Public Session

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

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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

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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

(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

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

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

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. So, if I could have the next slide? That’s a picture well a map, if you like, a photograph, a photo montage, of the maintenance loop, half of which is in our parish and half of which is in a neighbouring parish. At the right hand end of the picture, where the loop starts, it’s roughly at ground level. So, the full height of the railway is visible from Upper Boddington there. The maintenance loop then does indeed go into a deep cutting and exits in the parish of Wormleighton next door. And what we would like is for that maintenance loop to be moved about 300 metres to the left. So, that the original assurance that it would all be enclosed within the deep cutting has been met. The maintenance loop as proposed is pretty expensive because two roads have got to be realigned to cater for it.

11. The current lay out of the road doesn’t reflect the traffic flows. And so we would simply like a small realignment there to reflect the existing traffic patterns that we have and to avoid a dangerous road junction.

12. We’d just like to point out, you’re as far from the emergency services as you can be here. We just do query whether this is really a good place for a maintenance loop at all. So, what we are requesting is that the maintenance loop be moved to a position where it is wholly concealed within a deep cutting minimising visual and noise impact. I just point out that the A423 is quite close by and would have much better access for emergency vehicles. We also request that the road junction be changed to improve road safety. So, could we move on two slides? And the next slide?

13. MR BELLINGHAM: Can we just, sorry, can you just go back one? I just want to catch something on that one. Thank you.

14. MR DUMBLETON : We are concerned, as I expect every other petitioner is, about the potential for noise from the railway. And we have construction camps within the parish so we’re concerned about construction and operational noise. Next slide please? The promoter has conducted a baseline survey in the village which we consider

to be inadequate as we are a particularly rural and quiet parish. There have only been fo ur long term and three short term monitoring locations despite HS2 having paid for a lot more. We think the existing survey favours locations on the main road through the village and it is ignoring quiet residential areas.

15. So, could I have the next slide please? You can see the four purple dots on the map. The one on the extreme left is right on the main road. The centre of the three dots is also right on the main road and adjacent to the crossroads. The dot on the right is actually at a farm but there are no buildings or anything between it and the main road. So, although it’s a little further from the main road, it’s measuring noise directly from traffic on the main road. But, the dot at the top is the only one in, what I would call, a rural setting. It’s of particular interest to me because my house is up roughly the same level as that. Next slide please? And what we can see from the three locations on the main road is that they all have much higher noise levels than the yellow one at the bottom, which is the one quite close to my house. So, we think there is a bias in the measurement of noise in the village and that we’re failing to reflect the peaceful nature of the parish. So next slide please?

16. What we’re requesting is a full baseline noise survey be undertaken for Lower Boddington. And as originally promised, we don’t have a problem with the locations of the noise monitoring equipment that you’ve chosen, it’s just that you’ve chosen not to use many of them. We also request that the need for mitigation is based on levels measured in residential areas and not just along the main road through the parish. Next slide please? And what we’d like to see are full details of the proposed mitigation being proposed because as you’re saw on the early map, all we have are blue lines and dots and we don’t have any detail, nobody really knows what is being proposed. It’s very difficult for me to say that there inadequate because I don’t know what they are.

17. We still come back to the embankments. We would prefer to have an embankment between the railway and the villages of Boddington above the height of the pantograph and its structures. Next slide please?

18. During construction, which is completely different, we have two construction ca mps in the parish. Again, we think there’s been a lack of consultation here because

the life of these camps has been extended from about one and one half years in one case to two and three quarter years and in another case to five and three quarter years, without any consultation. Our concerns are exactly what you would expect. They’re about noise, dust, visual impact, working hours and traffic. And of course the doubling of the village population that all this entails. As a matter of interest, the traffic through Lower Boddington is going to go up by 35 HGVs a day. And up to 300 a day of the smaller vehicles. And again you’ve got noise, safety, congestion and damage to buildings. So, we are not happy with having two construction ca mp s in a small parish. If I could have the next slide please?

19. One thing we are specifically asking for is for Hill Road to be closed to all HS2 traffic because it’s a narrow, although it looks like the most direct route on the map, it’s actually steep, narrow and it goes past the village school, where there are no pavements, so it is a hazard.

20. We would like the construction ca mps to be shielded from Lower Boddington and we would like the construction camp working hours to be limited because the draft code of construction has so many exceptions it’s hard to work out what limits actually are. There don’ really appear to be any limits. And if I could have the next photograph?

21. MR BELLINGHAM: Sorry. Before you go on. Could I just ask you, when you say shielded from Lower Boddington, can you just elaborate bit more? When you say shielded, what do you mean by that?

22. MR DUMBLETON: Well, you could have an earth bank or something like that from the noise point of view.

23. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes, yes.

24. MR DUMBLETON : Of course, that would achieve the same thing visually as well. So, the railway is situated on a flat plane. So, at the moment if you sit outs id e at pub and look in the direction of the construction camp on C la ydo n Lane, you will just see the construction camp. It’s right on the side of the road.

25. MR BELLINGHAM: Thank you.

26. MR DUMBLETON: This is just the photograph of the road we would like closed to all HS2 traffic. The building in the foreground where you can only see the roof is the school and then there’s a cottage and the next photograph please? This is just the same photograph in the opposite direction. There is no pavement there. And the road is only wide enough for one vehicle. So, it’s not safe to have additional traffic. Can I have the next slide please?

27. We’re also very concerned about property blight which is parish wide. The current situation which has been dragging on for more than four years now has made it impossible to sell houses at anywhere near their pre-blight value, pre-railway value. It’s made it impossible to sell houses in a timely manner. It’s made it difficult to sell houses where the purchaser needs a mortgage. And estate agents are refusing to advertise properties at their pre-HS2 values. And so it’s very difficult to comply with HS2’s requirements. So there’s a real practical difficulty here. If we can have the next slide? We’ve got five properties here, four of which have sold. The top line, in other words over both of the colours, is the price at which the properties were advertised for. The purple bar is what they were sold for. And so the pink bar is the reduction in value, achieved value, of the property. The fourth property along, the tallest bar, that property hasn’t sold yet. The price has already been reduced by £150,000 and there is still no interest from the property market and the price will actually be going down again, I’m to ld, in the near future. And the estate agents attribute this to the presence, potential presence, of the HS2 railway. And there’ll be a bit more detail about that in the next petition. So, we’ll leave that there.

28. CHAIR: Can I ask, when you’re talking about valuation, is that what the estate agents suggest that people bought a house on the market for or what they think it’s worth?

29. MR DUMBLETON : Well, it’s what they say you put them on the market for. We a ll k now there’s a small margin somewhere, you know, in the property negotiation you

may have to drop the price a little. But, you certainly don’t have to drop the price by £150,000 or £120,000 or £60,000, which is what is occurring with these properties. So, these aren’t just negotiating margins. These are various s er io us reductions in the value of property. And, if I could have the next slide please? What we need putting in place, is a system of full compensation not based on arb itrary distances or people being in a distressed situation or whatever. And it really needs to be put in place quickly because the housing market has been paralysed for the last four years. The current proposals are not adequate because properties in Upper Boddington, which is a mile from the line, are suffering significant levels of blight. Can I have the next slide please? Now, something’s going wrong now because it’s going back to.

30. That’s okay then. It’s okay. I was just going to do a summary of requests. Okay. Fine. So, this is a summary of our requests. We’d like the viaduct lowered, just to cater for the 1000 year flood. We’d like, preferably, we’d like the line to be lowered below ground level. We’d like the line in a green tunnel, that would be wonderful. Can I have the next slide please? Or failing all of those, we would like, complete screening of the line from Boddington over the level of the pantograph support structures. We’d like a comprehensive background noise survey, which of course you wouldn’t need if you had the embankment. So these things are all interrelated. But, as a standalone item, we would like a comprehensive background noise survey and we’d like the data to be used to determine mitigation levels agreed with Boddington Parish Council.

31. Next slide please? We’d like the proposer to publish details of the mitigation levels, and again, these to be agreed with Boddington Parish Council. We’d like the maintenance loop to be enclosed entirely within the cutting as previously indicated. Next slide. We’d like Hill Road to be closed to HS2 traffic. We’d like the construction camps to be shielded from Lower Boddington and limits on working hours in the construction ca mps which seem open ended at the moment and we’d like a full and immediate compensation for property blight. And it needs to be put in place quickly because the housing market is seized up, really, in Boddington. And what we would say is that the mitigation and compensation levels need to be balanced. So, if there’s no compensation, you need lots of mitigation. And that’s the end of Boddington Parish Council’s petition.

32. CHAIR: Thank you very much. Any questions? Mr Strachan?

33. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Could I just ask Mr Smart just to explain the line of the route through this section, the alignment and the height of the viaduct and can we just have P4117, please? So, what I’ve just asked report on screen is the scheme prior to the proposed amendments to some of the embankments. I’ll come back to those in a moment. But, starting from the right hand side of the page, we can see him, Mr S mar t, the line is coming out of the Chipping Warden green tunnel.

34. MR SMART: Yes.

35. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And there’s the tunnel entrance. It then is on a short section of embankment before crossing on viaduct the Highfurlong Brook.

36. MR SMART: Correct.

37. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And then it’s on embankment, going down towards a cutting, just there.

38. MR SMART: Yes.

39. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And then back onto embankment before heading out across this way towards, and that’s the start of the beginning of the maintenance loops on the far left hand side. I can’t show it all on one slide. We’ll come back to the maintenance loops in a moment.

40. MR SMART: Yes, that’s correct.

41. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): But, one of the things that the Parish Council are raising is the general height of the line in this location and the height of the viaduct, the Highfurlong Brook viaduct. So, I just wondered if you could explain the reasons why the line is at its vertical alignment along this section.

42. MR SMART: Yes. Okay. There are two pinch points along this section of the route. One is gaining sufficient clearance over Highfurlong Brook itself. And further along, to the north or to the west, you may recall yesterday, petitioner Mr Wilson, we had the canal feeder, so, that is also a pinch point which we need to get over. And the other constraints we have, apart from getting an alignment through suitable for obviously the space of the trains, is coming out of the cutting, the green tunnel, the cut and cover tunnel itself, where the route was raised slightly. The reason for that is to minimise the impacts on Chipping Warden. Because, the deeper you go, the wider the s ide slopes, the more land taken, the more construction disturbance you have. And furthermore, more material that has to go out by road. But, the main driver of that was getting a gradient on the tunnel so that it properly drains and to reduce the disturbance in the Chipping Warden area of construction.

43. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Sorry.

44. MR SMART: Sorry. We also need to, as you move into the area of the siding, which is on the left hand side of the exhibit.

45. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can you point to the siding?

46. MR SMART: Yes.

47. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It’s actually off the screen.

48. MR SMART: They’re off the screen.

49. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): But, that’s where there is a beginning, as you know, the full tracks start there and they expand out.

50. MR SMART: The full tracks start there. They need to be flat. Or at least on a maximum 0.25% gradient, and of course you need to have the turnouts in that section before you get into the sidings to allow the trains to get into the sidings, that turn out is a high speed turn out, and would be a through speed of 360, with a turnout speed of 80,

and therefore that in itself is a probably about 130 metre long turnout. So, all of those things impinge on getting alignment through there and they constrain what we can do. Some of the things conflict. But, it’s a question of achieving the best, optimised engineering balance of the alignment through that section of the route.

51. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can we come back to the maintenance loops in a moment? But, can I just deal with the viaduct because the Parish Council have raised the question of whether the viaduct could be lower. We’ve got a slide P4123 that shows what’s actually proposed. And the top drawing is –

52. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think you perhaps see better, if you extend it a little bit.

53. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): No. I think that was a different one. I thought that was a local wildlife site one further up the line. This is one though you did look at I think last week because, for one of the farmers, we’re investigating taking access underneath it.

54. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes.

55. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): But, we’ve got to plans here. One is looking down on to it. The top one. Showing the flood plain. And then the other one’s looking side on, profile, of the viaduct. And there’s so me info r ma tio n at the bottom in these boxes which I hope Mr Smart explained. But is a 5.3 metre generally required by the Environment Agency for river maintenance?

56. MR SMART: That’s correct.

57. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And we’re actually below that with the current scheme.

58. MR SMART: We are.

59. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): 3.57 from ground level and 3.56 for the one in 100

water level.

60. MR SMART: Correct.

61. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Is that right?

62. MR SMART: That’s right. And therefore we require a departure from EA standards and we have got that for that level that we show on the exhibits and that’s the maximum that we can do in this area.

63. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So, the proposal, I think the suggestion by the Parish Council was to lower the viaduct. Is that your – I take it from your last answer you don’t think that’s practically possible?

64. MR SMART: I don’t think that’s practically possible. The only thing obviously we’ll come to do the height that the petitioners have talked about is the height to rail level and we’ve assumed a height of the viaduct there. And when we come to design the viaduct and obviously set it into the local context we can look at whether there’s any reduction in the depth of the viaduct. But, I mean it may result in something minor. But, pretty much in terms of where we are for clearances for flooding, EA, and our own alignment, that’s the minimum we can do.

65. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I just then translate that in terms of how the alignment then sits for Lower Boddington and protection of it? Because if we just look at, there are some, go back, I think P417, wasn’t it? We’ve got the plan. There were some sections. P4119 please? And as the committee will be familiar now with this. We’ve looked at these embankments on a number of occasions. This is the hybrid Bill scheme. There was an AP2, or Additional Provision 2 proposal to change the profile of those embankments. And as a result of that and petitions from the farmers, we’re going to look again at the profile of the embankments, in any event. But, just taking this as an example, assuming the embankments are broadly speaking of the same height on either side, the question of the grading. Can we just look at the sections in the next slide, P4120, to see what screening is achieved for Lower Boddington? Section 1A to 1B is

the ones spanning out from, 1B is the location of the village towards 1A which is towards the highest part of the embankments. And you can see that the line is sitting below in a sort of false cutting.

66. MR SMART: Yes.

67. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And the village at the moment is Lower rather than Upper Boddington?

68. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Indeed. This is Lower Boddington. And then we move around, the sections move around in an arc, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B. So, just looking at these sections, Mr Smart, do you see the need for an increased height in the embankments to shield the railway line and indeed the catenary?

69. MR SMART: No. Looking at those, projecting across it, it looks like it does actually screen the catenary. When we come to design those slopes, if we have to slightly increase, it would be a matter of, it looks like a metre. So, I’m confident that those screening and landscaped bunds would mask the railway and the catenary.

70. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, either that or the slightest bit of growth.

71. MR SMART: Yes, indeed. There is screening planting.

72. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Obviously, Mr Dumbleton would prefer, as I think you heard previously, that there is of course provisions under the bill for the approval of the details of, for example, p la nting, under schedule 16 in relation to embankments and so the sorts of level of detail, I think Mr S mar t yo u’re talking, about other sorts of levels of detail that would be looked at in the detailed design?

73. MR SMART: Correct.

74. MR BELLINGHAM: Do we have a photo montage by any chance?

75. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): We do have one. I’ll pull out. But I know the Parish Council may not agree with it.

76. MR BELLINGHAM: It’s well enough.

77. MR DUMBLETON : Can I just say something about these three sections?

78. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): 4118.

79. MR DUMBLETON: If you look at the three sections and the red line across, which is the line of sight. The embankments aren’t quite high enough to cover the pantograph and support structures. It’s only the vegetation that’s going to be put on top which covers them. And all we’re asking for is for an extra one or two metres of soil there so that the vegetation and the screening and the things that break up the horizon are on top of that. So, we would like complete screening of the railway by the embankment and then you can have some planting on top. So, we’re not really asking for very much. When you consider the volume of soil that’s being moved. And we think it’s pretty under reasonable, actually, not to agree to it.

80. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, what we’ve heard is that the promoters plan/expect the landscaping to obscure even the pantographs. If it turns out they don’t, a tiny piece of growth will certainly do it. And it might be possible for them to think whether, because you’re talking about very small distance, a very long look, if I may say so, that even if they had to, I guess, pile up just by the embankment a little bit for a time until the growth came. They ought to be able to give an assurance that you won’t be able to see the pantograph from the site. That seems to be what you’re really asking fo r?

81. MR DUMBLETON : That’s an assurance, is it?

82. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, that’s what I think you’re asking for. And I don’t think much has been given.

83. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, yes, sorry Mr Mould, what I understood you to say is that the precise heights of the embankments and the vegetation that goes on top is a matter that you look at in the detailed design?

84. MR SMART: That’s correct.

85. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): In terms of an assurance as to whether you’d be able to see the pantograph, I don’t know whether you’re able to give that assurance, Mr Sma rt? I just wanted to understand what you’re looking at in terms of the pantographs. You’ll be looking down towards the embankments with the vegetation of some sort, to be agreed on, on top of them on to the top of the cateneries.

86. MR SMART: Yes.

87. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): If you could see them.

88. MR SMART: I doubt, bear in mind they’ll be at least 60 metres apart roughly. From that distance you’ll only be looking at the part of the mast that sits above the catenaries. So, that’s quite a small. So, even if the embankment didn’t actually screen them in terms of coming up to the height of them. I doubt you could see them any way. But, as I say in the detail of the design we could look at that.

89. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): What I’m conscious of, if I just put it this way, is that one of the things we’ve agreed to look at with the landowners, the farmers, as you’ll recall, is the grading of the embankments. And obviously the higher the embankments, the potential for more grading, which is clearly contrary to what they want. So, we want to get the right height to achieve the screening, but without causing problems for the landowners. So, I hope to provide the comfort and to Mr Dumbleton that we are, as I indicated, looking at the grading. But, certainly the intention is that it’s not going to be a materially visible element of the railway from Lower Boddington. Mr S mar t, can I just ask you then had to deal with the maintenance loops?

90. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry. Before that. Mr Bellingham had a question

about 4118.

91. MR BELLINGHAM: I have a question.

92. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, sorry.

93. MR BELLINGHAM: Talk me through the photo montage because I’m having trouble orientating this. And I’m having trouble to really work out where the raised earth works are going to be, upon which we’ve been discussing the foliage and the planting. So, could you talk me through this?

94. MR SMART: Yes. Can you see the key plan at the bottom? I’m pointing to it now, so the cursor goes. That’s the view that you’re looking at from just outside of Lower Boddington, across the –

95. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Right where the ground is, just below Upper Boddington, can you see the?

96. MR SMART: that’s the view.

97. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Up a bit.

98. MR SMART: And now I am in now doing spot the difference to try and find the bunding that’s in here.

99. MR BELLINGHAM: in some respects, even I just explain, it would be disappointing if you could see the railway because the effect of the bundings is to screen it. So, I know the Parish Council may not agree with this, but in effect it’s showing the screened railway in the way we intend it to be screened, but, that means it’s then quite difficult to point out where it is on the screen.

100. MR SMART: And that is the point of the shallow slopes, so that you don’t see a dramatic rise in the landscape, it is to make it look natural. And I think as you’ve heard

previously, that’s part of what we’re aiming to achieve. So, it is in that area, where you’ve got a slight difference in raise, I think you can see by the trees and the background there’s a slight difference. But it is hard to spot.

101. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Thank you. Can I just ask you then, Mr Smart, to deal with the maintenance loops, because there’s concern about those. Just for information, there is a discussion about the maintenance loops in the Environmental Statement a nd it identifies that they were raised or identified. They were certainly in the draft environmental statement, the maintenance loop location at Wormleighton. And as part of the consultation in the draft environmental statement. And the position of them hasn’t changed since then, as far as I’m aware?

102. MR SMART: That’s right. That’s right. Yes.

103. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And if we could just, I think we probably need to go a different map so you can speak to it. But, I’ve got CT06079B. I hope that’ll give us… So, if you can imagine we’ve moved on to the next page. So, Lower Boddington’s to the right and we’re coming into the maintenance loop are at this point.

104. MR SMART: Starting to move into the four tracks fro m about this point and we are in a cutting.

105. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. So, you just follow Mr S mar t’s.

106. MR SMART: And then, this is the main, if I just put between there and there is the main part of the loop that will be used, and if you take Mr Dumbleton’s point, is tha t the maintenance loop are wholly in the cutting and that’s 16 metres, that cutting. So, we’ve already discussed about the height of this route. So, you can imagine the depth there. That’s completely hidden. And as I’ve mentioned, the entire length of the four track is in cutting, although clearly the turn outs that go into the sidings are some 130 metres long off the main line as we come through here at line speed.

107. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And I think one of the issues raised by Mr Dumbleton was he thought I was not a particular good location because of access to the A roads for emergency vehicles and things of that kind. Can you just explain?

108. MR SMART: Yes, I can.

109. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Whether that’s the function of?

110. MR SMART: No. In the events that we have a failed to train, that the trains fail anywhere on the line, and if they are movable, you move them to somewhere that you can properly deal with passengers, not these loops. Yes, they could be used. In the extreme. But, it will not be in the operational rule book of the railway and indeed in over 10 years of operation on High Speed 1, these loops have never been used for putting passengers in. So, there are there fo r what we have said which is maintenance. And of course this is only for those trains that need to be strategically placed. 111. 112. It’s entirely possible that you could go a whole year or more and these loops would not be used. It depends on how the maintenance of the railway unfolds and what work we have to do on the track. But, these would be very infrequently used. And even when they are, it is really a question of parking machinery on that length. Or indeed, you could put a failed train in there if you needed to push one in. But, it wouldn’t have passengers on it. It would be you stay there until it could be taken out at night. And, so fo r that, you need the flat gradient and you also need it to be in a strategic location to maximise the maintenance opportunity during night time, so that you’re not travelling from the depot and therefore using core maintenance hours just to get to the place of work that you can actually get better production by being nearer to the place of work and of course not too far to the south, we’ve got certainly Chipping Warden tunnel which needs to be maintained. And then towards London, more tunnels.

113. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I just ask you Mr Smart, that Mr Dumbleton suggested moving the maintenance loops 300 metres, I think he said to the left, but that would be –

114. MR DUMBLETON : To the north west.

115. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): To the north west.

116. MR DUMBLETON : Yes.

117. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): To the northwest. So, first of all, is that necessary in terms of what’s achieved?

118. MR SMART: No. Because we are in, as I said, a 16 metre cutting, which is pretty deep. And also to do that, you’d have to look at the whole alignment. I think the committee have heard about the gradients we can achieve vertically and horizontally. So, that would mean a major. You can’t just kink the railway. It would mean a major realignment across this area and have impacts which would be quite substantial. But, the point is that it’s not necessary to do that. We’ve done what we said we would do which is to put the maintenance siding in a cutting and it’s very deep and you can’t see it.

119. MR DUMBLETON : Thank you.

120. CHAIR: About noise, you basically said this isn’t going to be used very often.

121. MR SMART: Yes.

122. CHAIR: Presumably, this is a very deep cutting. Noise would be minimal?

123. MR SMART: Indeed. And in fact it would not be a noise intensive operation. As I say, it’s a stage, the way it would most likely be used, sir, is to move plant down during the night before it’s required. Park it, effectively. So, that the next night, and that’s what the roads are for, the crew can arrive, go on to the maintenance train, and then move out of the siding and be into the possession which we wouldn’t take much quicker than having to come all the way down. So, it is about using that. But, also, o f course, it’s not just for maintenance. Ultimately, this railway will need some renewals

and therefore you need to put trains that will do any renewal of the S&C, which is to the south of these turnouts. They’re quite long. As I said, they’re 130 metres and can be longer, up to 200 for a faster turnout. And they might need to be held there while you take them into possession. That’s the sort of. So, it’s not people down there necessarily. It staging trains.

124. CHAIR: The railway’s not going to have lights?

125. MR SMART: No.

126. CHAIR: In this section where you have the cutting will there be lighting?

127. MR SMART: It will be a matter of detailed design and safety. If there were lights in there, you would only need them along the roadway or the footway where drivers would walk to get on the trains. This means they would be low level. They would be turned off during the times that the maintenance loops were not used and only be turned on when the drivers were needing access. It’s entirely possible you wouldn’t need lighting at all. But, that would probably be subject to a bit more detailed study on the safety. But, if they were required it would be low level lighting only for the footway for basically slips, trips and falls of any personnel that moved down that roadway.

128. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Thank you. Now, you Mr S mart, can I just get you to deal very briefly with this, and I’ll just outline it, this road junction, because one of the Parish Council’s request so was to look at the priority arrangement. And I’m pleased to say that that is something I hope the Parish Council will be satisfied with because that is something already under discussion with the County Council. Can I just show you P4132? I think the committee may have seen this already.

129. MR SMART: Yes.

130. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): One of the proposed changes in the new AP2, is to change the priorities in that road junction, whic h is I think what the Parish Council were

requesting. That’s in conjunction with of course having a further bridge across Stoneton Lane.

131. MR SMART: Correct.

132. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I see Mr Dumbleton’s nodding. So, I think that’s something that reflects what the Parish Council were looking at.

133. MR SMART: Correct. In the bit you can see, the red and the blown up sections, is what we’re working on. It isn’t finalised yet. It just shows what we ultimately would achieve. And that gives the east west priority to the Boundary Road, which I think is what the petitioners want to see.

134. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: I just want to make sure we’re all together on. Is that right? Is that right?

135. MR DUMBLETON: Yes. If the road junction were adjusted like this, we would be happy. Thank you.

136. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can we just deal then with construction compounds and traffic. There’s a concern about I think what Mr Dumbleton referred to as a camp. Construction camps. Can we just show those? If I can get that on the screen? P4128, please? And Lower Boddington’s towards the left, just being shown by the cursor. And if we follow the line down you’ll see that there is the C laydon Road over bridge satellite compound. And that is obviously doing a number of things as identified in the environmental statement.

137. MR SMART: It kind of does what it says on the tin. It’s the over bridge compound. It’s a satellite compound for that area. So, it’s not a main compound.

138. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think if the concern is about it being an accommodation compound?

139. MR SMART: No. There’s no accommodation there. It would have, it’s a satellite compound, so, it’s there for the place of work. So you can keep materials near where you need to use them, probably 30 to 60 workers in that compound, which I think is there for two and a half years.

140. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And then the Banbury Road green over bridge, off to the left.

141. MR SMART: Yes.

142. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It’s a satellite compound, same point?

143. MR SMART: That’s there for longer because it’s got a slightly longer section o f work associated with it. It is five years. But the most intensive activity, if you look at the programme, which is in the ES, is probably around two to two and a half years. But there is a compound required there associated with the railways systems work. So, that explains why it’s there for longer. But, these compounds will a ll be, I think the committee have heard a number of times about the safeguarding and code of construction practice, about hoarding and how the lighting is taken care of, etc. So, those provisions would govern those compounds.

144. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): And Mr S ma rt, the concern I think from Lower Boddington or the Parish Council is to prevent the use of Hill Road in Lower Boddington. I can just show the road that was of concern. If you just follow the cursor up.

145. MR DUMBLETON : Up to the left and around.

146. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Is there any proposal to use that for construction traffic?

147. MR SMART: No.

148. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): In the ES or otherwise?

149. MR SMART: No.

150. MR DUMBLETON : But what about personnel traffic?

151. MR SMART: Well, again in the code of construction practice we will try to minimise the use of personnel coming into the compounds by their own car and we’ll use that by use of buses etc. but it can’t be ruled out that some personnel that are coming in, might drive their car down there. They are coming to work, as we all have to do, so, it’s possible to happen. But, clearly with the provisions in the CoCP, we would be, as far as possible, trying to minimise the use of roads by using buses and the like, as I’ve said, for workers.

152. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I just want you to confirm, Mr Smart, that we’ve talked about screening of compounds. The details as to how the compounds are laid out, fencing and that sort of things, are those are all part of the details that are agreed as part of the code of construction practice in relation to satellite compound of this type?

153. MR SMART: Correct.

154. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Thank you. Those are all the questions I have for Mr S ma rt. I’m just going to deal briefly with the noise. Just put a slide up to show you where the noise modelling loca tio ns were. I hope this explain what. Perhaps, Mr Smart, you wait there because there may be some questions in a moment. But could I just show the committee P4136? And Mr Thornely-Taylor’s here to answer any questions but it may not be necessary. You’ll see in the standard form that there are a number of base line measurement locations for Lower Boddington. They’re shown in blue. And there are a number around the village. There’s some various residential locations including ones closer to the line. I’m pointing to CS0077. But, there are a number which have been taken, intended to be representative of different locations around the village. Some are on the roads. Some are not. And the results are then presented in the normal way. And certainly so far as we’re concerned we consider

we’ve got a representative noise picture. Clearly, it doesn’t sample every location. But it is a sufficiently representative picture affecting the main residential properties in and around Lower Boddington. But, if you’ve got any further questions, I can always Mr Thornely-Taylo r to answer them.

155. CHAIR: Presumably you don’t have measurements in Upper Boddington because it won’t be near the railway?

156. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I don’t believe there are. Because I think it’s outside of the relevant distance

157. CHAIR: Yes.

158. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So, I’ll leave Mr Smart in case Mr Thornely-Taylor.

159. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Deeley, do you want to ask Mr Smart any questions at all?

160. MR DEELEY: What, in regards to this?

161. CHAIR: In regards to anything to do with the engineering.

162. MR DEELEY: I just went backwards. Can I say on this particular picture here, effectively, I’ve actually enlarged it and I can see absolutely no difference between the top and the bottom one at all. So, as you quite rightly say, there is a difficulty for us to see any idea as to what the actual mitigation would effectively be in reality because this doesn’t show it. In fact there’s a two Storey house there which is about the size of where the embankment would be. There’s nothing that compares that along the bottom one there at all. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that the MP for – Jeremy Wright, MP, wrote to HS2 Ltd. way back in 2012 and again in 2013, who was the MP fo r Wormleighton, and the surrounding area, complaining about the actual introduction of the cutting or the maintenance loop being in Warwickshire. And originally on the plans we saw and because I think it’s important that you realise that the difference

between Wormleighton and Boddington, or the parishes of Wormleighton and Boddington Parish is the dividing line between the north and the south of phase one. So, we happen to be right smack in the middle of two phases. And unfortunately engineers from the Warwickshire side of it would not talk to those people effectively in the second phase, whic h is Boddington, which was a silly situation. And that still happened up until recently. Okay. As I said before.

163. CHAIR: I was asking if you are going to ask questions of Mr S ma rt, who’s a witness.

164. MR DEELEY: The question I want to ask Mr Smart was, originally, as I say, when Jeremy Wright was writing to them to say he did not want it in his neck of the wards, in his particular part of it, and Andrea Leadsom, our MP, effectively also said we did n’t want it in our particular part. It was a question of neither of us wanting it. I just wanted to emphasise the fact that there was a stage where effectively it was going to be within the section that we’re talking about, whic h is effectively Wormleighton, and it was moved back. So Stellar House, which is where, you can’t see it on there, but Stellar House, which is the end of it going in towards Boddington Parish, effectively was not there, it was further back up to Hill Farm originally on the original plans. So, what I’m trying to say is that HS2 Limited have already planned it to be moved to where we’re suggesting that, it’s 300 metres back into Wormleighton, originally. And this is where we had –

165. CHAIR: Shall we ask Mr Smart? Can you tell a little bit about the history of the cutting please?

166. MR SMART: Yes. I can’t comment specifically on this, because I wasn’t part of those discussions. But what I understand of that is that we were looking at putting it in a cutting and we were looking at her and of course as you would have heard, committee, we’ve always got adjustments to the alignment to achieve various different discussions, so, having found a cutting, we then need to put the railway on top of that, and by that I mean the track and then fit in the turn out. That would mean that we need to, and we have alignment adjustments which we are doing at the same time to

accommodate lesser construction disruptions in C hipping Warden. When you put all that together, you end up with slight adjustments so that the rail engineering can match the civil engineering. And that would explain why we would have a slight adjustment because we need that flat section, both for the siding itself, well flat, except for 0.25%, plus the turn outs. So, that would be why there would be, we would be looking at how we can mask it, but then how we can wrap the railway engineering around the civil engineering.

167. CHAIR: Normally, it’s because the engineering solutions make sense. So, if an MP writes and wants it moved and the engineering solution makes sense, it goes. But, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. So, I mean, that’s what it basically comes down to, in terms of cost and all the other things. Any further questions Mr Deeley?

168. MR DEELEY: Nothing particularly on what’s been talked about apart from the compensation side of it. The actual blight effectively on the village. If I can just briefly go into that one partly, as I said before, because it’s not something that HS2 Ltd per se can actually answer. It’s something, effectively, that you as a committee have to discuss at some stage to come up with. But, basically, I’m a parish councillor, which is why I’m sitting here at the present moment in time, and the Parish of Boddington has around about 743 individuals living there, and about 327 houses in total. What we understand is obviously the petition process is really to make something that is unpalatable to us – we didn’t want HS2 in the first place – to make it as palatable as humanely possible. And every time we ask for something from HS2 Ltd we get told that it can’t be done, either because it’s too costly, engineering reason or whatever it is. No one actually comes back to us and says, ‘We’ll try our very best to make this a lot better than it is’ just to make it more acceptable from a community point of view.

169. And the second thing is Boddington goes back to the Iron Age, effectively, and this is probably the biggest upheaval that this village of Boddington has ever had since the Iron Age and it is something that we’re very, very concerned about because it’s the human cost. We can talk about what we can do effectively in mitigation and all the rest of it. It’s the human cost at the end of day. And what we’ve got in Boddington is a situation of a stagnation in property movement. This has meant that the local school, primary school, where you saw the photograph effectively where the road gets quite

narrow, changes from back in 2013, less than two years ago, where the population of the school was 72. Because there has been no movement in properties and people coming into it with children etc. it has gone down to 58. And having talked to the headmistress it is likely to go down below 50 at the end of this coming year in 2015. This is primarily due, purely and simply, to the fact, as I said before, we can’t actually physically move houses. O n average the house losses as was shown on one of the slides is roughly about 20%. So we end up in a situation whereby people want to move, and certainly under the new legislation law, the new schemes you’ve got here, the need to sell, which hasn’t got a distance objective, in other words you can be 300m away or 1300m away, but the need to sell has a great deal of limitation because the only things it will cover at the present moment in time is if you’re made unemployed, if you’re looking for employment because you’re moving, and effectively if you’re ill.

170. CHAIR: No, no, no. Basically, we have the petitioner, then we have the Promoter, then we ask questions of witnesses, then we got back to brief and final comments. I’ve given you a little bit of license because I know you need to get some of it off your chest. If you read the guidance of the scheme it then goes on to say ‘any other reason’. In other words, it is wider drawn than the reasons that you’re saying. Now, the situation as far as we’re concerned is this. We have a new scheme in, we’re going to monitor how it works and we will ask for changes if it isn’t working as we think it ought to be working. We haven’t ruled out property bonds. If the Government scheme doesn’t work properly then the Committee have other things it can do within the Bill to push the Government on compensation. But the scheme has only come in in a few weeks and what we’re basically – we’ll have report backs and we’ll see whether or not it does what it says on the tin, which is allow people to move.

171. And a lot of depends not so much on the guidance but on how sensible the independent panel are in dealing with people that apply to it. And if they want the scheme to work well and it works well then it will start to sort out some of the problems that you set out. If it doesn’t then we may have to ask Government to amend it. But we are certainly – We’ve heard quite a lot about blight. I mean we hear it fairly regularly, and we’ve also had a number of sessions on compensation, and we will have more. So we are aware, really, of the issues. And Burton Green up the road there are school issues there and there are issues of community and people moving. Certainly, the initial

compensation scheme was so restrictive that, actually, it was almost not worth having. The current scheme I think is better. We’re going to have to monitor how it goes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

172. MR DEELEY: That’s fine. We were concerned because originally HS2, effectively, almost three-quarters of those applied for, effectively, were rejected. We feel that this may very well happen again because it is too restrictive.

173. CHAIR: Well, we will have a report back, certainly before the election, certainly after the election.

174. MR DEELEY: There’s just a small thing I’ll mention before I finish, that certainly in our surrounding area of Boddington, and Banbury tends to be, effectively, the main area where most houses are actually sold through. I actually contacted every single estate agent within Banbury and every single one of them refused point black, effectively, to put a property on the market at the pre-2010 pre HS2 price. They will only put it on the current blighted price, effectively, if I can put it in those terms. And therefore it is very difficult to meet the criteria of the need to sell.

175. CHAIR: We were told, because we asked the question, in terms of need to sell where you have a situation where a state agent refuses to put it on at the appropriate price or asks for money up front, which has happened on a number of occasions, providing the individual gets letters from the estate agent stating that is their reason that the scheme will take that into account. In other words, if in practice somebody can’t market their property then that says something about the state of the market. But they have to get information from the local estate agents. So, essentially, that will be taken into account with the scheme. You know, you don’t have to write out a cheque for £1000 for an estate agent who is worried about it. So, again, that’s one of those little nitty-gritty issues which we’re getting to grips with.

176. MR DEELEY: That’s all I really wanted to say.

177. CHAIR: Thank you. There’s nothing you want to add to that, Mr Strachan?

178. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I was going to give you the reference to precisely what you’ve said in the guidance.

179. CHAIR: It might be useful if you did so, Mr Strachan.

180. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): 3.1.21 specifically identifies evidence a number of local estate agents have refused to market the property due to HS2 is considered key information. So it is indeed information that would be taken into account.

181. CHAIR: So some of the problems are being ironed out, probably a little slowly but they are being ironed out. Do you want to give a few brief, final comments, Mr Dumbleton, before we move onto the next petition?

182. MR DUMBLETON: No, I think it is fine. We would’ve liked a commitment on those embankments. It still seems very grey. I mean I know the detail of the design has got to be sorted out, but we would’ve still liked a commitment that the embankments would’ve been above the height of the catenary and its support structure, because you will still arcing along the cables and things at night. It will be visible. There are no leaves on the trees in winter and things like that. And we seem to be arguing about a metre of soil.

183. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What I’ve heard is that you shouldn’t be able to see the pantograph, you might if you had some WWII marine binoculars possibly see the tops of the pylons for the first year or two if nothing is in the way, but it is quite possible things would be in the way.

J P Norman

184. CHAIR: Anyway, right. We move onto the next petition which is J P Norman, which is you again, Mr Dumbleton?

185. MR DUMBLETON: Yes, me again.

186. CHAIR: Okay. Well, you don’t have to move.

187. MR DUMBLETON: This is a very simple petition. It’s about a property sale, property blight as all those who sit here know. And it’s about 1 The Green, Lower Boddington, which is fairly close to the railway. We need the slides to come up. If we could have the next slide, Mr and Mrs Norman put their property on the market in 2009 and so it happened to be just before the railway was announced. And you’ve got the usual estate agents blurb there. It’s a charming semi-detached cottage and then it goes on to describe the four bedrooms and so on. And the final statement is there are far reaching views over open countryside. At that time the advertised price was £247,500. As soon as the railway was announced the interest in the property fell to zero, so there were no viewings after the high-speed railway was announced. So if we could have the next slide, the property was then put on the market for a year and asking price was £219,000. In the year there were only nine viewings. And what the estate agent said was, ‘We feel the main deterrent to interest was the proposal of HS2.’ And this was confirmed with the majority of feedback from these viewers being too concerned of the introduction of a railway to the rear garden of the cottage. So if we could have the next – That was a whole year being marketed. The final placement was for an asking price of £205,000. And if we could have the next slide, the estate agent said the price would have been £225,000 without the railway. So he was recognising that the railway was having an impact on the sale of houses. And if we can have the next slide.

188. The final achieved price was actually £180,000, which is £67,500 below the pre-HS2 asking price. Mr and Mrs Norman marketed their property for more than four years with three estate agents and ensuring that traditional and modern methods of advertising the property were used. But actually there was a very low level of interest in the property throughout this period which the estate ages attributed to HS2. So if we could have the next slide, so Mr and Mrs Norman are asking for compensation exactly as per their petition, which would’ve been for the house to be purchased outright by HS2. But as the house has been sold they would like the difference between the pre- HS2 price and the achieved price. So it’s a very straightforward request from Mr and Mrs Norman.

189. CHAIR: Okay.

190. MR BELLINGHAM: I’ve got some constituents who are in a very similar position having sold up and moved away to Norfolk. So I’m interest to hear what HS2 say about this.

191. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, let me respond if I may with what I suggest are the salient facts. After the period of marketing that has just been referred to, which is evidenced by the letters, in April 2014 the petitioner agreed subject to contract to sell their property. So the property was under offer in April 2014. As it happens, that was the mo nth in which the Secretary of State announced that he was going to bring in a package of property compensation measures, which at that stage he intended should come into force by the end of the year. In May 2014, the petitioners lodged their petition in which they asked for the property to be purchased by HS2 at its full unblighted value – it was, of course, at that time under offer –or if they sold it that HS2 should effectively make up the difference. The property remained under offer until August 2014 when the petitioners exchanged contracts. We have no record of the petitioners having informed us between May 2014 when they put in their petition and August 2014 when they exchanged contracts that the property was under offer so that HS2 could consider whether it should intervene and should suggest, for example, that they should make an application for the Government, effectively, to purchase their property. What the petitioners did, as was their choice –

192. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Under a scheme that did exist.

193. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Under a scheme that did exist, the exceptional hardship scheme. In effect the petitioners made a choice. They made a decision that they would proceed with their sale, and that was of course entirely a matter for them. But others did, who were in a similar position, did apply under the then current scheme. Some as you know were successful, more were not successful. But they took advantage of the scheme that was provided for by the Government in order to alleviate the impacts of generalised blight and their applications were determined in accordance with the arrangements for that scheme. Now, having sold their property in August, having exchanged contracts and subsequently completed the sale as I understand it, effectively the petitioners had chosen not to take advantage of the schemes that had been in operation and they have chosen to sell the property. P ut another way, they have not

provided the public purse with the opportunity to decide whether or not it will step in in accordance with those schemes to give them relief. And I would suggest that a relevant consideration as to whether the Committee should give these petitioners a remedy in those circumstances is whether in effect they should be put in a better position than those who have applied under the government schemes and have been rejected, because effectively that is what they are asking the Committee to do. I would simply pose that question to the Committee. It is a question for the Committee to answer. But, certainly, if people choose in the knowledge of with schemes available – whatever view you take about the generosity or otherwise of those schemes – if people choose not to make application then that is their choice but I would suggest a powerful consideration in those circumstances is whether they should effectively – the response should be ‘You took your choice and you should not in those circumstances look to retrospectively reverse the position’.

194. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: First of all, great sympathy, Mr Norman. To depersonalise it, were a petitioner’s circumstances and their property to have been within the exceptional hardship scheme it ought to be possible to estimate whether an application had been made under exceptional hardship showing they had to move and the drop in value was significantly above the 15%, if that’s the rough figure we were looking at in the past, whether that would have been acceptable or granted. If it would have not have been acceptable or granted then to give them the compensation or the difference would clearly put them in a better position than someone who did apply and didn’t get it. So the issue – A way of looking at it – it’s not the only of looking at it – would say had in the circumstances we know about a petitioner come to the Promoters and said ‘These are our circumstances. This is the distance. This is the drop in value. These are our personal reasons to go’ would that have been accepted? It’s a way of looking. It doesn’t determine the issue, but it’s a way of looking at it–

195. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It’s a way of looking at it. It carries its own risks of course because if that course were taken then there may be others who would say ‘I would like the same’. I simply draw attention to the fact that that is a risk that might be difficult to manage. After all, there is a second house which will be considering petitions against this bill and I’m sure this Committee will have an eye on what may eventuate if dec is io ns are made in this House which encourage, as it were, other

applicatio ns.

196. MR MEARNS: On that note, I’m sorry, but it is on that point in terms of the answer that you’ve just given, Mr Mould. You’re concerned about precedent, but precedent would only occur if anybody else already petitioned. Quite clearly we’ve got a situation here where this is someone who has petitioned and the needs of time have taken their course. Whereas anyone else in a similar situation in the area who hasn’t petitioned is quite clearly from my perspective a different case.

197. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I agree, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a manifestly irresistible response to someone who did seek to petition the second house on that point. So it would leave – I take your point but it would not be beyond argument.

198. MS QURESHI: Can I just ask a number of questions? Firstly, do you accept the petitioner’s version of the facts? That a) their property was blighted to the extent that it has been blighted?

199. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I accept that the evidence shows their property was blighted. It’s important when one looks at transactions of this kind to bear in mind that an asking price is not necessarily equivalent to the actual value.

200. MS QURESHI: I agree.

201. MR MOULD (DfT): But I accept for the purposes of your question that the property was blighted.

202. MS QURESHI: And in your opinion or according to HS2’s experts who evaluate these how much blight would they say that realistically it was blighted by?

203. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I haven’t got –

204. CHAIR: The point is HS2 haven’t evaluated it because there was no application.

205. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Quite.

206. MS QURESHI: No, but I’m thinking now that they know this case is before them if they were to evaluate, which I thought they might have done the exercise to see a way forward, maybe to look at perhaps, if it hasn’t been done, to work out in HS2 Promoter’s view how much it has been blighted by. They might say, actually, instead of £64,000 loss we estimate it may be nearer to £40,000 or something of that figure.

207. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Would it help if I say let us proceed on the basis that the property was marketed in December 2012 at a price of £205,000. It was sold as I understand it at a price of £180,000 and that that broadly speaking represents the degree to which the property was blighted.

208. MS QURESHI: Right. So you can agree those –

209. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I simply say for the sake of the question to be fair. I’m not to be taken as saying I accept that that is the level of blight. But you want to ask me a question on the premise, I think.

210. MS QURESHI: Yes. Say, for example, that it had been evaluated. The reason is I’m trying to see the different between what you would say, the Promoters would say, is a loss in value and what the petitioner would say. And so if we can just sort of – as you say maybe this is an artificial exercise – so we may come to £40,000 being the difference. Now, we accept that this property is being blighted because the Government wishes to put through the HS2 tracks, yes?

211. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

212. MS QURESHI: So it’s not the petitioner’s fault that his or her property is being blighted by this, is it?

213. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No.

214. MS QURESHI: It’s the Government who wants to spend billions of pounds on this particular project.

215. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The Government is promoting a railway and the effect of that railway is to give rise to generalised blight. Yes, that’s true.

216. MS QURESHI: I accept that. What I’m trying to say is, bearing in mind the petitioner has been put into this place because of what the Government wants to do, then does it not follow that although there may be various schemes and things in place sometimes petitioners may not necessarily be aware of the full implications of all these schemes, but looking at it fairly there is somebody who has been forced to do what they had to do. They should be actually in reality compensated by the Promoters. If you talk about fairness.

217. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I don’t accept that, with respect, because it begs the question as to whether and to what degree it is appropriate for a remedy to be made available. And that is something which as you know has been the subject of careful and extensive consideration by the Government of the day in public consultation in which a range of possible measures have been put forward ever since, frankly, the year in which the last Government announced that it was going to proceed with the policy with a high- speed railway line in March 2010. The exceptional hardship scheme came into effect in the later months of that year. You can argue about whether those compensation regimes are as generous as they should be. You can argue about whether they have been as effective as they should be, but I would reject the suggestion there is a simply correlation between the incidence of generalised blight and a general willingness on the part of the Government spending public money to underwrite the functioning of the property market.

218. MS QURESHI: We accept that. I don’t think anybody is saying that people should be underwriting. We’re all responsible to tax payers but at the same time if a project has been put into place and people are being adversely affected from their homes then perhaps sometimes sticking to the strict minutiae of the schemes and things and taking into account individual circumstances. The rules can, I’m sure, be flexible. I’m sure applied maybe they could have a–

219. MR MO ULD QC (DfT): I’ve put our position to you, Ms Q ureshi. I’m not sure I

can improve on it.

220. CHAIR: Okay, all right.

221. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: One other line of thinking, the first is that if the property was put on the market before HS2 came along at £247,500 let’s assume that indicates roughly a value of about £220,000. So we’re talking about the sum between £180,000 and something above, maybe £200,000, maybe £210,000, maybe £220,000. That’s the sort of – secondly, I think the Promoters were aware that the person who became the petitioner was trying to sell their home.

222. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The fact of the petition and its contents made us aware of that, yes.

223. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And that was after the sale of the home?

224. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, that was before the sale.

225. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Before the sale of the home.

226. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The property went under offer in April 2014; contracts were exchanged in August 2014. That’s my understanding of the facts.

227. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So the petitioner at best might have been aware that there was a scheme which if applied for might be successful/might not. But the petitioner actually had a reason to go and the petitioner had an offer.

228. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, and made a choice.

229. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The question in my mind is whether the petitioner made the choice with the full knowledge of the alternatives that might be – the choices that might be open to them. And secondly I would ask – I’m not suggesting this should happen – but were, for example, a petitioner to put in a judicial review against the Government scheme saying, ‘I should have been told/better protected from making a

decision which was irrational’ that that would make you think something. I’m not arguing that HS2 should pay them all or some of the difference. I’m not actually arguing whether we should say all or some of the difference. I’m just trying to make sure I’ve got the issues in.

230. CHAIR: The house sold in August 2014?

231. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It did.

232. CHAIR: And the compensation schemes which were due to come in and be announced had been announced?

233. MR MOULD QC (DfT): They had.

234. CHAIR: So, again to depersonalise, some people make just a straight choice that they have to move for some reason so they’ll probably take a loss. Others have hung on for the compensation scheme

235. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

236. CHAIR: I think we’re going to have to kick this one about a bit in private. Would you like to give any final comments? Do you want to say anything, Mr –?

237. MR NORMAN: Part of our reason behind accepting the offer of £180,000 was brought about by advice from the various HS2 representatives we met at road shows informing us that we would have little chance of getting any of the schemes available to us. Whether we would have or whether we wouldn’t I agree I don’t know the answer to that, but we took our decision based on advice given to us by HS2 representatives.

238. CHAIR: May I ask a question, Mr Norman? Nobody said why you had to sell.

239. MR NORMAN : Sorry, I’m very hard of hearing.

240. CHAIR: Sorry. Why did you have to sell?

241. MR NORMAN: We didn’t have to sell, that’s the whole point. HS2 is saying you have to sell or need to sell.

242. CHAIR: No, no. You sold your property for a reason. Why did you sell?

243. MR NORMAN: Because we wanted to. We wanted to get away from the stress it was causing us, the proposed HS2. The major factor for us is the fact that the property fronts onto the road that is going to be used for 300 vehicles going up and down every day. At our time in life we didn’t want that. We wanted to move away from it all. We didn’t want to be, like I am at the moment, very stressed out.

244. CHAIR: Okay.

245. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I interrupt? Is your new home a similar size?

246. MR NORMAN: It’s a similar size. It’s a different style and it’s on an estate.

247. MS QURESHI: Can I just ask, so basically you wouldn’t have moved had it not been for this HS2?

248. MR NORMAN: In all honesty, we probably would have at this time in life because we had always intended to sort of trade down. We wanted to sell our cottage and buy a lower priced property to put a bit more money into our retirement savings, which we’ve now had to spend because we sold at the lower price. We had to buy. In actual fact the situation should have been reversed. We should have been able to put a few pounds away.

249. MR THORNTON: So, Mr Mould, my thinking that the advice that he was given at the time might have been correct under the old need to sell scheme but –

250. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Exceptional hardship scheme.

251. MR THORNTON: Exceptional hardship scheme rather. That the advice he was

given that he wouldn’t get anything would have been correct, but under the new scheme that we’ve got he might well have been covered. So because the schemes have changed the advice would have been different if the schemes had been changed earlier.

252. CHAIR: I think that unless somebody makes an application to any of the schemes and you get a definitive answer based on the criteria you can’t second-guess what somebody may have said in a meeting. Anyway, I think we’re going to have to think about this one. Would you like to give any final comments on behalf of the petitioner, Mr Dumbleton?

253. MR DUMBLETON: No.

South Northants Action Group

254. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr Norman and Mr Dumbleton. We now move on to South Northants Action Group. The highlight of the day. Welcome, Mr Bodman. We know where South Northants is. Would you like to kick off?

255. MR BO DMAN: Yes, thank you. I would like to do an introduction in two ways instead. I’ll tell you a little bit about myself and a little bit about South Northants Action Group. I’m Andrew Bodman. I’m Secretary of the South Northants Action Group and I initially trained as an engineer. Either on behalf of South Northants Action Group or in my own name I’ve submitted written evidence to the Transport Select Committee, Public Accounts Committee, National Audit Office, House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, on the subject of HS2. You’ll see that much of the information in this presentation has been referenced and the original information has been in most cases provided in the paper files which have been provided to you.

256. Can we go onto our slide number 2, please? South Northants Action Group was formed in 2010. It represents at least seven parishes and one town, including their respective councils as well as many individuals. And I think you’ve already heard from five of the relevant parish councils in our area. SNAG meetings have been attended by the Vice-Chair of South Northants Council and the Mayor of Brackley. We’ve supported the HS2 liaison groups run by the Northamptonshire County Council and

South Northants Council. We’ve engaged with HS2 Ltd through the community forums, local access forum, consultation responses and bilateral meetings. You’ll probably recall the sunny morning you had in late October.

257. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: If you’re going to read out everything you’ve got here don’t. Anything you’ve got here we’ll read it. It’s probably faster and then you can just go on.

258. MR BODMAN: Okay, fine. Thank you. The next slide, please? Just two things to point out there. There’s two green tunnels in Greatworth and Chipping Warden and you’ve already heard about the maintenance loop earlier on. Next slide, please. You haven’t heard from Northamptonshire County Council because they chose not to come. But you have heard from the South Northants Council. And I’ m to – let’s move to the next slide, please. Northampton and Milton Keynes are the most popular stations for Northamptonshire commuters, and I think you may be surprised to see that collectively those two stations account for more journeys to London than either Birmingham and Coventry or Manchester and Liverpool. Next slide, please. One point I want to add to that while you’re reading it is that, surprisingly in some ways, Virgin Trains do not stop at Milton Keynes at peak times. They do not visit Northampton Station even though the suggestion has been put to the department of transport the trains should stop there because that would increase the capacity of Milton Keynes to London. Next slide, please. This is to show you how busy Euston is as a station. You’ve got the number of passengers arriving both in peak hour and the peak three hours in the morning. You can see 28 trains arriving during the peak one hour.

259. Moving onto the next slide, please, slide 8. In the late 1980s, I was a fairly frequent commuter from Northampton to Euston and my experience was we would often wait for about five minutes, sometimes more, outside Euston station. And so, just as, for instance, Heathrow has to stack planes because of busyness, Euston has to stack trains prior to their ‘la nd ing’.

260. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That wasn’t a five minute delay to arrive on time, was it?

261. MR BODMAN: No. The next slide, please. The stations as listed in the lower part of that slide are in descending order of business, and so you can see from a relative perspective how Euston into how Euston fits into the others in terms of both its platforms and its throat lines. And, incidentally, I feel I should mention trains arriving at Waterloo during the morning three-hour peak have 28,000 standing passengers each weekday morning, which is almost six times the number of standing passengers on trains into Euston in a similar period.

262. Next slide, please. You’ve probably seen before now numerous diagrams of Euston Station. This is one from a different source. It shows the number of platforms for 1 to 18, on the right. On the far left you can see if you count there are only six lines in the throat on the way in. We’ll go onto the next slide, please. It’s important to stress the information on this slide is to do with classic rail trains and platforms at Euston. I’m not talking about HS2. I’m just talking about the classic train situation. And the can see the reduction of platforms from 18 to 13 that’s planned and the number of tracks in the throat from six to four. And that’s going to be going on for 12 years or so.

263. The next slide, please. So the number of throat lines is a constriction and also the number of platforms, and I want to pick out one of the points made in volume 2 of the environmental statement in paragraph 219. It advises that 11 dedicated platforms will be needed – and I stress the word needed – for HS2 trains at Euston as there are planned to be up to 18 trains per hour any less than 11 HS2 platforms could cause regular delays the Environmental Statement says. I know you’re acquainted with the Environmental Statement. Nonetheless, during the construction period there is a need for at least 28 trains per hour to be handled by just 13 classic platforms. Nowhere does it explicitly state this will be possible. There seems to be a slight sort of imbalance there that 11 platforms are required for 18 trains per hour on HS2 and 13 platforms are being provided for 28 trains per hour regarding classic trains.

264. So we go to the next slide, please. That’s just showing you the revised picture with the numbers changed for how HS2 proposes them on the last line regarding Euston there, as you can see. Moving onto the next slide, please. Thank you. Full details of the freedom of information request as published in a press release are in our evidence pack on pages 804/7 onwards. I’m not asking you to go there. It’s just if members of

the Committee wish to see more detail of what’s in that press release there’s a lot of information for you to look at when it’s convenient for you. And over the next couple of pages – we just on one, please – you can see there, some of the concerns that were raised and published in the freedom of information request. These have come from the train operating companies or Network Rail. And concerns about punctuality falling I think you should be concerned about that. Recovery from disruption, in other words there’ll be little opportunity for doing that. And there’ll be little opportunity for expansion to accommodate further passenger growth towards 2026. And it’s until that sort of time when HS2 will still be reconstructing Euston Station.

265. Moving onto the next slide, please. Those are just a few more extracts, which I think should still be concerning to people in this room, regarding the potential adverse effects on classic rail users at Euston during the construction period. And one more, which I didn’t include, was that Network Rails’ modelling suggest that less than 60% of long distance services will arrive on time. That is I would’ve thought concerning for Virgin Trains or whoever has that franchise at the time.

266. Moving onto one more slide, please. There have been a number of plans for Euston Station which have been rejected. As far we’re aware none have sought to address the number of lines in the throat. And we move onto the next slide, please. I would just like to go through this slide if you’ll allow be to do so. The existing service patterns, particularly at peak times, need to be maintained as a minimum during the construction period. Commuters or suburban passengers account for about 70% of the total Euston passengers at peak times. It should be remembered that one of the claimed benefits for HS2 will be to allow additional services to be run to Milton Keynes and Northampton. In our opinion this will not be possible using 13 platforms and four approach tracks.

267. We’ll go onto the next slide, please. So this is the request. I’m separating out. We’re covering about six topics or so in this petition. And I wish you to pick out just what we’re requesting of this Committee, if you like, if we may. We would ask that you press HS2 Ltd to produce a realistic and workable plan to enable existing peak level services to be maintained as a minimum over the ten more years under which Euston will be reconstructed, and to accommodate forecast commuter passenger growth during

that period. The plan should be acceptable to those train operation companies currently using Euston and also Network Rail. This is likely to necessitate some existing services being diverted to other London stations.

268. Can we have the next slide, please? We’re now looking at a fresh topic but it’s a related topic and we’re concerned that once passengers arrive at Euston at peak times there’s going to be insufficient underground capacity to handle them. That station is served – Euston Station, I’m not talking about Euston Square. I’m talking about Euston Station underground – served by the Victoria and Northern lines and between them they are either the second most or sixth most used London underground lines. And London underground passengers have increased by 33% in the last ten years.

269. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: When does Crossrail open?

270. MR BODMAN: 2019, I understand. So there will be a period where Eusto n is under construction and Crossrail is not yet open. Moving onto the next slide, please. I wish to quote from the petition response document we received. It says the Promoter disagrees with how the figures are quoted in the petition: ‘This takes different numbers from different places in the Environmental Statement.’ Our view is that the Environmental Statement was deposited on November 2013 as one full set of documents. If one of its elements cannot be compared with another then the complete document set has insufficient integrity and can’t be fully trusted in our opinion. We acknowledge, however, that we could have used more suitable figures from the Environmental Statement and have amended our data sources accordingly.

271. Can we have the next slide, please? So you can see there from the actual numbers in 2012 to the expected numbers in 2041 that there is going to be probably a quadrupling of numbers who want to use Euston Station during the morning three-hour peak. And we believe that to expect a quadrupling of passenger numbers wanting to go on the underground at Euston Station and make no provision for them when the existing underground trains are already crowded at peak times appears to be something of an omission.

272. May we have the next slide, please? This shows you here what a significant

proportion HS2 passengers will be of the total. If we look at the column on the right, that’s with HS2, the number of alighting passengers. There are over 24,000 passengers expected to arrive from HS2 trains and of a total 56,000. That’s approximately 43% arriving at Euston Station who’ll be coming from HS2 trains. We don’t want to have a long debate about the numbers at Euston because we’ll be chasing around the Environmental Statement all afternoon and I don’t want to do that.

273. But we can go onto the next slide, please. I want to start with the second bullet here. Michele Dix, who is Managing Director of Planning, currently, at Transport for London, appeared before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in early December and she said Crossrail 2 needs to be opened before the Phase 2 of the HS2 goes live. And we couldn’t agree with that more. We think she’s absolutely right. However, Crossrail 2 will only be built if Transport for London decides to proceed with it and if Transport for London can raise the £20 – 27.5 billion budget, which is up to twice as much of that at Crossrail 1. So HS2 Phase 2 is not workable without Crossrail. HS2 Ltd have so far apparently declined to fund this scheme so fa r.

274. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, is HS2 being asked to fund Crossrail 2?

275. MR BODMAN: I believe there have been requests by Transport for London for HS2 to provide funding to Crossrail 2. That’s my understanding.

276. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So provide funding or full contribution or some contribution or –?

277. MR BODMAN: Some funding.

278. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Contribute then might be a better word.

279. MR BODMAN : I accept your suggestion then. So, can we go onto the next slide, please? Our requests here are we would like this Committee to take steps to ensure that Crossrail 2 is built before HS2 P hase 2 becomes operational so that HS2 can be successfully operated on a long term basis. This will be necessary for commuters, including those from Northamptonshire. For this to happen with certainty it may well

be necessary for Crossrail 2 to be part funded by HS2 Ltd.

280. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’re not cutting you off, but are we asked to consider HS2 Phase 2?

281. CHAIR: No. Or Crossrail. I think we’re a little bit more limited than that, but we can take advice, but carry on, Mr Bodman, it’s an interesting presentation.

282. MR BODMAN: We need to look further ahead because what you’re building for in the long term isn’t just Phase 2 it’s part of what will become P hase 1 and Phase 2 all together. So you need to, I would suggest, look to the future as well.

283. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We may be more limited than you, but carry on.

284. CHAIR: If we had been given P hase 2 and Crossrail Phase 2 we would have all shot ourselves. So, anyway, carry on.

285. MR BODMAN: Thank you. Property compensation is the next slide, please. I’m not going to take a long time on this. You’ve heard a lot about compensation in the past. But one of the points here I want to make is about the distance from the line where the blight affects. So thinking back to your trip last October you were shown from a distance a house near the church in Upper Boddington and this is almost one mile from the proposed route. It’s unsaleable due to HS2 and if it did not exist this problem would not be occurring and people who want to move would be able to do so. That’s just one example. O n the next slide, please. That’s just one example from thousands where owners are now trapped in their homes, and we would draw your attention back to the 20 November presentation by HS2 Action Alliance about compensation and we fully support the points that were made on that day.

286. So we have the next slide, please. Our request under the heading of compensation is - We would ask that you take on board the point that HS2 Action Alliance and other petitioners have made to you on the subject of providing a fair property compensation scheme to those whose properties are no longer saleable at pre-HS2 values. We believe the property bond scheme championed by HS2 Action Alliance to be a fair scheme.

This should not be restricted by arbitrary boundaries 70m from the line. However, claimants must be able to demonstrate that HS2 is the cause of their inability to sell their property at pre-HS2 value.

287. Go to the next slide, please. Noise. I’m not going to talk about international standards, you’ll be pleased to hear. You’ll probably recall from your visit last October that much of South Northamptonshire is a tranquil, peaceful area away from noise sources such as motorways, major roads or airports. That may explain why in the community forum in area 15, which covers much of Northamptonshire, there are a greater number of prompts recorded with a red square showing a day or night sound increase of 13 decibels or more than in any other community rural forum area along the proposed route. That won’t make sense to start with. We’ll go to the next slide and I’ll explain that so I hope it does make sense.

288. This is taken from volume five of the Environmental Statement. It’s table 3 and it’s one of several pages in our community forum area like this. There are many pages like this as there are in many other community forum areas. If you look about two thirds of the way across the table here there is a column headed Change and it is subdivided into day and night. The change refers to the average noise level, not the maximum but the average noise level. And I have arbitrarily chosen a dividing line of 13 decibels, and so if you see the first two red boxes in that column that noise receptor is acceptable to my analysis, and the next block of red boxes about two thirds of the way down the page that there is also above 13 so I include that. The next one I don’t include because it’s – Sorry, I still want to stay on that last slide. The next one I don’t include because it’s only ten. And the following one you’ve got readings of 17 there so I do include that. So from that table I’ve picked out three lines, or if you like three noise receptors, for the analysis I’ve just talked about.

289. But before we leave that slide I now want to talk about maximum noise levels as well as average noise levels. We look more to the left. There is a column headed ‘Proposed Scheme Only Year 15 Traffic’. It’s divided into columns: day, night and max, or maximum if you like. And there I’ve taken another arbitrary limit and this time it is 75 decibels with regard to maximum noise, and so the line for Culworth Road, Chipping Warden has values of 77 and 80. I’ve included that. You come well down the

page and on the next one the red box is on it, you’ve got 75 and 78. You come down two more from that to Lower-Thorpe Mandeville, 76 and 80. And again I’ve picked out three lines on this or three noise receptors which are included in my subsequent analysis, which we’ll come to 2 pages from now.

290. So now can we move onto the next slide, please? I’m going to repeat a comment that was made to the HS1 Select Committee twenty years ago when they were looking at the situation in Kent because I think it is fairly relevant and it is going to illustrate two points for me. And what Professor Robert Hall said at the time was, ‘Chairman, if one night I was to creep into your bedroom twice and fire a shotgun into the ceiling the average noise or LAeq would not be materially worse. Might I suggest that your sleep would be materially worse?’

291. There are two things I want to draw from this. First of all, a loud intermittent noise has a small effect on the average noise level numbers but it can still be very disturbing. The second point I want to draw from this is to make a comparison between HS1 in Kent and HS2 further north as planned. In Kent, Eurostar trains - there are up to three of them per hour in each direction rather than 18 and the maximum speed of them is 300kph not 360. There are also javelin trains of which there up to eight per hour and their maximum speed is 225kph. HS1 runs largely alongside existing transport corridors such as the M2 and the M20. HS2 will not run alongside transport corridors for most of its length. Therefore, HS2 trains will cause far greater noise disturbance to residents close to this high-speed line due to its greater noise, higher frequency and changing the noise compared to existing noise in quiet areas.

292. The next point I want to make is that many feel it’s more important to consider the maximum noise rather than the average noise levels. The average being used in the context of HS2’s noise contour maps. Can we have the next slide, please? Reviewing the maximum noise levels at the listed receptor points on the table you saw a few moments ago where either the day or night noise is 75 decibels or more CFA15 comes out fourth worst of the rural community forum areas. So CFA15, which covers mos t o f Northamptonshire, suffers significantly more than most other rural CFAs when assessed on either the change in noise or the absolute value of noise expected to be created. And I should point out at this point that the aerodynamic noise expected to be created by a

train is in relation to the seventh power of its speed, 350kph. It’s going to dominate all other noise generated by the train.

293. Next slide, please? As Sir Peter has said, you readily read these things, but some may even argue that HS2 has already affected our desirability due to the fact we’ve dropped down to seventh in the list from third in the list. So on the next slide, please. We would request that HS2 trains are slowed to 280 kph during the day. That’s until nine o’clock in the evening. And to 200kph after nine o’clock in the evening. If you want that in more conventional money that’s 175mph and 124mph. We have estimated at this lower daytime speed the additional time taken between London and Birmingham would be five minutes extra. We’ve been told that HS2 is about capacity rather than speed, so why not lower the maximum speed? Furthermore, it’s not clear to us why trains need to be ultra high-speed, particularly at night.

294. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: Sorry, say that again. London-Edinburgh, did you say? Five minutes from London to Edinburgh?

295. MR BODMAN: No. London to Birmingham. Coming onto the next slide, please. The petition response document received contains the following statement. It says : ‘However, operating at the suggested lower speed could prevent the railway form increasing its capacity without running more frequent services.’ To us this implies that running trains at lower speeds reduces the capacity of the line. In fact, the converse is true.

296. If we go onto the next slide, please. Remembering the Highway Code stopping distance chart increases with speed on a long linear basis. And a copy of that chart is in your supporting evidence. Another way to consider this is the way that variable speed limits are used on the M25. When traffic is extremely heavy the speed limits are temporarily lowered and this allows the safe passage of more cars. You don’t speed it up when it’s busy. You slow it down.

297. So can we move onto the next slide, please? I want to just, first of all, correct one thing and that is although the information paper A1 gives the impression the line is been lowered since then it has also been raised, and it has been raised since 10/2012 by 5

metres in Radstone and we believe by up to 10 metres either end of the Chipping Warden tunnel. Obviously, those raisings of the line since previously planned will have the unwelcome effect of increasing noise in those localities. I think you already heard from a number of Northamptonshire residents that would like to see the line lowered somewhat from its current position.

298. Can we go onto the next slide, please? The companies building the HS2 line are allowed to raise its height by up to three metres from that shown on the plans. Let’s illustrate that with the next slide, please. Here you see a Pendolino on the west coast mainline. The height of a Pendolino train, excluding the pantograph, is about 3.5 metres. Therefore, the cutting in the foreground – I know it’s not a consistent height – would be approximately 3 metres. I should point out, which may surprise some people looking at this slide, and that is they might expect the West Coast Main Line to be four tracks. It is. However, all you can see here are the two fast tracks. And there is geographical separation and two slow tracks actually pass through Northampton. That’s why you’ve only got two tracks showing at this point in time.

299. Can we have the next slide, please? Unfortunately, I’ve not got a photo here of a level track. We’re on a very mild embankment here but for the purposes I wish to explain shortly perhaps you can just treat this as being a photograph on level ground with a track.

300. MR BELLINGHAM: Do we know where this one is out of interest?

301. MR BODMAN: It’s near Bugbrooke in Northamptonshire and it’s still the West Coast Main Line. We’ll just go back to the previous one, please. So what we’re pointing out here is someone who lives next to the proposed HS2 line they might currently expect it to be in a three metre cutting, which is as in the first part of this photo here. Now we go forwards again to slide 40, please. We might finish up with it being level. It’s simply the effect of the contractors’ allowed variance. They can raise the line by 3 metres and the local inhabitants have no redress over that variance, unfortunately.

302. So there’s slide 41, please. So we request this Committee proposes the following: where the companies building the HS2 line see fit to raise it by more than one metre and

up to three metres they must seek approval of the Secretary of State and the Local Authority. Suitable justification must be provided along with the appropriate mitigation.

303. The next slide, please. Thank you. You have heard already some concerns from people in Northamptonshire about the impact of construction traffic, and I’m sure you’ll hear some more concerns as well. Some of the narrowest roads that HS2 limited have chosen to use by heavy goods vehicles in Northamptonshire are in or close to Aston-le- Walls, which you visited last October. Next slide, please. This is what is called the main street in Aston-le-Walls and some school run cars are already departed. The school coach you can just see has got its right wheels on the pavement and according to the plans provided by HS2 Ltd it is planned that on average there will be ten HGVs per day going through this road. That’s 50 a week, 2,500 a year, and in total HS2 Ltd say there will two years’ worth of this traffic. So that’s 5,000 return movements in total, and if you look at the plans regarding Chipping Warden Tunnel, which is what these HGVs will be accessing, work on Chipping Warden Tunnel goes on for six years. So to suggest that only – it will be two years of HGV movements doesn’t quite tie in with the six years’ work on Chipping Warden Tunnel, and it’s also worth pointing out that whilst ten a day would be the average, there could be up to 20 HGV movements as a maximum. Go on to the next slide please.

304. And here it’s a similar scene in the same village, and you might notice the bus driver is looking rather anxious to see whether he can pass the BMW or not. Can we have the next slide please? And now I think you can’t guess what I’m going to say. I’ve got quite a few things to say in relation to this particular map. HS2, as you can see, the proposed route of it is the red line from the top left or north west down to the bottom right and south east, and the dashed line is the section of the Chipping Warden Tunnel. Within SNAG we fully support the proposals made by Jo Wilson of Aston-le- Walls Parish Council, from whom you heard last week regarding HGV routes and satellite compound, autotransformer and portable buildings in this area. The routing and re-siting go hand in hand together.

305. Between numbers 48 and 49 in the top left of your map you’ll see where I’ve written, ‘SC’ in dark blue. This is shorthand for the HS2 infrastructure just mentioned and marks the preferred position for all those elements, as preferred by Aston-le-Walls

Parish Council. Whereas the position proposed by HS2 is on the opposite side of the line. There is one landowner involved in both sites, as far as I’m aware, who’s a Mr Frusher, and he’d also prefer the infrastructure to be in the same position as Aston-le-Walls Parish Council. My understanding is that discussions are ongoing between the landowner and HS2 Limited, and the latter appear to have given consideration to this proposal.

306. This proposed re-siting would allow HGVs to approach the satellite compound from the new bypass, which was agreed last week, around the south west side of the disused airfield as shown by the dark blue arrows. That then removes the need for HGVs to travel through Main Street or Blacksmith’s Lane in Aston-le-Walls, from which they should be banned. Now could I ask for you to point out Culworth Road with your arrow? If you look at Chipping Warden, there’s a yellow road running due eastwards. It’s further to your east. Yes, that is Culworth Road, and Culworth Road was also discussed further on Monday, and I just want to reinforce some of the things that were said on Monday.

307. HS2 is proposing to permanently close Culworth Road. HS2 is also proposing to have a satellite compound, tunnel portal building and autotransformer on the south west side of HS2, east of Chipping Warden. HS2’s proposed closure of Culworth Road will necessitate several hundred extra right turns per day off the A361 onto Welsh Road on a permanent basis and, just to give you a recap, you can probably see in the box with 50s in it: you’ve got the A361 going north south, and you’ve got Welsh Road running diagonally, yellow road, from north west to south east. As the A361 is a red road – red route, sorry – known for its accidents, these additional right turns will cause more danger, indefinitely.

308. On Monday the Chairman of Chipping Warden Parish Council made a proposal which was eminently sensible. He suggested extending the tarmac bridleway from where it currently is planned across the HS2 line, through to Welsh Road. This would be Culworth Road open to local people without building an additional bridge. He also suggested moving the satellite compound associated infrastructure to the north east side of the track, as shown on the right side of this map with the letters, ‘SC’ near the bottom right corner. This would mean HGVs would approach the site from Welsh Road, as shown by the dark blue arrows, and not Culworth Road. HGVs could and should then

be banned from any part of Culworth village.

309. I was told yesterday, by Northamptonshire County Council Traffic Department, this part of Welsh Road is not a particularly dangerous road, and there have been no recorded accidents recording personal damage in the last three years. In addition, the new junction with Welsh Road would be on a relatively straight section with good visibility. The existing Culworth Road, Welsh Road junction has a curve in both direction on Welsh Road which restrict visibility. We strongly support the proposal made by Chipping Warden Parish Council to use the bridleway bridge over HS2 to meet the Culworth Road and Welsh Road.

310. Lastly, we also support the request from Jo Wilson, Aston-le-Walls Parish Council, for a roundabout at the intersection of the A361 and Welsh Road, which should be built before construction starts – before HS2 construction starts. The A361 has a 50 mile per hour limit; however, this is not respected by many drivers. Accidents do occur on this stretch of the A361 and not all of them are reported. We stopped at that particular junction on your visit last October, and Jo Wilson explained these issues at that time. Next slide please.

311. First of all, you may ignore the first one and a half lines of this slide, as the announcement of Chipping Warden Bypass last Friday makes these comments irrelevant. We are delighted to know that Chipping Warden will benefit in this way. This slide summarises what I’ve said when I was speaking to the last map. However, we need to add to this list of requests the one from Chipping Warden Parish Council made last Monday regarding Culworth Road. As a result of receiving evidence from HS2 last Friday we need to comment on two more points, so can we go to the petitioner’s reference number P4146 please. I am going to talk now about Halse Copse, which is an ancient woodland. You may recall I pointed out Halse Copse to you shortly before we reached Radstone village last October. Halse Copse is one of 43 ancient woodlands on the Phase 1 route which will suffer from direct loss or damage. On this slide, provided by HS2, you will see the plan to translocate part of the ancient woodland. That’s as shown in the large box in the centre of the slide.

312. However, regardless of how much new woodland you create, you can’t make up for loss of ancient woodland. This was pointed out to HS2 Limited approximately four

years ago, and what the Woodland Trust say about translocation is as follows, ‘Sometimes translocation, or moving elements of a habitat, is suggested as a way of compensating for its loss. The term, ‘Habitat translocation’ may be used, but this is misleading, as ancient woods – or ancient wood – is a unique habitat. A product of a complex range of factors including its geology, soils, aspect, microclimate and centuries of history, including both natural events and human intervention. It would be impossible to successfully translocate such a habitat.’ We go on to petitioner’s slide P4147 please. Sorry. Promoter’s. Promoter’s.

313. This was another slide provided to me last Friday by HS2, and this is near Brackley, and around Brackley you have the A43 running in what might be termed as a ring road. What is slightly concerning is the information which is omitted from this particular map, and if you look at the lower part of the screen, and you follow the A43 southwards, there is no traffic data showing on the A43 after you see A422 road junction. We believe there must be at least 1,000 HGV movements each way each day in 2021. But it’s not shown any data on this screen at all in that area.

314. If we now go back to my slides please. A803 47 please. That summarises the main requests we’ve made. I hope we’ve made them fairly clearly so far, and I’m now aware it’s the turn of the HS2 representatives to respond to the presentation that I’ve just made. Could I request that I’m given an opportunity to comment upon each topic, rather than at the very end of their whole piece please?

315. CHAIR: I’ll consider it as we go along, okay.

316. MR BODMAN : Thank you.

317. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Before they start, when I asked when Crossrail came in, you, I think may have taken it as Crossrail 2…

318. MR BODMAN : No.

319. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Crossrail 1 doesn’t start in 2018.

320. MR BODMAN: Crossrail 1 starts in 2018 but it’s not fully operational until 2019.

321. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So starts in 2018, and also did you mention that the Victoria Line at Euston has been upgraded and the Northern Line is being upgraded, and Michelle Dix who you quoted said that Michelle Dix didn’t see a problem with HS2 first phase. I can give you the reference –

322. MR BODMAN : Thank you. I was referring to Phase 2 of HS2 requiring Crossrail 2. Thank you.

323. CHAIR: Mr Strachan.

324. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Right, well I think what I’ll start with it may just be helpful is to show you a letter that was written to Northamptonshire County Council. The reason why – one of the reasons why they didn’t feel it necessary to attend. Simply on the first topic, relating to Euston. I know the Committee’s obviously going to be considering Euston in more detail at a later stage, but if I could just get up P41585. It is quite a long letter, but it’s a letter of 30 January 2015 setting out a number of assurances provided to Northamptonshire County Council and you’ll see, as far as capacity at Euston during construction is concerned, there are three assurances that identified there.

325. The first is the Secretary of State requiring the nominated undertaker, as part of the detailed design of the proposed works at Euston Station to provide to Northamptonshire County Council a detailed assessment of the impact of those works on the capacity of the Station to handle train services on the West Coast Main Line, including to and from Northampton and its environs, both during construction and following their completion. The second is, so far as reasonably practicable, minimising adverse effects on the availability of platforms for and the number, frequency and reliability of such train services during construction, whilst ensuring the timely and economic delivery of the railway, and the third is in line with existing legislation and industry practice, prior to network services being introduced following completion of the HS2 works a consultation on proposed changes to existing West Coast Main Line services will take place, and that account will be taken of the results of that consultatio n.

326. I think, in large part, that may address some of the general points Mr Bodman was making about what happens at Euston. But if he – and I’m entirely in the Committee’s hands as to how you want to deal with – Mr Smart’s here, and can explain a little bit

more as to the current arrangements. I know you’re going to have to look at that…

327. CHAIR: We’re going to go through that in great detail when we know exactly what they – the government want to do in Euston. But, Sir Peter.

328. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ll we’re limited in what we can do, and you’ve taken us far beyond that. The understanding I think the Committee would have is that the Promoter’s will do the best they can. It’s on the record that the service most likely to be sacrificed is the Watford to Euston Shuttle twice an hour. No one would want to dispute the evidence you provided that the time that a Virgin train could be in Euston is likely to reduce significantly, and that has adverse effects, especially when something goes wrong. But those aren’t the things that this Committee, I think, is going to be able to do much about if we’re told by the House of Commons to accept the basic principle of the railway, and we try to deal with individual petitions. So I think what I’m truly saying to Mr Strachan is I think you’ve done sufficient on Euston for the time being.

329. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): There is – you will be looking at the issue of dispersal. For that reason I’m not going to take issue with all the points made. There is quite a lot of detail as to the measures being put in place to deal with onward passengers from Euston, links with Euston Square and matters of that kind, but I’ll…

330. CHAIR: I think there’s a plan.

331. MR S TRACHAN QC (DfT): We can save that for another day.

332. CHAIR: You want to make a brief comment at this point, Mr Bodman?

333. MR BODMAN: Yes.

334. CHAIR: Okay.

335. MR BODMAN: I think, first of all, our concern is now on the record, and it’s up to you what you do about it. The second thing is the request we actually made, which is written before we’d seen this, although I did see this information on Friday, we were looking for, if you like, for the acceptance of the proposals by Network Rail and train operating companies, which is a different way of looking at things as, for instance, Northamptonshire County Council will look at things, and they have a lot more

expertise in running thousands of trains a day and can comment, if you like – they’re already not exactly happy with the proposed situation.

336. CHAIR: Thank you. I think the issue’s come up once before, but thank you for giving it on record. Right, Mr Strachan, next point.

337. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The next point I think was in relation to compensation. I’m not proposing to say anything more about that. Because…

338. CHAIR: We understand, yes.

339. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Noise. There’s a general point made about noise. All I’d invite the Committee to do – we can’t really do it on the screen now, but in relation to South Northamptonshire, as the Committee’s seen as we’ve gone through, of course there are properties that are affected by noise, some of which you heard about earlier. But when one looks at the plans you will see that the contour maps show that, to a large extent, the line of route through this area avoids taking the LOAEL contour, if I can use that expression, the LO AEL contour into the settlements in and around the line. That doesn’t mean some properties aren’t affected. They clearly are. But if one looks at the contour map you’ll see that showing that the LOAEL contours avoid each of the settlements as we pass through this area. So I note what’s been said about the area being the most adversely affected. I would suggest it’s more appropriate to look at it in the context of how the railway is responding to the main settlements and the majority of the population – in obviously a rural area.

340. SIR P ETER BO TTOMLEY: In every case, I think, there have been individual petitions or parish petitions or even action group petitions.

341. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Precisely, and what – as happened earlier today.

342. CHAIR: Mr Bodman, do you want to make a brief comment before we move on?

343. MR BODMAN: Yes. All I was going to say was it may have been a fairly unusual request to suggest slowing the speed of a line, but I did try and point out that the effect of that lowering the speed of the line, five minutes, is not a very significant amount of time between London and Birmingham.

344. CHAIR: No. But the railway’s going to Edinburgh, as I understand it.

345. MR BODMAN : Sorry?

346. CHAIR: The Railway’s going right the way up the country eventually. So…

347. MR BODMAN: Oh, yes, I know. But five minutes in the total scheme of things is a small amount.

348. CHAIR: Okay. Right. Mr Strachan.

349. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think you’ve also heard about the way in which LAMax are also taken into account in the noise assessment, so I won’t repeat that… the number of points were raised, more specific points, about Aston-le-Walls for example, and Chipping Warden, the Committee’s heard about that and I – maybe Mr Bodman hasn’t heard the detail…

350. CHAIR: I think Mr Bodman was reinforcing their evidence which the Committee has heard. I think we take it in that context.

351. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): What I’ve suggested Mr Bodman may want to just look at some of the assurances that were given to the Parish Councils, for example the road that he was showing is one that is not proposed for construction traffic, and that’s subject of assurances with Aston-le-Walls. So I think some of his concerns have been addressed by his other petitioners, and the same, I think, relates to the Culworth Road arrangements around Chipping Warden, of which you are very familiar. I believe that the issue of ancient woodland you’ve heard quite a lot about, and the principles of translocation – it’s not translocation of woodland, it’s soils, as we’ve heard discussed. So I’m not going to revisit that unless you want me to.

352. CHAIR: Do you want to make any comments about ancient woodland?

353. MR BODMAN: About Aston-le-Walls, if I may.

354. CHAIR: Okay.

355. MR BODMAN: I understand some of the assurances that have been offered to Aston-le-Walls Parish Council. I understand those, and I feel it goes hand in hand with

the moving of the satellite compound from one side of the line to the other side of the line, which I illustrated earlier on, and that element hasn’t yet been agreed. It’s under discussion with the landowner. But it needs to be agreed. Because I don’t think you can necessarily deliver on no HGVs through Aston-le-Walls unless you also make the corresponding move to the other side of the line of the satellite compound and its associated infrastructure.

356. CHAIR: Okay.

357. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I understand that that relates to a specific petition, I think, from Mr Frusher –

358. MR BODMAN: That’s it. Yes.

359. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): That’s coming later. No doubt if there’s an issue there it will be looked at. I don’t believe it’s an issue, but if there is the Committee can look at it then. You’ll have the benefit there of the more details plans of construction.

360. CHAIR: Right, any further points?

361. MR BODMAN : No.

362. CHAIR: No, okay.

363. MR BODMAN : I’d just like to thank you for the time you’ve taken and the interest you’ve shown in the – our petition presentation. Thank you very much.

364. CHAIR: I thought you made some very interesting points.

365. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I add I really enjoyed reading all the things you put in. The 804 one as well. But thank you.

366. CHAIR: Alright, thank you very much, Mr Bodman, and we enjoyed it when you were on the coach with us having a look round South Northamptonshire. Okay.

367. MR BODMAN : Thank you.

368. CHAIR: Order, order. I think that’s the end for today, we’re about to vote in a few minutes. If you could clear the room so the Committee can just clear its thoughts

that’d be great.