaxes and LOQs and all this other data. One of the things I would actually like to suggest is HS2 do one or two very good events when they do do them. And they did one recently in South Heath on the general subject of AP4. Why could they perhaps not do one on noise? Just a road show on noise. That could really be quite of interest and a lot of people could actually go along and have that discussion.

192. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I? I don’t mean to prolong the debate. We

have done road shows on noise. I think some of the reaction to that was that people have said they didn’t believe the noise that we were producing. So you can’t win if you present it. But, as a matter of fact, we have done portable sound lab in the past in our consultation effects to show the effects.

193. CHAIR: It’s a bit like the battle of photographs where petitioners show very big structures; HS2, structures you can barely see. We hear recordings from petitioners which are very loud. We have to use our own judgement. But we have been to the labs and listened to actual sounds. So you start off by talking about the Chiltern Railway. I wouldn’t necessarily think that the railway that rattles along slowly is necessarily actually quieter than the railway with all the mitigation going at the speed that it is. So the difference is you’re used to the local A road and you’re used to the local Chiltern Railway which you use and therefore even if it’s a bit noisy you’d probably tolerate it. Okay.

194. MR PORTER: Thanks, Chair.

195. CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed. Right, I’m going to move next actually to 285, 73, 779, 607, 903 which is Parochial Church Council, Wendover Choral Society, Wendover Music, Wendover University of the Third Age, and William, Bridget and Ruth Avery. Have we lost Mr Avery? We’ll wait a few minutes for Mr Avery. Nature calls. We’ll adjourn for two minutes. Order, order.

Sitting suspended On resuming—

The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Mary the Virgin Wendover, and others

196. CHAIR: Welcome back to the HS2 Select Committee after that brief adjournment. Welcome, Mr Avery.

197. MR AVERY: Welcome, again.

198. CHAIR: You have a lot of witnesses.

199. MR AVERY: Yes.

200. CHAIR: Sometimes with MPs less is more and so I hope you can speedily go through and make your points in sufficient time. But being punchy please.

201. MR AVERY: I’ll do my best. Are you intending to finish by 12.30?

202. CHAIR: Well, you asked for rather more than an hour but I think you ought to be able to make your case in an hour provided you move your witnesses through very quickly.

203. MR AVERY: Of course.

204. CHAIR: They’re all seated and ready to go.

205. MR AVERY: Everybody’s ready to go.

206. CHAIR: I think we’re aware of where the church is and the issues, Mr Strachan.

207. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. The only thing that I was going to remind the Committee of is the proposal for AP5 for the tunnel extension plus the noise mitigations you heard about yesterday in the context of the school. These are of direct relevance, of course, to the church which is next door. We have provided, or will be providing, the Environmental Statement for the noise environment of the church and the improvements that will result from those mitigation measures which we say address the concerns that are going to be expressed in a comment about noise levels within the church: both the average noise levels and the maximum levels which bring them down to levels which either were currently experienced or enable those activities to continue.

208. So that is work which will be produced with AP5. But it’s directly relevant to what you’re about to hear.

209. CHAIR: Okay. Good. Mr Avery?

210. MR AVERY: Yes, we’re aware of AP5 and I actually touch on it in here. So, yeah, good morning and obviously thank you very much for the opportunity of making our petition to you this morning. As you know, my name is William Avery and I’m leading the group of St Mary’s petitioners, and have also added our family petitions in as well because we’re mostly concerned about the church, although there is one particular aspect I will bring in later on.

211. If I could have slide 1, please. While we wait for this slide, I can say that all my witnesses are here kindly. I also have my wife and daughter; she’s tuned in on parliamentary TV and we also have both Tony Farmer and Pauline Knowles who are the wardens of the church. We’ve chosen to represent ourselves, partly on cross-grounds but also because we want to communicate directly to you what we feel about the situation.

212. I have actually prepared books of the words if anybody wants to receive them. I know what we say will be captured.

213. I’d like to begin by thank you for the time you spent in the church in two groups hearing the experienced first-hand training within the church.

214. So now we’ve got there, so now can go on to slide 2. The group represents many and varied users of St Mary’s Church including the area known as the Centre and around the churchyard. We speak on behalf of several hundred people from all walks of life, most of whom are not regular attendees of the church.

215. We care about four aspects of the church. The building itself; and just for the record you’ll know that the church has been there since the 12th century and the present building dates from the 14th century. I was responsible for managing a programme of external work repairs about 10 years ago and you will have seen the result of about £1 million worth of internal refurbishment instigated before HS2 was on the horizon which was planned and justified to the authorities because the changes would optimise the space for the widest range of uses for the benefit of the whole community.

216. As I speak, the church is being set up for a three day conference by Stop the Traffic using the same sort of technology that you saw at your visit. Of course, the internal silence of the building is vital to most users.

217. Secondly, we all care about the environment of the building and in particular the churchyard for all sorts of reasons ranging from friends and family who are buried there or their ashes are spread on the grounds and for the tranquillity as a result of the buffer to the current noise sources and the events that take place in the churchyard for many visitors.

218. Thirdly, of course, we care about the effect of HS2 on Wendover. We all mostly live in Wendover and our homes there, their value is affected and we care about the local businesses, etc.

219. And, lastly, we care about the setting of Wendover and the beautiful countryside that we share with people from far and wide.

220. So you’ll see, from the conclusion of this presentation, that our concern is wider than just the building that is called St Mary’s.

221. If I could have the next slide, please. HS2 have said several times that they’ve referred to ‘ongoing dialogue’ with us. And this is definitely the case. Firstly, we acknowledge the constructive dialogue between us and HS2 with regard to the acoustic performance of the building and the necessary mitigation of the building itself. Our presentation assumes that HS2 agree with us that, based on the readings that they have taken, that the sound attenuation performance of the fabric is about 20 decibels. This was confirmed to us by HS2 on 7 August by email and I would add that of this is reneged on by HS2 we would wish to readdress our presentation.

222. Secondly, we’ve had good communication in connection with how to upgrade the façade of the church and we are content with the approach that HS2 are adopting in terms of suitable techniques and particularly with their regard to the Grade II listing of the building and the aesthetic sensitivities. The dioceses of Oxford also seem content following the meeting on 10 August for which the minutes remain to be issued by HS2. Where we might differ is the approach to the required upgrade and the sound attenuation of the fabric which was touched on in the email referred above. We set out our criteria later on, but this is not to imply that our preferred solution is just to attenuate the church but rather a wish to cooperate with the HS2 initiatives.

223. Regrettably, we have the opposite sort of dialogue with regard to cost and we understand we are not alone in this experience. As a result, we believe that both the Select Committee and the petitioners are prevented from making decisions or representing views in the knowledge of fully transparent cost comparisons. Again, more later.

224. Next slide, please. This is a slide that just lists how the rest of the presentation

that I’m giving is going to go. I don’t think I will read it all out; I will try and push through as quick as I can.

225. CHAIR: We can usually read the slides faster than –

226. MR AVERY: I’m sure. So the next slide, please. This will all be familiar to you but, just for the record, St Mary’s is a part of the Wendover community. As a result of your visit, you will know that it’s on the outskirts of Wendover and is a largely rural setting which is both beautiful and tranquil and, particularly, in the middle of the day and evenings.

227. This image, courtesy of Google Earth, shows the church in relation to the planned track, the position of the end of the tunnel in the proposed Bill scheme, not AP5. The distance from the church to the track is 280 metres. The end of the tunnel portal in the Hybrid scheme proposal is the short line on the image. It’s important to realise that the church extends right up to the London Road. The churchyard extends right up to the London Road and you can see this just about in the current Bill area at Wendover between the London Road and the large new school building immediately south of the church; in other words just there. So that’s where people are being buried at the moment.

228. Next slide, please. This is from the pack of information you received. This shows the ‘L’ shape of the site and where the boundary extends along London Road in a south-easterly direction in front of the school. This is the current area for the burials and is a little over 100 metres from the track. It is important to realise that outside normal rush hour periods, traffic movement is greatly reduced as are the trains on the Chiltern Line. And the point to make about the Chiltern Line in comparison to HS2 is that only those leaving Wendover for London make any significant noise as they accelerate out of the station; and that’s two trains per hour.

229. Next slide, please. The church is the largest and most flexible venue in Wendover and the surrounding area with a seated capacity of 300. There were about 250 in the building at the time you were there. Serving a population of about 30,000 within a three-mile radius, and that does not include Aylesbury. Annual footfall is 35,262. This is calculated as follows. There are 680 activities in the building per annum based on a review of the church’s diary over the last 12 months. In addition, the church is open

every day and because it is heated with low lighting and for safety reasons there is a regular flow of people from all walks of life visiting, and this has been assessed as 300 per annum. I suspect this is many more.

230. The 680 activities are made up of – in the interests of time I won’t list them all – local school visits, U3A meetings, concerts, Choral Society concerts, meetings by Alcoholics Anonymous, scouts group, diocese meetings, conferences, birthday parties, film festivals. A really wide range of activities. And of course I should also add there’s a lot of religious activities there: three services every Sunday and all sorts of additional services on holy days. That’s the reason why there are so many people passing through St Mary’s Church, Wendover.

231. Of course, the external noise intrusion is not of importance to some of these activities, but it is of vital importance to many. Many of the activities spill out in the churchyard such as weddings and funerals and flower festivals and church teas when people come regularly for a cup of tea and cake, including many people walking around the surrounding hills. Therefore the same tranquil surroundings that benefits the inside of the church is of immense importance to the many people that visit the churchyard, be it for a cup of tea or to visit loved ones buried in the churchyard.

232. The importance of St Mary’s has been recognised right from the outset by Parliament with specific reference in the Environmental Statement; and the effect of the noise from HS2 trains has been demonstrated to you both inside and outside the building.

233. I have already mentioned the £1 million pounds that was spent re-ordering the interior of the building. It is important to note that most of the money came from people or groups who are not regular worshippers at the church but value the building for what it can facilitate for the whole of Wendover. Without effective mitigation, most of the activities would cease, resulting in the community losing its most valuable asset and providing the stewards of the church with income needed to maintain it. The building is a place central to the life of Wendover and there is no alternative.

234. If I could have the next slide, please. Based upon the published predicted peak noise levels every time a train passes, the noise generated with result in a 70 dB level outside the main entrance to the building, which is the north porch. Of course, this

prediction is based upon the most optimistic assessment of the noise generated by trains at 360 kph. You will know that assumptions are made on the reductions that will be achieved in the detailed design of the trains notwithstanding that there is no precedent for this to be achieved. What will happen if the trains arrive and fail to achieve the desired performance? We think that HS2 should be required to design with regard to noise with a contingency just as Treasury policies to include an allowance for optimism for government funded projects. We understand that this was done on Crossrail where 5 dB was added to the prediction to allow for such optimism and unpredictability of sound in a real situation, i.e. not just free air.

235. The noise inside the building will reach 50 dB with the result that it will be clearly audible and intolerable because it is loud enough to stop people from hearing the quiet sounds and silences that are part of the normal use of the space for many of the activities. 50 dB is about 20 dB louder than 250 people sitting in the building in silence while listening to a musical performance, lecture or sermon, as you witnessed during your visit. 50 dB is louder than the quiet passages of a string quartet playing in a live concert with a building full of people.

236. Next slide, please. Here you can see the Endellion String Quartet on 7 May this year hopefully who happily agreed to be recorded for this purpose. About a third of the way from the front, which is there. You can see the screen on my laptop which is recording both the performance using a pair of high quality microphones and also the output of a sound level meter positioned close together. I also filmed the whole concert and this still was grabbed from that film. I can therefore prove to anyone the reality of what occurs during a Wendover concert performance. There are many other comparable situations when background silence is a prerequisite.

237. For instance – next slide, please – 50 dB is also louder than a person speaking quietly to an audience. This slide shows a typical U3A meeting with a speaker in front of a full church. Of course, the church has a sophisticated sound system, as you witnessed during your visit, but the solution is not to turn it up and drown out the noise from HS2. It is not in use for concerts and does not help individual conversation. Incidentally, when it is in use, those using the induction loop will have the dubious pleasure of the noise from HS2 being amplified by the system by virtue of the automated gain control introduced to the system during the silent parts that occur in

every event.

238. Next slide, please. I’ve already said that the noise close to the church itself is 70 dB. I demonstrated during your visit what this would sound like and was required to raise my voice to be heard. And it just gets louder as you go towards London Road – next slide, please – with the result that those attending a funeral, visiting loved ones buried or commemorated in the churchyard – and remember the churchyard is for all the citizens of Wendover – they are deafened by the noise from the trains 38 times an hour at a level of 80 dB by London Road. What would you think if you were attending a funeral and the priest had to shout?

239. I’m sure that most people have no idea how loud 50, 70 and 80 dB sounds like. You do: it was demonstrated to you in the church and I think if it will be properly demonstrated to everyone close to the railway I’m sure there will be an uproar, a protest.

240. Next slide, please. I did not have time to describe the method and logic behind the two noise demonstrations that I did for you in the church, so just briefly, and I’ll try and be as brief as I can. The first demonstration was longer and the church was full of people. In this demonstration, I was assisted by Mr Summers of Acon who provided a second calibrated meter as a further check. The second test was shorter and with less people due to short notice.

241. Firstly, after a fruitless search for a good recording of a TGV, I went to France and got a full range, high definition recording of a TGV Atlantique class train from a distance of 19 metres – close – from the nearest track passing into and out of a tunnel, which is equivalent to the situation by the church. I then created the soundtrack of trains travelling in alternating directions to simulate the real situation.

242. In the demonstration, you were positioned in the middle and close to the sound level meter connected to a screen which showed the sound level you were experiencing. When I asked people to be silent, you will have seen that the sound level dropped close to 30 dB. Then, using the surround sound system, I introduced the sound of the train recording at around 48 dB. There can be no doubt of the clarity of the noise of HS2 trains in the church. The HS2 trains will sound different to TGV Atlantiques but the actual level in the church will be as I demonstrated. I subsequently turned it up to 70 dB and demonstrated what it would sound like immediately outside the building, and then

to 80 which is the level by the current burial area by London Road. And you will have felt the shock from the 250 people in the room at the time, and I suspect it took you by surprise as well.

243. Underlying this demonstration is the result of two pieces of work. Firstly, the peak noise predictions provided by HS2 in the location outside the main door of the north porch of 67 to 70 dB. I’ve already stated that the base of this prediction is the most optimistic assessment of noise the trains will make and therefore for design purposes 5 dB should be added. This is the reason I have used 7 dB.

244. Secondly, the effective sound attenuation of the building’s fabric is 20 dB. Briefly, this was established by an exercise that went through with HS2. Based upon the initial concerns, there were some sound level tests and readings taken but, as a result of their analysis, these were redone on 26 January 2015 with myself in attendance. One sound level meter was inside in the middle of the space and the other outside by the north porch. As a result of subsequent discussions, it was agreed that the fabric achieved 20 dB sound attenuation. Again, I was assisted by Mr Summers of Acon and I refer you to the evidence he gave on 14 July in the afternoon as part of the petitions held on behalf of Wendover Parish Church and Wendover Society and Wendover HS2.

245. So to conclude this bit, the predicted 70 dB outside will result in 50 dB inside which will destroy the ambience of the building and stop and/or reduce all activities to the detriment of the whole community.

246. Now, then. When considering what to do to mitigate, it is important to realise that the building has line of sight of the train as it passes over the embankment – next slide, please – south of the green tunnel and onto the viaduct. Trees visually screen the trains only in the summer but do nothing for the noise generated. This particular picture demonstrates the point. You will be able to see the pylons, these pylons that are often referred to – one there and another one there – which are currently on the line of the tracks within a few metres.

247. And just to the left of the top of the tower there is a gap there and that is exactly where the tracks will be. So if the train was in operation from where this drone shot was taken, you will be able to see it from there. Obviously the drone is above the church so it’s not a true shot but what I’m trying to show is the relationship of the church to where

the train is there. However, the elevation of the track in relation to the building is above the roof of the building so there’s minimal impedance of the noise from the train until it hits the roof of the building.

248. Also significant is the prevailing wind from the south west which will increase the noise from the trains above that which is predicted. While the walls of the church are solid and thick, the stained glass windows are almost acoustically transparent due to their construction age. The roofs keep the water out but are not airtight and therefore perform poorly acoustically. The tower acts as a large ear trumpet and the floors above the ringing chamber have large gaps in the boards. Finally, the north porch glass door has large gaps if only to take into account the irregular floor, and is the gift of a member of the congregation in memory of her husband.

249. So what would need to be done? Next slide, please. You’ll see later on that what I’ve come up with is a hierarchy of asks with the aim of giving you, the Select Committee, a clear view of what would satisfy us. With this in mind, we thought it would be helpful for you to know specifically the group’s criteria for the acceptable sound attenuation of the building. Increase the sound level of the building fabric to a minimum of 50 dB, to be measured in the same way as the 20 dB level was established. This will ensure a margin of error in the predictions by HS2 referred above and also the range in actual and desired performance of the sound works.

250. Following the meeting on 10 August, which was attended by the Archdeacon of Oxford and diocese heritage specialists and the equivalents from HS2, in the church, the likely specification to achieve this level of attenuation will be as you can see there. Sound attenuation of the boarding. Full high glazing to the ringing chamber. That’s not expensive, but will be modest costs. Sound attenuation of the north porch and secondary glazing to all the windows. It won’t surprise you to know that the secondary glazing of the windows is the contentious bit. It has to be done on the inside, they have to be openable for cleaning purposes.

251. CHAIR: You don’t have to go into quite so much detail, Mr Avery.

252. MR AVERY: Okay. Piecemeal proposals will not be accepted, as I’ve said there. We’d like the work to commence within 12 months before it’s sent to the Hybrid Bill so that we’ve got the protection during the construction phase. Technically the work is

straightforward. It’s not without precedent, St Luke’s Church and St John Smith’s Square being a couple of buildings.

253. Okay. Moving on and turning to the next slide. Costs. At this point I think I should say a bit about my day job. I’m a chartered builder and chartered construction manager and have an MSc in Architecture. I spent the first 21 years of my career working for large contractors with responsibility for many projects. For five years I was director of Colliers, the international property consultancy, and then for four years heading up a property development company with responsibility for the current premises of the Competition and Markets Authority in Victoria House. Since 2004 I’ve been running my own business of a real estate project management service for a wide range of companies, including Siemens, including the early stages of the wind turbo factory at Hull and AWE as well as residential developments.

254. As a result, I find HS2’s behaviour with regards to cost particularly galling, unhelpful and contrary to natural justice. In my day job I would’ve done something to change this. It reminds me of how an underperforming contractor behaves while he tries to construct a claim for an extension of contract as his ‘get out of jail’ card. Individually, I hasten to add, HS2 personnel have all been very polite and helpful until the matter of costs is mentioned when the shutters come down and the management speak comes to the fore.

255. All we are asking for is believable, relative or comparable costs for the various options that have been proposed. We can’t afford to pay for a professional quantity surveyor specialising in civil engineering works. The story of David and Goliath comes to mind but, I assure you, with a better outcome for Goliath than in the Old Testament.

256. Not only is the information we have access to inconsistent, but HS2 have not provided any detail, presumably to further their objective of effectively misleading the debate on the relative cost options. We know that the detail must exist and, as stated by Tim Smart, a rail engineer, on 4 October 2013, the industry has been extensively consulted and will therefore be fully aware of the budgets and costs. It is easy for HS2 to inflate costs for extras or options that they do not want and to deflate costs and savings for options that they do. This is both disingenuous and contrary to transparency and natural justice. We regret that HS2 feel able to hide behind regulation 12(5)(e) of

the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, most recently on 10 November in response to my last set of questions attempting to understand the comparative costs of the various options. Based on a lifetime of experience in the construction industry, in both public and private sectors, such detail is not prejudicial to the outcome of a properly run, competitive procurement process. At least with regard to the civil engineering works, this is nothing that is rocket science and such works are being carried out all over the world and, of course, in the UK at the moment; so the industry knows what the work costs.

257. So I do not accept that to share the detailed cost breakdowns would not be in the public interest. On the contrary, it is in the public interest that the information is fully disclosed so that they can be scrutinised and trusted. We ask the Select Committee to instruct HS2 to change its attitude and implement an independent comparative cost analysis for the options. If it will help, those given access can sign an NDA.

258. Based on what we have been advised by HS2, the comparable costs are as follows. Next slide, please. Now, I don’t know how much of this can be seen. It can be enlarged presumably. Yes, okay. Can everybody see that now? This is a representation in Excel of what has been issued to David Lidington, who is before you on the 25th I understand, and which is the subject of my email to freedom of information advisor, Piri Norris, which produced the response referred to earlier from Jane Ivory, freedom of information manager. So at least I’m working up the system.

259. What I’m looking to create is a cost comparison for the options for Wendover that will have a direct effect on the church and the interests of the group we represent. Therefore, it is correct to make the comparison for a 4.7 kilometre stretch that will be the length of the preferred tunnel for Wendover with costs for each element of the works, including additional costs in savings in land, property and all long-term costs such as pumping stations taken into account to arrive at a level playing field, just like a standard tender cost comparison.

260. The options are the proposed scheme including the proposal issued on 7 September, which now look like they may be wrapped up in AP5; the extension to the green tunnel at both ends – that’s the second proposal – the third is a bored tunnel; and the fourth is a mined tunnel. They’re the various options. In each case the actual cost

under each heading should be entered into so that the cells, if we go to the bottom, at the bottom of the first column, highlighted in yellow, should all have numbers for the amounts relating to the respective costs for the green tunnel option. So the rail systems associated with the green tunnel and the indirect costs, etc. And then the equivalent numbers for the various other options.

261. Turning to the specific points that causes concern, and the reason for our view of HS2’s cost information, on 21 August HS2 advised by email that the 3.955 kilometre, or 4 kilometre tunnel, would cost £150 million or around £38 million per kilometre to build. This has now been reaffirmed in a letter from Higgins to Lidington dated something like 15 October which I got hold of late last night. So why is the latest cost information in the mined tunnel costing £332 million as shown in the top row of this spreadsheet; more than double at £83 million per kilometre. So if you go to the top of this spreadsheet. This figure here. So in a letter by Higgins to Lidington it says £150 million; why does it say £330 million there?

262. CHAIR: So essentially, to protect the church, you want a deep bore tunnel past Wendover?

263. MR AVERY: If we get right to the end of it, yes. But what I also want is for the decision for you to have and for us to have the right information that we can trust as the relative costs. So if then subsequently you decide for a £150 million, say, it’s not worth having a bored tunnel under Wendover we know that we’re looking at the correct costs and obviously if that’s what you decide then that’s what you decide and we’ll have to accept it. But at the moment, if you make a decision based upon this information, I will be absolutely furious because I believe this –

264. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Essentially you’re saying can we please hold in mind that it might be 150 or it might be 300.

265. MR AVERY: I think we need to –

266. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that a summary of what you’re trying to put into our minds?

267. MR AVERY: Yes.

268. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay. Well then you can jump over the next two bits.

269. CHAIR: Otherwise you’re going to get no witnesses in. With the numbers you’ve got, you have more witnesses than any other petitioner we’ve had in two years or 18 months.

270. MR AVERY: I take your point. If I was going to actually roll up everything I was going to say in the next items here, potentially the extra value would be £70 million. So the range is very wide that we want to get to the bottom of and trust.

271. If you go to the next slide. So that basically summarised the point we’re trying to get to, which is that we’re looking for comparable costs across the whole stretch.

272. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’ve proposed to write a letter to us?

273. MR AVERY: Yes, I’ve proposed to write a letter.

274. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay, fine.

275. MR AVERY: If I could write a letter to you which wraps up everything I’m saying that would be good.

276. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Good.

277. MR AVERY: Thank you very much. In which case I will jump to slide 19, please. One or two observations on HS2’s response to our petitions. This is our view that LOAELs and SOAELs ignore reality. The application of average sound level readings by HS2 is totally rejected by us. Each train passage is a short burst of extremely loud noise and I’m sure you’ve heard all this lot before –

278. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If we said ‘yes’, could you not repeat it?

279. MR AVERY: Yes.

280. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We have heard it before so you don’t need to repeat it.

281. MR AVERY: What I will say is my analogy is that it’s like a vice and a hammer.

A constant noise like a motorway is like sticking your thumb in a vice and turning it up and feeling the pain. You can put up with it. But HS2 is like hitting your thumb with a hammer every 90 seconds. And that’s the big difference. The result is that people in the churchyard will have to stop talking every 90 seconds or shout, and why should this be tolerated or expected when there is a perfectly good solution?

282. I’ve mentioned that HS2 has not complied with Paper 10, Paper 120 in table 2, appendix B, which I know has been referred to many times before. And I was going to refer to the exhibiting pack in relation to our own petition of 903 where I find the readings unbelievable. My prediction is that the HS2 will be clearly audible and the situation at our own house will be in excess of table 2 of appendix B of Paper 120. Perhaps in the interests of time I will also put that in the letter.

283. The point is there is a weakness in relaying on free air measurements, and taking into consideration the prevailing wind that’s applicable to St Mary’s and Wendover. Therefore, as already mentioned, we believe the noise assessment undertaken and its likely conditions and the best way to undertake these into account is to add 5 dB.

284. With regard to the construction responses, and given my construction background, many of the words are very familiar and point us to all the various legislation and regulations that people are supposed to adhere to. The standard is best practical mean, which as I proved in relation to the use of the materials is essentially easily worked around by contractors; so only fixed measurable targets will work, which I mentioned in our ask at the end.

285. I’d just like to say we’re not against infrastructure investment and growth in the north; indeed, we welcome it. However HS2 is of no benefit to us; just a cost and burden that we and future generations along the route, and in particular Wendover, will have to bear forever.

286. Next slide. I thought it would be useful to comment on planned AP proposals. I know we’ll get a bit at it formally later on. But we’d already gone through the exercise when a letter from Roger Hargreaves to you on 29 October came out based upon the information that was issued on 10 September. The only costing information is a lump sum difference between what’s proposed and the bored tunnel of £292 million, which is another different figure from the figures presented in slide 17.

287. I can skip the next bit because there’s another interesting cost anomaly which I’ll refer to in my letter.

288. The proposals issued by HS2 on the 7th portrayed an unnecessary and ugly structure for the extension of the green tunnel. Since the internal height of the green tunnel is 8 metres, it ought to be possible to restrict the total height of the structural part of the extension to 9 metres, not the 10 proposed by HS2. This is only 3 metres higher than the proposed sound barriers which will in themselves be an eyesore for most aspects and not easily disguised. Also, there are many ways to disguise the tunnel by adding a green roof and building the ground a metre to either side of the tunnel walls to create a long moraine which, in time, would be covered in vegetation and blend into the landscape to a greater extent than the exposed railway.

289. It is disappointing that some of the ideas put forward by Brian Thompson in his evidence on 14 July have not been taken on board which demonstrated that there was an acceptable way to develop extensions to the green tunnel that need not be an eyesore in the same obvious way illustrated by HS2, clearly aimed at scaring off the locals.

290. It is disappointing also that St Mary’s Group were not consulted and what has really happened is that HS2 appear to be telling us what they think is in our best interests. The proposals will not work unless the green tunnel is extended at least to the viaduct. The suggestions set out in Mr Hargreaves’ letter of the 100 metre extension would have minimal impact.

291. If we have a look at the next slide, this shows why it won’t work. And I’m a builder, not an architect or draftsman so please excuse the slightly simplistic presentation. This shows the line of sight from a catenary system which is not protected by the 6 metre high acoustic wall. And so the noise of the catenary system will over sail the wall and the intervening land so there is no benefit to the churchyard or the church itself. So the top line is the level of the church, which is 10 metres high, and the bottom line is obviously just drawing a line so that that means that this noise from the catenary system is going to go straight across the landscape, missing out all the barriers and will make no resultant difference to the church.

292. So it won’t surprise you to learn that we don’t accept the predictions in table 4 of the HS2 exhibit P10300(2) issued to Wendover Choral Society which implies a 6 dB

reduction in the peak levels.

293. We will be happy to work with HS2 to come up with an optimal solution if the Select Committee declines our preferred solution, namely a Wendover bored or mined tunnel.

294. That’s a bit of a rocket through what I was going to say but if I can, as you accept the offer, write all the cost stuff into a letter to you then we will be happy with that. So it’s now the turn of our witnesses to say a few words. If I could ask if we could just have slide 22 briefly.

295. CHAIR: Yes. I hope you can all be succinct.

296. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I suggest you move slightly just so you’re not off the television. We don’t want to have just your good side.

297. CHAIR: Are you just going to read a statement or use the slides?

298. MR DEARNLEY: Yeah, I’ve got a statement.

299. MR AVERY: Well, you’ve seen the list of the people. Sorry, I forgot this slide. This is the witnesses: two from each of the organisations. So if we could now go to slide 14.

300. MR DEARNLEY: Just basically a few words on my observations about the importance of wellbeing and balance to life. And, for the sake of this, I’m referring to an incident. We’ll call him ‘Joe’ – not his real name – sat on a bench in the churchyard, his shoulders dropped and his gaze fixed to a spot by his feet. His demeanour conveyed a weight almost too great to bear and his face spoke of restless nights and weary days. ‘I just need to breathe,’ he said, ‘and I can’t seem to do that without crying.’ I’d buried Joe’s wife a week ago, her death marking the end of a long struggle with cancer. Joe visited the churchyard each day. Painful as it was, I could see that this place of solace and of memory, this bittersweet patch of God’s acre, was where Joe was slowly finding the means to breathe again. Amidst this mix of symbols of our mortality and signs of life in this habitat of nature, we sat and talked. There’s no doubt that whatever our experiences in life, whatever stage we are at, we all need places where we can pause to breathe.

301. MR AVERY: Slide 23, please.

302. MR DEARNLEY: For centuries, St Mary’s Wendover and its environs has been such a place. It has silently witnessed and held residents and visitors in times of trouble, grief, change, fear, war and celebration, from birth and baptism to life’s end with mortal remains being laid to rest. This significant landmark and location remains the means by which countless people find the space and tranquillity needed to rebalance life again.

303. I know this is not just true because of the people I’ve had the privilege of meeting in the course of my ministry, but because of heartfelt comments written daily in our visitors’ book. And these following slides over the next few comments come from our current book. However, I have no doubt that if such a book existed in 1260, 1360, 1460 and so on, we’d be noting similar sentiments. You can see from these comments that people in different contexts write appreciatively of what they find here and, importantly, there’s no distinction made about who this place is for: all are welcome. The need to find balance in life is common to us all and I, for one, am delighted to note that a wide cross-section of society finds solace, solidarity and safety at St Mary’s.

304. I believe HS2 could destroy this sense of peace and tranquillity that so many find essential in rebalancing life. Clergy having to shout at burials in order to be heard above the noise of regular passing trains not only conveys a lack of respect and dignity but also emphasises the loss of the peace and tranquillity which is so vital in these times of change and these rites of passage.

305. Similarly, the healing aspect of quiet moments in church would be undermined by HS2. The relentless busyness of life, with its demands to keep moving, to face the next set of challenges, is made real by the repetitious passing of high speed trains. I believe this is detrimental to our need for balance and space. These essential qualities currently free to access within and around St Mary’s would be lost forever if HS2 proceeds without appropriate mitigation.

306. Finally, Joe still visits the church and churchyard. He attends his wife’s grave and enjoys some quiet moments of reflection. And when it’s raining he’s pleased to be able to do that in church. His life will never be the same as it was but is looking better now. He looks like he’s find the means to breathe a bit more deeply and I’m delighted that the specialness of St Mary’s has played a part in that process for him.

307. CHAIR: Thank you.

308. MR AVERY: Thank you, Mark. And now I’d like to ask Sophie Maggs to come forward. Apologies in the next slide for missing a ‘P’ off your name. And to ask you to tell us about the club that no-one wants to join.

309. MS MAGGS: Although know to us beforehand through school carol services and friends’ weddings, the significance of St Mary’s Church in Wendover changed following the sudden death of my 36 year-old husband, Daniel, in October 2012. No longer was this the place Dan visited to peacefully reflect on his old school friend, Tom, who had died six years earlier. No longer was this the place we came to proudly support our daughter in her harvest festival. St Mary’s took a whole new meaning to both myself and our two young children, aged 10 and 8. We too had joined the club no-one wanted to join.

310. Tom had died suddenly whilst travelling in Australia. Dan would often visit the churchyard, taking comfort in being able to come and talk with Tom whenever he wanted to take time out away from things. The opportunity for quiet reflection was something he regularly appreciated.

311. When someone dies, there are many awful decisions that have to be made but Dan’s connection with St Mary’s made some of them very clear. St Mary’s would be the place where his funeral would be held and St Mary’s would be the place where his ashes were interred. They were obvious choices.

312. The church office allowed us to reserve a space for his ashes so they could be near to Tom as possible for nearly a year before we were able to inter them. We visited regularly, allowing the children to feel comfortable with the location and helping them where we could in the maze of confusion they were experiencing. St Mary’s offered the serenity and tranquillity that you so desperately crave when your world has been turned upside down.

313. Standing by the plot a week before Dan’s birthday, and the first since his death, we let his ashes be laid to rest in the ground. With Mark there, there were just 10 of us there that morning. Though the gravediggers stood respectfully at a distance, there was no-one else, nothing else and no other noise. No-one heard our precious goodbyes.

Nothing took away this private moment that we shared together. Nothing else interrupted the moment that you so desperately need when grieving.

314. St Mary’s Church continues to offer both myself, the children and Dan’s family the place where we can come, feel comfortable and it allows us to feel connected to him. His sister visits often with a nephew and niece Dan never met. His nephew, at three years old, already understands that Uncle Daniel is there. And as we enter the grounds we all feel a sudden sense of calm and we find peace knowing that Dan too found solace in St Mary’s.

315. Please don’t let HS2 take this away from us and other families, some of whom may not even have joined the club yet.

316. CHAIR: Thank you.

317. MR AVERY: Thank you, Sophie. And now if I could move on to slide 31 and Wendover Choral Society, and starting with Peter Bassano. If you’d like to come forward, Peter, and say a bit about yourself and as briefly as you can. Tell us why St Mary’s is so important to you.

318. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are you alto or tenor?

319. MR BASSANO: I could give you a demonstration if you like. This room’s harmony is a B flat. I’m Peter Bassano. I’ve been the music director of Wendover Choral Society for 15 years. I’m currently music director of the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, City of Cambridge Brass Band, and I’ve been a former music director of the Oxford University Sinfonietta, the Oxford Touring Opera, and been guest conductor at the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, State Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and many other international orchestras and choirs.

320. Next slide, please.

321. CHAIR: Are we one of your smallest audiences?

322. MR BASSANO: No, not at all. I once performed at Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline at there were two men and a dog. Wendover Choral Society, which was formed over 50 years ago, has in recent years established a reputation as an organisation that

promotes concerts with professional orchestral accompaniments of a formidably high musical standard at St Mary’s Church. We have a loyal, enthusiastic and expanding membership and a similarly exercised audience and our concerts are all well attended.

323. Sir Thomas Allen has been the choir’s patron for more than a decade and showed his support for us in the most practical way he could, coming to Wendover where he sang Don Giovanni pro bono. Leopold de Rothschild, chairman of the council for the Royal College of Music, was until his death three years ago the choir’s president. In the sphere of classical music, people of this eminence do not associate themselves with anything other than first rate performance.

324. The choir’s repertoire spans more than 500 years with Byrd, Gabrieli, Britton, Tavener in the modern era with Bach, Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi representing composers in between. What all the music that these composers have written has in common is the use of silence, complete silence, to make the dramatic moments of the music at its most effective.

325. Next slide, please. There are many examples of what I’m talking about. So you know precisely what I’m talking about. At the end of the first chorus, ‘And the glory of the Lord,’ before the final rhetorical hath spoken it there are a crucial two or more seconds of silence. Without complete silence, Handel’s genius is mocked. I cannot think of any music we have ever performed where there aren’t moments like this when complete silence is essential for its full appreciation. In the performance of great music, there are no compromises to be made.

326. The choir engage young singers from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. We are keen to nurture budding artists and we have given many now well established opera singers some of their first opportunities.

327. Next slide, please. Pumeza Matshikiza, the Decca recording star who emerged from the poverty of a South African township, sang with the choir 10 years ago. Ben Johnson, winner of the audience prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2013 and, most recently, the Austrian soprano, Christine Gansch, winner of the Ferrier Prize in 2014, were singers of the Wendover Choral Society and has helped achieve professional success. Without exception, all of the soloists say how much they enjoy getting out of London and coming to work in the peace and tranquillity

of St Mary’s.

328. The recent refurbishment of St Mary’s makes it a perfect concert venue. Its position away from any intrusive traffic noise means that it possesses what you might call a rarity in modern life: a tranquil and peaceful spot with only the sounds of nature outside and total silence inside. From the performers’ point of view, the acoustic is warm and friendly but not over-reverberant. The fabric of this historic building is attractive and welcoming. This is particularly true in the realisation of renaissance, baroque and classical choral music most of it was originally written for churches like St Mary’s. The removal of the pews, replaced with cushioned chairs and benches, means that the church has a great flexibility as a performing space. St Mary’s can accommodate a baroque or classical orchestra, brass ensemble or a wind band. The high tech overhead projector means that if I need to show images, as I did in Venice at a Christmas baroque concert, it can be professionally achieved.

329. As well as performing at St Mary’s, the choir rehearse there too. This is particularly useful for the choir and for me because you’re completely familiar with the acoustic. We feel at home and we are comfortable working there. Many members of the choir live in Wendover and can walk to St Mary’s from their homes. There is no other suitable venue in Wendover with or without the facilities that I referred to for the choir to use to promote its concerts. If the request for the mitigation of noise at the end of St Mary’s petition are rejected by HS2 and this Committee, I fear that the subsequent demoralisation of the choir will precipitate its demise and ultimate failure. Thank you.

330. CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed. Right, next one.

331. MR AVERY: Thank you, Peter. And if I could have slide 35 and Neil Duckworth to come forward who will say a few words.

332. MR DUCKWORTH: Thank you, gentlemen. I shall be very brief. My name is Neil Duckworth and I’m the chairman of the Wendover Choral Society and I’m in the bass section as well. I’m just going to outline why I think that without mitigation this line will possibly lead to the end of our choral society.

333. It’s a thriving society and, as Peter said, it has been here for over 50 years and we have over 62 members. Our finances are quite fragile and if this goes ahead it will be

affected. How will that happen? Concerts and rehearsals will be impossible at St Mary’s Wendover, as I think Peter has just outlined now, which means we’ll have to relocate. We’ve investigated possible alternatives and there’s nowhere really in Wendover. Out of our 62 members, over half of them live in Wendover and walk to the church. If we did have to relocate, it would be outside Wendover. That would result in us losing our Lionel Abel-Smith Trust grant and probably over half our members which would mean essentially the end of our choral society. And that is the summary of my petition.

334. CHAIR: Thank you very much. We have Martin Thomas next?

335. MR AVERY: Yes, Martin. And slide 36.

336. MR THOMAS: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yes, I’m Martin Thomas and I’m treasurer of the Wendover University of the Third Age. We delight in holding our monthly meetings in the peaceful setting of St Mary’s. Perhaps I should first explain briefly what the U3A is.

337. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Please don’t; we all know. We are all Members of Parliament.

338. MR THOMAS: I‘m very pleased to hear it. So in Wendover we have got 400 members. We hold a general meeting there for all comers once a month. We regularly have between 170 and 200 members at that meeting so a big space is needed. The biggest in Wendover is St Mary’s. We’ve explored the possibility of others outside Wendover: the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury; the rugby club in Weston Turville, etc., but none proved feasible.

339. So that monthly meeting is only a part of what the U3A is about. It’s a vital part when we come together but U3A is a forum for members to share educational, creative and leisure activities. Any member may set up an interest group and we’ve got some 50 of them –

340. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve all got U3As in our constituencies.

341. MR THOMAS: And about 20 of our groups meet in St Mary’s.

342. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s worth saying but the rest is not necessary, please.

343. MR THOMAS: So, all in all then, some 300 to 400 members of the U3A visit St Mary’s each month. They value not only the peaceful walk beside the stream and along the Heron Path to St Mary’s but also the calm and quiet setting of the building itself. The matter of 200 of us filling St Mary’s brings to mind an aside heard to be made by a member of the visiting Committee in June. The comment was along the lines of: would that the church was this full on Sunday. Well, my point in mentioning this is to reinforce that the building has all these other uses; many, many visitors.

344. During the construction phase of HS2 as proposed, the prevailing wind being where it is, the work will make the walk to St Mary’s noisy and by turns dusty and muddy; and St Mary’s will be equally noisy and dusty. And after construction the peace and tranquillity of the area will be lost for good.

345. So Wendover U3A’s request is that if a fully bored long tunnel is not to be constructed, as appears the case, then we wish for the next best thing: a mined or bored tunnel past Wendover and St Mary’s. This would preserve the tranquillity of St Mary’s and its surroundings and enable the older generation of Wendover and around – or, so far as this petition is concerned, those who are members of the Wendover U3A – to enjoy the Wendover they know, love and value so much. So, to put it in a nutshell, those of the older generation whose petition this represents say ‘get it right and do the job properly’; make sure that HS2, as it passes Wendover, is not something which people will look at for the next 100 years and say ‘what an eyesore’. Please, make it a mined or bored tunnel past Wendover. Thank you.

346. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr Thomas.

347. MR AVERY: Next slide. Thank you, Marion.

348. MS ELWOOD: My name is Marion Elwood and I’m a member of the U3A. I can’t begin to think how many times you’ve heard words to the effect that we live in a beautiful part of Britain. We do live in such a lovely place and we are passionate about wishing it to remain so. You’ve heard about the surroundings of St Mary’s Church. So beautiful. A joy in all seasons with the trees and the views of the trees. We need

tranquil green places to enjoy around our homes. It’s good and so important for health, both in mind and body.

349. Our problems are noise – continuous noise – from the flow of trains. Interruptions will be, of course, in the church. When you hear a clock striking there’s a tendency to anticipate and count each one. As the sound of each HS2 train passes, I feel there will be a similar tendency to count the next train to hurtle past. At least with the striking of a clock the maximum count is 12.

350. Screening of the railway and along the road will deflect the noise but the structures will be unsightly and open to abuse by graffiti artists along the road especially. Who would then be responsible for cleaning? All this in an area of AONB. A mined or bored tunnel is essential to improve the situation. For such an enormous project to be forced upon us, we need to be satisfied that everything possible has been done to protect our environment and we could then continue to live in a peaceful and beautiful part of Britain.

351. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Helen Blakeman?

352. MR AVERY: And now if we could just, before Helen Blakeman, I’d just like to read out a short few words from Ian Partridge who is the patron of Wendover Music. ‘St Mary’s Wendover is unusual in several ways. Firstly, it is tucked away from the main road and rests serenely from the noise of traffic. It has been shown to be the perfect setting for inviting international musicians to perform great works in – another of its great advantages – a beautiful acoustic. From this unique hub, music lovers from a wide circle gather to hear the very best that the world of music can offer. It is wonderful to have this gem that brings such pleasure to the local community, giving it the opportunity to hear the very best without the ordeal of travel and cost of a London venue. Whenever I have spoken to artists, they have expressed delight at the quiet of this venue and the enthusiasm and noise of the audience.’

353. And then next slide, please.

354. MS BLAKEMAN: Helen Blakeman. Good morning. I was the county music advisor and Head of Music Service for Buckinghamshire for 20 years until 2012. I’ve been a resident in Wendover for 40 years and I’m a parishioner at St Mary’s and a

long-time subscriber to Wendover Music.

355. Wendover Music presents, year on year and for the past 20 years, a series of high quality professional concerts for the local and wider community. The organisation is a registered charity with a significant educational remit. This is demonstrated in different ways, in the programming of the concerts, through the way in which the artists introduce their performances and communicate with the audience, and taking account of the intention to attract younger members of the community through concert pricing structure: young people can attend just for £1.

356. Artists at the highest calibre commit to perform at St Mary’s because of the exceptional quality of the acoustic and performance environment. They respond to this unique setting and set out to establish a direct relationship with the audience members. They introduce their chosen pieces of music interestingly and enhance the understanding and enjoyment of those attending.

357. As a consequence, Wendover Music has an established, enthusiastic and informed clientele of concert goers who return season by season because of the quality of what is on offer and to broaden their horizons. Audience members talk about special music experiences at the concerts given in our setting. In your own village, to be able to sit just yards away from nationally and internationally renowned artists, including young artists who are just exploding in reputation onto the concert scene, is a huge excitement. To talk to performers, to get a signed CD, to look at the national press and see an article about a player who was last week in Wendover – these things demonstrate just how special Wendover Music is.

358. Our patrons, recognising the value and uniqueness of these concerts, support the organisations with additional funds. This enables Wendover Music to bring the best into the community and the church. It means that the organisation doesn’t need to compromise over its ideals. The range of talent and music repertory brought to the community over the past 20 years through these concerts demonstrates this.

359. Why is it so successful? The best international musicians are inundated with performance invitations. That Wendover is able to attract such fine and diverse performers is testament to the setting provided by the church and its acoustics and the emotional reward visiting artists experience in performing for our audience. There is no

comparable venue in the immediate vicinity or the wider vicinity. Many concert goers are unable to travel to more distant venues because of the cost or physical ordeal, and Rosanne Adam will say something more about that in a moment.

360. The work undertaken by the community that you’ve heard about and the church in refurbishment has brought about a significant increase in requests from other organisations, other concert goers, wishing to perform in the extraordinary setting which is our ancient church. And an expanding range of fine concerts in a variety of genres is meeting the needs locally of different audiences, often doing significant good for the charitable organisations they support.

361. This expanded profile of music making in the community has become possible because of the sympathetic performance environment and facilities within St Mary’s accomplished by the refurbishment programme. Sometimes performances are robust, raising the rafters; on other occasions they are of the most subtle and reflective. What matters for all is that comprehensive and sufficient mitigation in terms of the impact of HS2 on the church ensures that this extraordinary music making can continue. Without that, it will be lost. Thank you.

362. CHAIR: Thank you.

363. MR AVERY: Thank you, Helen.

364. CHAIR: Right, Rosanne Adam?

365. MR AVERY: Slide 39, please.

366. CHAIR: Welcome.

367. MS ADAM: Thank you.

368. MR AVERY: Carry on, Rosanne.

369. MS ADAM: Well, I’ve cut it considerably.

370. CHAIR: Well done.

371. MS ADAM: You’ll be thankful. Many aspects to this matter and you’ve heard an awful lot of them. But one is that there is no benefit to Wendover or its environs at all

from HS2 as far as we can see it.

372. Helen has told you about Wendover Music so I won’t enlarge on that, but nearly all our concerts are sold out and it would be an unnecessary loss to so many of us if this had to be abandoned because of HS2. Quite a number of those who attend, who would love to be able to access concerts in London – and I’m one – simply find the hassle of getting there and home again too much for them, particularly at night. The joy therefore of being able to attend a concert given by internationally renowned artists in the perfect acoustic of St Mary’s is hugely important to the less able in our community.

373. I’m also representing the Friends of St Mary’s, a charity which my late husband helped to found, and which is concerned with raising funds from as wide a number of people in the community as possible, churchgoers or not, to support the upkeep of the fabric of the church. And it enables an awful lot of people to feel that the church belongs to them and they don’t necessarily have to be church goers to do so. And one of our great worries is what damage the constant vibration may do to the fabric of the church.

374. The cost to HS2 of tunnelling through chalk – an easy medium compared to solid rock – to bypass Wendover altogether cannot be impossibly different from that of tunnelling a shorter distance and building what is a rather ugly bridge for that particular site, although it may seem more attractive in an attractive setting. Moreover, much of the cost could be offset perhaps by selling the chalk which has been excavated deliberately for many years at Chinnor and Cheddington. Nearly all the disturbance to people’s homes and daily lives from the construction could also perhaps be averted.

375. We’re not asking the impossible. We’re not NIMBYs. The money involved would be money well spent in the preservation of things that matter in this country. Many people come out to Wendover from London just because it is peaceful. It’s also on the Ridgeway and they can walk and enjoy our hills and countryside. HS2 would, at a stroke, spoil all that. Please give us our full length bored tunnel. Thank you.

376. CHAIR: Thank you.

377. MR AVERY: Thank you, Rosanne. Thank you very much. I trust you realise that we’re fighting for the survival of a unique jewel that has a special place in the hearts

and minds of the people of Wendover. So, without further ado, let me summarise and present our asks. So if we could have the next slide, 40.

378. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you’re going to the asks, maybe 41.

379. MR AVERY: I was going to go to 40 first.

380. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I don’t think there’s anything there that we haven’t heard. If you want to have 40, you can.

381. MR AVERY: I’m just reading it.

382. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’re reading 41.

383. MR AVERY: I’m just reading 40.

384. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are you? The screen is 41.

385. MR AVERY: It’s 41? If you wouldn’t mind going back to 40 just for a minute.

386. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve heard that from you.

387. MR AVERY: You’re a much faster reader than I am. Let’s go to 41. Thank you very much. Which I had nothing actually to add to the words written on the screen. So it’s quite clear that obviously we would like the long tunnel as our preferred option but we accept that at the moment that’s off the table. So the next best is the 4 kilometre long tunnel, the extended green tunnel, or get AP5 right, etc.

388. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And the essential point is the church matters, the activities of the church matter and you don’t want us to think that £300 million should be testimony; it should be £150 million or possibly even £70 million.

389. MR AVERY: Yes. And it’s the church inside and outside that matters.

390. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We got that.

391. MR AVERY: Thank you very much.

392. CHAIR: Thank you very much. You got through a lot of witnesses and a lot of evidence very quickly; well done. And we’ll hear the promoter’s response at 2 o’clock.

Thank you. Order, order.