Public Session
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PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE on the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Tuesday 13 October 2015 (Morning) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Sir Peter Bottomley Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby Mr Mark Hendrick _____________ IN ATTENDANCE: Mr Timothy Mo uld, QC, Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Mark Lowe, QC, Counsel, Buckinghamshire County Council Witnesses: Mrs Catherine Murray, Chiltern District Council Mr Martin Tett, Buckinghamshire County Council Ms Edi Smockum, resident Mr Andy Kirkham, Aylesbury Vale District Council Mr Jonathan Bellars, Aylesbury Vale District Council Mrs Bettina Kirkham Mr Peter Miller, Environment Director, HS2 Ltd _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Buckinghamshire County Council (Cont’d) Mrs Murray, examined by Mr Lowe 3 Response from Mr Mould 8 Mr Tett, examined by Mr Lowe 16 Ms Smockum, examined by Mr Lowe 25 Ms Smockum, cross-examined by Mr Mould 28 Mr Tett, re-examined by Mr Lowe 34 Mr Tett, cross-examined by Mr Mould 38 Submissions by M r Mo uld 47 Statement from Mr Kirkham 51 Response from Mr Mould 53 Statement from Mr Bellars 56 Response from Mr Mould 57 Statement from Mr Tett 60 Response from Mr Mould 62 Mrs K irkham, examined by Mr Lowe 65 Response from Mr Mould 84 Mr Miller, examined by Mr Mould 90 Comments by Mrs Kirkham 96 2 (At 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, Order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. Welcome back, Mr Lowe. Sorry to leave you over to today, rather than last night. 2. MRS MURRAY: That’s okay: it’s a fact of life. 3. MR LOWE QC : I don’t think I need introduce Ms Murray to the Select Committee. She’s already given evidence. The slides start at A40 and A46-1. The first issue – Lower Bottom House Farm in slides 2, 3 and 4 – has been resolved with receipt of an appropriate assurance, so I shall go straight to slide 5, please. This is Potter Row, appropriate mitigation for landscape, setting and no is e. 4. I think this has given rise to a point of principle that my witness would like to explain to the Select Committee. I shall hand over to her. 5. MRS MURRAY: Thank you. C lea r ly, what I’ve been looking at since I spoke to you last time is the residual impact, given that we would have the extra tunnel up to Fr ith Hill, for which we’re very grateful. That solves a lot of the problems. We’d clearly like more tunnel; that would be the best way of solving the outstanding problems. Looking at things in the event of no tunnel, I was still struck by the outstanding impact on the farms along Potter Row and King’s Lane. 6. The slide shows that you’ve got the three of them: Berry Farm is just off to the le ft near the portal; Hammonds Hall Farm is the one I want to ta lk perhaps most about today; and Hunts Green has been sort of saved by removing the sustainable placement that was going to have swamped the fields permanently. It is, however, going to swamp it temporarily. I want to come back to that for my second point. 7. This first point about the noise is that, as things progress, it is becoming very apparent, as was said yesterday, that this is a live project. We’ve got changing details coming in. We have lots of different pressures being put on the design. I’m just anxious that the impact on the listed buildings doesn’t get lost in this. Partly because it’s an environmental impact of the noise on the way in which the building can be used in the future – rather than just the visual impact on the landscape setting. 8. The proposals, as they were originally put to us, have been modified, in that we 3 know there is a slightly lower alignment of the track. This has impact on the portal at Berry Farm. There is no w bunding proposed, as before. 9. MR LOWE QC: Can we go to the next slide? I think that helps in understanding that. 10. MRS MURRAY: Yes, that helps. This is one of the proposals for the way the cutting will work by Hammonds Hall Fa r m. This is one of them. This shows the way things are in a state of flux. This one shows a cutting widened so as to allow for a sound barrier – put down at the bottom of the cutting next to the track – to be 6 metres in height. And it’s proposed that this will moderate the impact down to more acceptable levels. Hammonds Hall Fa r m is s till going to be subject to moderate adverse sound impact in HS2 terms. 11. CHAIR: Can I ask Mr Mould a question? We have had this additional provision. Have the sound figures been worked out for the new trajectory of the line in that area, fo r Potter Row? 12. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, they have. They’ll be published as part of the AP4 material, which I think was yesterday. They have been published. 13. CHAIR: We have them. Yes, okay, sorry. 14. MRS MURRAY: Sorry. To illustrate it further, this shows the 6 metre sound barrier at the bottom. Exhibit U, which has been published in the meantime, discussed the alternative possibility of a 3 metre sound barrier on top of the cutting, which would obviously have more impact on the setting of the listed building. Exhibit U, to quote, said it was rejected ‘due to the potential additional landscape and visual effect that this could have.’ Well, I’m now told, as of Friday, that it’s the 3 metre barrier on top that’s going to be the one despite the visual impact, because it has slightly better sound impact. I feel that I’m in a state of not knowing quite what is proposed or what the parameters will be – and wondering how to cope with this. 15. I wanted to make the point that this is particularly pertinent to listed buildings. 16. MR LOWE QC : Can we have the next slide, please? 4 17. MRS MURRAY: Yes. 18. MR LOWE QC : Thank you. 19. MRS MURRAY: Here’s Hammonds Hall Farm. It’s a timber-framed building, so it’s not exactly thick-walled. Lots of sound is going to go straight into it. Why are listed buildings a special case? They’re my start point. I’m pointing, eventually, to a bigger problem – b ut le t’s start with the listed buildings. If we do n’t preserve the setting, we have a potential for harm to the viability of the building. We disrupt the visual attractiveness of it and the perception of how it is sat in its rural landscape. 20. What was brought up yesterday is that it is sometimes not economic to provide mitigation to counter everything and that harm can be countered with compensation schemes for the owners. My point, as before was that the owners can go away; the listed building is left behind. Somebody – usually the District Co unc il – has to pick up the duty of making sure that it’s properly cared for. 21. MR LOWE QC : Your second bullet point draws attention to the need to keep these structures in use as homes and workplaces. 22. MRS MURRAY: Yes. 23. MR LOWE QC : Shall we go to the next slide, please? 24. MRS MURRAY: Having considered all that, I came up with the assurances that you have got in front of on this slide, both asking for a principle agreement that this will be taken account of and, also, that we would have adequate means of discussing how the solution had been arrived at and whether it was the most appropriate in terms of mitigation at the Schedule 16 stage. 25. I think I want to take it slightly on from that, because, on Friday, I was told that, yes, of course there would be the opportunity for the District Council to have sight of the proposals at the Schedule 16 stage but that we wouldn’t have sound assessments. My point is, if I am presented in a planning department with a set of plans that say, ‘These are the proposals’, how can I comment on them and ask for reasonable mitigation if I don’t have information about the anticipated sound impact on the listed building? 5 26. When I explained this to HS2, they said, ‘You will have it, but it’ll be at the ‘bringing it into use’ stage, which might be at a considerably later time.’ Now, a ‘considerably later time’, I take it, is when things are pretty much up and ready to go. The Council’s only allowed to contemplate refusal of bringing into use if it’s reasonable to mitigate. Is it going to be reasonable to ask for another metre of sound barrier on top of what’s already been built? I would very much doubt so. It would seem far more sens ib le to contemplate the sound impact at the design stage, when we can all debate it, debate the various options – because options there are going to be. I’m not asking for a perfect, ideal solution now. It has to be discussed, but it seems to me that we have to have enough information on the table to allow us to make the appropriate suggestions.