Public Session
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PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Wednesday 4 February 2015 (Afternoon) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Michael Thornton Yasmin Qureshi _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr Timothy Mould, QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport WITN ESSES Mr Fred Dumbleton, Boddington Parish Council Mr Peter Deeley, Boddington Parish Council Mr J P Norman Mr Andrew Bodman, South Northants Action Group Mr Tim Smart, International Director for High Speed Rail, CH2M Hill _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Boddington Parish Council Submissions from Mr Dumbleton 3 Mr S mart, questioned by Mr Strachan 11 Submissions from Mr Deeley 26 J P Norman Submissions from Mr Dumbleton 32 Submissions from Mr Mould 33 Questions from the Committee 34 Mr Norman, questioned by the Committee 40 South Northants Action Group Submissions from Mr Bodman 41 Submissions from Mr Strachan 56 2 (at 13.58) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. We’re going to start two minutes early. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. We hear first from Boddington Parish Council. Can you put the map up to remind us where we went? Okay, great. Do you want to kick off? Boddington Paris h Council 2. MR DUMBLETON: Thank you. I’m Fred Dumbleton. I’m an engineer. And I’m a res id e nt of Lower Boddington. As you can see from the map in front of you, it’s very close to the railway. I’m representing Boddington Parish Council here. And Boddington Parish Council have consistently asked for a level of mitigation which would minimise the impact of HS2 on the quality of life and property prices in the parish. And the measures that I’m asking for are me as ures that have been agreed to by parishioners in public meetings and so on. So, this petition has been agreed by the parish. We’ve been consistent all the way through. We have asked for the line to be lowered past the village and screened and if humanly possible to be put into a green tunnel. HS2 have been consistent in refusing these requests. But they haven’t really produced a reasonable counter proposal. 3. Unfortunately, some of the changes that have been made have been the opposite of what we requested. And in particular the viaduct and embankment associated with it has been raised. HS2 have said they had do have the capability to do what were asking for but they don’t think it’s either economic or whatever. So, they decline to do it. If we could go on to slide number four, I think, now? HS2’s design policy says the ‘design of all visible elements of the built and landscaped environment are sympathetic to their context, environment and social setting’. 4. But – next slide please. But, actually although it’s not on this grand a scale they’re proposing a viaduct with a long embankment and we can’t understand why the viaduct is as high as it is because HS2’s own analysis of the flood plain, which they say is the limiting feature, means that this line could easily be lowered by five metres or so. So, that’s where we’ve got to with the viaduct. The whole railway, it’s ugly, it’s linear, and it’s more appropriate to an urban setting. The latest design we’ve seen says that the viaduct will be nine metres high and 40 metres long. So, you can see that if you lower 3 the height of the viaduct by five metres, you’re halving its height. The embankment’s up to seven metres high and about 400 metres long. The line is almost continuously above ground level as it crosses the parish. And with the current design, you would be ab le to see the pantograph and its support structure from the village. At the moment, the design shows 130 acres of farmland being lost to spoil dumping. And a maintenance loop has suddenly appeared in the parish. 5. So, if I could have the next slide? The yellow area on the slide is the land to be take n for landscaping and soil dumping. At the right hand end of the slide, that yellow area, is four fields wide. This isn’t a small feature of the landscape and we think it’s fa r too much and so do the farmers. But, if we could have the next slide? Now, just immediately north of the railway, you can see a blue line. And this is where HS2 are proposing to put screening and whatever. And towards the right hand end of the slide, you can see that the earthworks are six to eight metres high. Well, if there were eight metres high it would cover the pantograph. So there’s hardly any difference between what we’re requesting and what HS2 are offering. So, we can’t understand why they’re being so intransigent as to refuse this. And as you move to the left hand side of the Claydon Road bridge, it shows the embankment fo ur to six metres high. And so whilst we still ask them for the pantograph – 6. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I apologise, Mr Dumbleton, for stopping you, if you point to it, Mr Strachan will copy you? 7. MR DUMBLETON : Here. There you are. That’s it. So, there the embankment is four to six metres high as proposed. So, we are asking for a little more there. But, at eight metres high, it would be, the village of Lower Boddington would be completely screened from the railway. You wouldn’t see any part of the railway from the village. Now, as you go further left, to the dotted area, these are kind of rather unspecified environmental remediations. We don’t really know what they are. But, you can see that the village of Upper Boddington is looking down directly on to this stretch of the track. So, we would like the embankment to be over the height of the pantograph and its support structure across the parish. So, both Upper and Lower Boddington would be screened from the railway. And in a moment we’ll come to the issue of the maintenance 4 loop, which you can see on the extreme left, which we would also like to be invisible from the village. So, if we could have the next slide? 8. What we’re requesting here on the visual impact is for the viaduct to be lowered to a level that just caters for the 1000 year flood. So it, it would be lower than it is now. We would like the line to be lowered to below ground level across the parish. And if possible to be enclosed in a green tunnel. But if that’s not poss ib le, the lea st le ve l o f remediation we think is acceptable is for, instead of dumping soil over 130 acres of land, is to have an embankment which completely shields Upper and Lower Boddington fro m the railway. So, in other words we’d like the embankment to be above the level of the pantograph and its support structure. As I’ve already explained, on the right hand side of the picture we can barely see any change. Towards the left hand side of the picture, we accept that it’s a change, but it also handles the problem of the maintenance loop, whic h we’ll come to in a minute. 9. So, could I have the next slide? Our concern here is that maintenance loop has been moved into the parish at the Fourth Community Forum Meeting without any consultation. In previous meetings, the community forum engineer, Dan Harrison, assured us that the proposed loop at Wormleighton and all its ancillary equipment, would be in a deep cutting. And I indeed there at the cutting is deep. This meant that it would not be visible from Upper Boddington, who are looking down over this particular piece of landscape. We do think, as well, it would create unacceptable night time noise and light intrusion. So, if I could have the next slide? Now HS2 have said they can’t find any evidence of a prior design or a previous design and that they haven’t really mo ved this maintenance loop at all. But, in the bilateral meeting on 18 April 2013, it said the maintenance siding will be completely hidden within the cutting. HS2 then amended the minutes to say the sidings and all associated equipment will be contained within the cutting. And this was repeated on 21 November 2013. 10. So, if we could have the next slide? We also did a Freedom of Information request and that came back as saying options for maintenance loops were discussed at the Ladbroke and Southam Community Forum on 12 September 2012. Well, that’s in Warwickshire. So, there was obviously a proposal, at least, to think about siting the maintenance loop there. But, the point is we’ve never had any such consultation. This 5 loop has appeared out of nowhere. Next slide please? Now, the maintenance loop on its own is quite a large and intrusive feature. It’s more than a kilometre long and 130 metres wide. But, actually with two new roads and the landscaping that needs to go with it, it’s actually 350 metres wide.