Minutes of Oral Evidence

Home , We Alright

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Monday 13 July 2015 (Evening)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

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

______

IN ATTENDANCE

Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Timothy Straker QC, of Counsel

Witnesses:

Mrs Bettina Kirkham, Kirkham Landscape Planning Ltd Ms Catherine Murray, Chiltern District Council ______

IN PUBLIC SESSION

INDEX

Subject Page

Chiltern District Council, Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council, The Chilterns Conservation Board (Cont’d) Comment by Mr Straker 3 Mrs Kirkham, examined by Mr Straker 6 Ms Murray, examined by Mr S traker 49

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Are we alright to go, Mr Straker?

Chiltern District Council, Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council, The Chilte rns Conservation Board (Cont’d)

2. MR STRAKER QC: Yes, sir, we’re perfectly alright to do. Sir, what I would like to do, with the Committee’s leave, is just before I call Bettina K irkham, just to say a word, if I may, and to give the Committee a document about the £510 million we were discussing just before the short adjournment.

3. CHAIR: Okay.

4. MR STRAK ER QC: Because there is scope for misunderstanding here, which I would like to clear out of the way as rapidly as possible, and I know that HS2 were anxious to see something put down on paper. What you’ve been given, sir, is an extract from the advice note, to which I referred earlier on, dated December 2012, and in particular, the executive summary, which I obviously do not read to the Committee, but which draws attention to the fact that…

5. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just to –

6. MR STRAKER QC: Of course.

7. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are we the local decision makers, are you, or are the promoters?

8. MR STRAKER QC: For this context, you would be the local decision makers. The executive summary describes how the notes have been used and how this approach has been used.

9. Annex A is the annex which describes the landscape values and I just want to, if I may, draw to the Committee’s attention the fact that at A3, page 21, last bullet point, describes that it’s not merely landscape which is here being described under that heading, but will also include external benefits of recreation biodiversity and so forth. So, one has to be careful about the headings and one also has to note, as is said on the top of the table, at page 22, that what one’s being presented with is a value over an infinite time horizon, so that what one’s not being asked to contemplate is anything other than an exercise which is saying the landscape is affected for good and all and

therefore, we have to look over that time horizon.

10. Doing that exercise, these various figures were produced for value and what has been done here, has been set out in the manuscript note, so that first of all, the Annex A has described landscape values, next the land types are described. These land types include natural and semi-natural…

11. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, just to illustrate – this may not be quite in order of what you’re going to say; I take the penultimate one, agricultural land intensive?

12. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

13. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Infinite period, £29,000?

14. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. Per hectare.

15. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: Which is pretty close, actually to the value of the land commercially as well?

16. MR STRAKER QC: That would be so, or maybe so. The point here, of course, goes to the point as to how does one ascribe a value to land in the AONB and the starting point has been that there’s no land type described by reference to AONB, and therefore, one’s got to alight upon something which they ones alighted upon have been natural and semi-natural land…

17. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: Isn’t it common ground that mo st of the land being affected through the Chilterns is land under food production?

18. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

19. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: At £29,000 per acre – hectare?

20. MR STRAKER QC: Land, for the purpose of a sale between you and…

21. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, from this – table 1, landscape value, penultimate, agricultural land intensive, value per hectare, 100.3, infinite period, 2010 pr ices, £29,000?

22. MR STRAKER QC: Correct.

23. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which is about one-fortieth of the over £1 million pounds we were ta lk ing about before the break?

24. MR STRAKER QC: Well, it’s very significantly less, but of course, that fails to take account of the fact that on any version, the land with which we’re concerned has to be counted as special, and for it is in the AONB. And so one gets back to that point, that one is concerned with, and if o ne is concerned with a landscape value, then one does that.

25. Now, I appreciate there are going to be all manner o f categorisations that one could adopt, but it would seem rather perverse, if I may respectfully say so, to suggest that one should adopt the agricultural land intensive as a general proposition, which would cover land throughout the entirety of England, with no special designation whatsoever, and then look at this and say not. But what we’ve done, is to say, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be right’, therefore one looks at natural and semi-natural land or rural fo rested land amenity and so the value therefore, becomes a simple mathematical exercise, and so you’ll see at paragraph 7 of the note, loss of 200 hectares permanently, 170 hectares temporarily. That goes back to becoming agricultural land extensive, whic h has been given a value, and then the mathematics has been done, leading to the £510 million on the foot of the page.

26. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: This ma y helpful, I’m not certain it’s conclusive.

27. MR STRAK ER QC: Well, yes, in the sense that nothing, in a way here, is conclusive because what one sees from the table, and what one sees from any table in this case is an assignment of a word to land, which word, by definition going to embrace all sorts of things because the particular parcel of land one’s talking about is always going to be unique.

28. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we should thank you for this.

29. MR STRAKER QC: Well, I’m grateful for that, sir. Anyway, that’s –

30. MR HENDRICK: If these valuations are what would be expected to be acquired in the event of compulsory purchase?

31. MR STRAK ER QC: No, that wouldn’t be right, sir, because these are being used

fo r a different purpose; these are not the compulsory purchase values. The compulsory purchase value would be the value between a willing seller and a willing buyer, and a willing buyer would not, I readily accept, purchase land at this sort of figure. These are an attempt to say how does the nation value this bit of land, what’s its value to the nation, as opposed to a willing buyer and a willing seller. And those considerations are simply market prices.

32. CHAIR: Right, Mr Straker, I want to listen to Bettina now.

33. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you very much, sir. I’m very grateful to that, can Mrs Kirkham come forward then please? And can we, sir, with your leave, go through some of these slides at a degree of pace, because, what you’ll be seeing in certain instances, will be pictures and you had, in a number of instances of course, a site visit, in any event.

34. Sir, I introduce through 1181(1), Bettina Kirkham to the Committee, landscape consultation with Kirkham Landscape Planning Ltd. And in the next slide you set out the purpose of your evidence, and 1181(3) answers that question, to show how the surface route proposed from Hyde Heath to Wendover results in irreparable harm to the special landscape and visual pointers of the AONB. And you then travel through the suggestion, 1181(4), an additional provision, and 1181(5), you talk about the whole of the Chiltern AONB landscape being of the highest value for its outstanding natural beauty by Parliament and the European Union, not just the eastern half.

35. Just pause there, if you don’t mind, on this one. There have been suggestions which have been touched upon, which go to the following effect: ‘Ah well, HS2 only goes through numerically, a comparatively small part of the AONB and therefore, one should view this petition and these petitioners in that light’. Do you have any observation on that, to help the Committee please?

36. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s a particularly important actually, an aspect of this, and this is supported by Natural England, the whole of the AONB matters, every part of it matters. And if I try to do an analogy, it’s if you have something like the National Gallery, you’ve got a beautiful collection of paintings, so by Constable in one room; if one is trashed, that’s not acceptable, even if you’ve got 99 left. So, in the same way, this part of the AONB is as much as outstanding natural beauty as any other part and that

part is made up of those parts; they are made up of all the different aspects, woodland – whatever it might be, to make what makes it outstanding natural beauty. You can’t disaggregate the landscape and you can’t say that just because you’re only affecting 3%, it doesn’t matter because every part of the AONB matters, in equal part.

37. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then if we look on, having referred to the highest value being attributed to the AONB, you asked the question at 6, why HS2 has only put 46% of the route through the AONB and tunnel, and you say you can’t answer this question, HS2 have never answered it, and then, if we look on 1181(7), you draw attention to the surface route and the tunnel section. Perhaps you could just say a word or two on this slide p lea se as to what is being shown here?

38. MRS KIRKHAM: The purpose of this slide is, as you’re aware, sirs, that the – there’s a tunnel going through part of the Chilterns, part of the Chiltern Hills. Actually, the part that’s on the surface route is just as hilly but what’s interesting is it’s not only hilly, but it’s extremely undulating, so that, you can see on that side, from where it says Hyde Heath, if the lines of the contour lines, and you see how they wave in and out where the line of the surface route goes. You can see how the surface route cuts through the plateau, through those upper slopes, down the lower slopes, into the valley bottom, when you get to Wendover. So this is a very hilly landscape, and that is really what’s caused one of the severe problems, because there’s endless need for tunnel portals, embankments, cuttings, because you’re cutting through that topography.

39. MR STRAK ER QC: Thank you. And then, if we go on, please, you asked the question, what are the special qualities which will be adversely affected by – and the surface route, and you answer that question on the next slide at 1181(9), those special qualities being set out in the Chilterns AONB management p la n.

40. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s just to refer back to the documents that – apart from going out there and having a look for it yourself, are actually recorded as being of value, particularly in the AONB.

41. MR STRAK ER QC: And this plan shows, in its – the various chalk dip slope and chalk escarpment, and so forth, are all recorded upon there.

42. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, there’s – it’s really to show the character areas that go

through, that the route goes through, this – it’s fairly self evident, yes.

43. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then we go to number 10, you record the landscape being of outstanding scenic beauty, and at 11, how you co uld give a large number of examples, your restraint being that you’ve given a sample of the panoramic views.

44. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s correct, yes. Because one of the key characteristics obviously, are these panoramic views.

45. MR STRAKER QC: Just pausing there, on 1181(12), is that broadly speaking, where you have, in the examples that you’re giving to the Committee, taken your panoramic viewpoints from?

46. MRS KIRK HAM: There’s exactly where I took them, yes.

47. MR STRAKER QC: Very well.

48. MRS KIRK HAM: They’re taken by myself.

49. MR STRAK ER QC: And so, let’s go through them, and we’ll go through them with reasonable expedition, if you don’t mind…

50. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What’s that wiggly line between the route and the viewpoints? Is it a road or a railway?

51. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s – the red line is the road, and the – I think that’s – yes, and the black line, which you can see to the west of it, is the railway.

52. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thank you. So you see those from those view points?

53. MRS KIRK HAM: Sorry?

54. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You can see those – the road and the railway, the existing railway, from those viewpoints?

55. MRS KIRKHAM: Not very well, no, because they’re tucked down the bottom, and screened, because they’re on the flat valley floor, the trees…

56. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay – yes, yes.

57. MRS KIRK HAM: Sorry, I’m not sure how much explanation –

58. MR STRAKER QC: Very well. Then we get to 1181.13, please, so this is the first of the views, so this is from Coombe Hill, or near Coombe Hill is it?

59. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s up on the top of Coombe Hill and on the ridgeway, looking down the Vale of Wendover, and where the arrow is shows you where the junction with the A413 and Nash Lee Road is. The white arrow is indicative of the – it’s indicative and accurate from HS2 info r ma tio n, but it’s obviously just a white line.

60. MR STRAK ER QC: Thank you. And then we look on where we get to a view from a footpath at Little London, over the Chiltern Hills to the surface route through the AONB, and you’ve done a similar exercise there.

61. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, it’s just to give you a flavour of how nice these panoramic views are and where the route will be visible.

62. MR HENDRICK: Could I ask as well – I mean, there’s no dispute as to how beautiful the pictures are and the view is, but are the – is the HS2 line, if it were to go through there, likely to be any more visible than the road or the existing railway that’s there?

63. MRS KIRK HAM: Much more visible.

64. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Because –?

65. MRS KIRKHAM: Because the road and the railway line actually fall down in the bottom of the valley, whereas HS2 cuts up from the bottom of the valley, up through the hillside, up onto the plateau, so you’re constantly cutting and embankments, and then you’ve got spoil dumping going on.

66. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s the cuttings that will be visible –

67. MRS KIRK HAM: The cuttings will be visible; if you’re –

68. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, will the railway be visible?

69. MRS KIRK HAM: The actual track? I’m sorry, perhaps –

70. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Railway, you can interpret as it could be the track, it could be the gantries, it could be the train when it goes past.

71. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. It would be visible obviously, on the viaducts and as they come out on the – they come out on embankments. But depending on your angle of view, so if you’re looking at – up into the cutting, you’ll see the track as well as the cutting.

72. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And you want to avoid giving the impression to us that you’ll see a continuous railway. If I stood at the top of Maiden Castle and looked at Dorchester, I don’t see the Dorchester Western bypass for more than about 200 yards.

73. MRS KIRK HAM: Okay.

74. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The road actually goes for a mile and a half.

75. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, I understand.

76. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But it’s not visible for a mile and a half. Is that roughly the situation we might take from any of your viewpoints, for HS2, were it built as proposed?

77. MRS KIRK HAM: What you will get is intermittent parts of it visible, from any of those viewpoints.

78. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just so long as we get the right impression.

79. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, I don’t want to – I didn’t want to suggest that white line was continuously –

80. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thanks.

81. MRS KIRKHAM: If we can go back to your question, it will be much more visible than the existing road.

82. MR HENDRICK : Has the existing railway line got overhead electrification, or not?

83. MRS KIRK HAM: I don’t think it has. No.

84. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If someone who’s a board member of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the Chilterns doesn’t know, it can’t make the biggest impression, can it?

85. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s always the case of a double take, isn’t it? You think, is it or not? But no, no.

86. MR STRAKER QC: If we then go to number 15, we see another panoramic view, with once again, diagrammatically, the HS2 line shown; now, help if you may, it maybe that this photograph provides part of the answer to the question just given as to whether one’s got intermittent views, because you’ve got the white in various places, but not in so me others.

87. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, there is – yes, sorry.

88. MR STRAKER QC: Is that part of it?

89. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s part of it. There is a reason why I’ve stopped because the railway – the line goes behind those two woods, you can see one is labelled, ‘Woodlands Park’, and you can see the other one – I’m afraid I can’t remember the name of, and it goes behind those two woods, so you won’t see it at that – b ut as it comes back out, because it has to do a lot of cutting away of the landscape, it’s much mo re vis ib le, certainly for a good time until it matures – you know, planting might mature.

90. MR STRAKER QC: Then if we go on, 1182(1) please, Leather Lane to Mantles Wood, the line runs there and one sees the dipping character of the landscape, with the train running across it.

91. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, more or less. I mean, it’s the same point, you will not see a continuous track. I’m not arguing that; I’m saying this…

92. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve walked – not the route, we’ve walked around.

93. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, I know, you’ve seen me, sir. Yes, I’m not arguing that,

I’m just saying it will become very visible.

94. MR STRAKER QC: Very well; 11822, you identify that you, that you produce a selection of photographs of some of the landscapes along the surface route that will be lost or irrevocably damaged, and we see, in the next slide, do we, the key as to where these viewpoints have been taken from, so you’ve moved closer to the line.

95. MRS KIRK HAM: I’ve specifically moved to where there will actually be an impact from HS2 surface route, so I haven’t included any photographs of anywhere that won’t be affected.

96. MR STRAKER QC: So you’ve stood where the railway will actually be running?

97. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, that’s exactly right.

98. MR STRAKER QC: Take the pictures. And the first one of which is 11824.

99. MRS KIRKHAM: And you’ve probably seen that several times; that’s the view of the woodland that will be cut to put in the portal and the cutting for the portal and as the train goes off, as the line goes off to the left hand s ide.

100. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1182(5), east of Hyde Lane.

101. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s a view back to Hyde Lane there; this is a particularly lovely bit of dry valley, where there’s a high overbridge and deep cutting going in, in the middle of that view there. We’re on a footpath. These are all taken from public viewpoints, not private ones.

102. MR STRAKER QC: 1182(6), the dry valley further east of Hyde Lane.

103. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s looking back the other way; so the first one’s looking west, the second one’s looking east. That little copse is shown on HS2’s plans in the middle of a large area of soil disposal and mounding. And the line cuts straight through across your line of sight there.

104. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1182(7), open plateau, east of South Heath.

105. MRS KIRKHAM: Now, this is an exception; this is a view of where the new junction’s going in on Chesham Lane, at the top there. Because obviously, one of the

impacts of this route is not just the railway line itself, it’s the ancillary development that goes with it. I’ll come back to that a bit more later.

106. MR STRAK ER QC: Very well. Next one, eight – 1182(8), looks from Leather Lane to Grim’s Ditch, the scheduled monument.

107. MRS KIRKHAM: And again, you’ve probably heard already that Grim’s Ditch is going to be affected and the line comes through, where the little chap is on his buggy, through the ditch, as you can see there. So, all of these are taken from points where you will see the new line.

108. MR STRAKER QC: 11829 looks down to Durham Farm, site of the viaduct.

109. MRS KIRKHAM: This is one of several views from footpaths that descend down into this valley, so the viaduct itself cut across there, that picture, just above where those buildings are.

110. MR STRAK ER QC: Then 1182(10) looks from Rocky Lane to the south of Hartley Farm, site of raised land form, soil dumping and autotransformer station.

111. MRS KIRK HAM: So, all those elements…

112. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we call it sustainable placement nowadays, but –

113. MR STRAKER QC: Yes, leave was given by Mr Mould to call it ‘dumping’.

114. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. From a landscape point of view, it’s not sustainable, it’s only via other reasons, yes. So all that is going on in that view, so you will basically lose the view of the woodland, and instead of these fields, it will be filled with those particular elements.

115. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are you prepared to face a question now? Whether if the thing goes ahead, it’s better to lose the view, or to see the train occasionally?

116. MRS KIRKHAM: I think it depends what view your losing, so some of this part of the Chilterns, they have marvellous views, across the valley and to the hills on the other side, and there are examples in here, where you lose that completely, and I think

you probably, you might say, ‘Yes, we see the train occasionally, it might be better’, but I think, you know, to make a judgement, case by case.

117. MR STRAKER QC: And then number 11, please, the view to Bacombe Lane, site of one of the Wendover green tunnel portals and road diversion.

118. MRS KIRKHAM: So here, Bacombe Lane is there, you’ve got the report, co me s out and bends round the green tunnel portal is just the other side of that arrow, and there’s a sort of land raising around the top of that portal, and then it does actually go on underneath, as you go to the left.

119. MR STRAKER QC: And then the last in this little sequence, is number 12, from Wendover Vale, Bacombe Hill, Chiltern escarpment.

120. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. This is just east of Coombe Hill. It’s pa rt o f the sequence of views up at the top of the escarpment. The route there comes out in a sort of mound… It’s coming from here. And a sort of low mound that goes over the top; it says it’s a tunnel, but it isn’t actually, it’s a green hump over the top of the train.

121. MR STRAKER QC: But you’re just describing that area there, where I’m running the pencil along now.

122. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, that’s right, thank you very much, yes.

123. MR STRAKER QC: There.

124. MRS KIRKHAM: And then obviously, after that, it’s at surface, as it passes Nash Lee Road junction.

125. MR STRAK ER QC: Then we get to number 13 please, where you describe the landscape case for the C hiltern long tunnel, and you run through the special qualities which led to the Chiltern hills being designated, topography, landscape pattern, integrity of the landscape, chalk land geology, hanging plateau woodlands, sunken lanes, conservation areas with a relationship with the natural landscape, recreation, tranquillity and beautify views.

126. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

127. MR STRAK ER QC: And those are just in that order, but it’s not an order o f priority?

128. MRS KIRKHAM: Not at all, it’s just a list, and then I’ll just go through one by one. What I would say that is they together matter, not as individually, so you need to look after them all to retain the quality of the AONB.

129. MR STRAKER QC: So then we get to the topography, you start to talk about, 14, the topography being distinguished by the relationship between the main Misbourne valley, its smooth undulating valley sides and dry valleys, plateau tops and the escarpment, and you ask yourself in the next slide, 11831, how HS2 impact will – how will HS2 impact on the natural topography.

130. MRS KIRKHAM: Because we’ve got this particular topographical features, which are particularly pronounced in this valley, when you start cutting and filling, putting false cuttings in and embankments, you start creating a totally unnatural landscape down that valley, and however hard you try to disguise it, you can’t really get rid of that; people will – you’ll see it, but actually, you’ve just change the landscape completely from what it was once before.

131. MR STRAKER QC: And then if we look on, 1183(2), you pose the question, why does this affect the natural topography? And this touches upon a matter that you’ve already discussed with Mr Hendrick, and you refer to the HS2 surface route not being in a valley and involving, and then you specify certain matters.

132. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, why I was saying it does this harm, and as I said, I think before, it’s because you have to keep cutting through the landform, of crossing, entry and exit and you need these large new landforms to – in order to do that, and on top of that, you’ve got this – I think that actually probably covers most of that.

133. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. But then we look at 1183(3) and I think that’s similar to one we’ve seen before, and the point has been well made about the topography and the non use of the valley floor by HS2 and then we get to an example of that at 1183(4).

134. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, there’s a series here, is where we’ve got a photograph of me indicatively showing where that element is, and then a little illustration of what is in

the HS2 books, the little arrow, with a spot on the end of it, is the location of the viewpoint. And it’s just to give you an idea of where these intrusive new landforms will be totally in conquest of the receiving landscape.

135. MR HENDRICK: Sorry, could I ask if the existing railway is not intrusive in respect of the beauty of the area, is the existing railway in use, if so, how much and is it perhaps the case just – just trying to find out, not being facetious, is it not a case for perhaps the HS2 route going alongside the existing railway?

136. MRS KIRK HAM: It only goes alongside it for a short section.

137. MR HENDRICK: No, I’m saying if the route was changed.

138. MRS KIRKHAM: Oh, I see. It’d be – I might be straying out of my area of expertise, but as I understand it, the HS2 – the old line is much curvier, so it can follow the contours much better because it’s an old railway line. HS2, by necessity, has to be quite straight, in order to go nice and fast. So, I – you end up perhaps having to do more, but it may work better down valley, yeah, I – I think it was explored once by HS2 but I can’t recall the answer, why it was discarded.

139. MR HENDRICK: Okay.

140. MR STRAK ER QC: But just to pursue that slightly further, if, and I appreciate that HS2 have something to say about speed and so forth, but it if could follow the curvy line of the present Chiltern railway, I think Mr Hendrick was enquiring whether that would be from a landscape point of view, better than the straight lines breaking through the topography as present proposed?

141. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, it would be.

142. MR HENDRICK: The reason I ask is whether or not that line was still in use, if it was, for example, a disused line, then there may be a better case for it going through.

143. MRS KIRK HAM: You’re absolutely right, yes.

144. MR STRAKER QC: It’s not disused line, sir, it’s the Chiltern railways.

145. MR HENDRICK: Okay.

146. MRS KIRK HAM: But if it were, yes, you’re quite correct, yes.

147. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : How do you rate damage to the landscape by HS2 compared to a new motorway, say the M40?

148. MRS KIRK HAM: How do I – how do they…

149. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: How would you rate it in te r ms of damage to the landscape?

150. MRS KIRKHAM: Well, I would say that in some places, the M40 did a lot of damage to the landscape, like the M40 cutting; it comes out of the Chilterns and there’s a huge cutting there that’s taken some time to –

151. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Where you see the red kites.

152. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, where you see the red kites. Well, not the only place to see the red kites. But I think some of the – well, I know the M40 quite well, because I work for the company that was actually looking after for it for some time, and in some ways, it has healed itself quite well. It’s obviously more curvaceous than HS2’s going to be and I also accept it is wider as well, isn’t it? But I think, to be honest, that doesn’t – I think the mo tor wa y can have a lower impact than HS2, partly because the alignment its going through and – now, obviously, you could do just as much harm with the mo tor wa y, there’s no doubt about that, and possibly more. So I think there’s a lot of – are very comparable in some ways, yes.

153. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A motorway can change its vertical and horizontal alignment far more easily than the railway.

154. MRS KIRK HAM: It can, that’s correct, exactly.

155. CHAIR: Keep going.

156. MR STRAKER QC: 1183(5) please, another example shown where a cutting destroys the natural topography and we here have some slopes at Jone’s Hill Wood, a deep cutting and raised embankment.

157. MRS KIRKHAM: And I particularly show that one, because of the particularly

prominent view; there are several views of poor old Jone’s Hill Wood, where the bottom of it’s just sliced away by the cutting.

158. MR STRAKER QC: Well then we move on to 11836, and we’re now looking at historic landscape pattern, because we can remind ourselves that you identified certain qualities, topography being the first, we’ve looked at landscape pattern being the next, and so here one notices field sizes and shapes, field boundaries, woodland patterns, settlement patterns and ancient route ways, and you record, on 11837, that the surface route will severe the surviving landscape pattern, and you give an example of surviving 18th century field landscape pattern that would be severed, 11838 please.

159. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, it’s rather nice that. You can see there, I’ve indicated where Jone’s Hill Wood and you can see it’s exactly the same shape as it is now. Durham Farm is shown – I know it’s very difficult, I do apologise. We tried to get the existing, so you could compare them directly, but it all got illegible, but you can just about make – that’s Durham Farm and you can see where Chesham Lane is, very clearly, and a lot of those field patterns are – it just cuts through something that actually is very old, and Catherine Murray when she comes to give her evidence on heritage, will actually give other examples of the same thing, and even older field patterns that are going to be damaged by being severed basically, by HS2, and of course, my point is, that you’ve still got b its le ft, but you’ve lost that relationship between the fields and the field boundaries and its’ quite extraordinary that they have survived for so long.

160. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1183(9) please, we have a photograph of a view of the landscape pattern from a particular footpath, lost or severed by the surface works.

161. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s near Park Farm, I think, and you can just – that’s looking for a good example, you get several examples of that. You can see there are small fields and layers of hedgerows that will be lost.

162. MR STRAK ER QC: And 1183(10), ancient sunken lane, Bowood Lane, remodelled into an overbridge.

163. MRS KIRKHAM: You’ll probably see several photographs of Bowood Lane, but I’ve tried to indicate here, that white line is the point where the road will have to be changed, as it goes up and over HS2, so all of the sunken lane part of it disappears. And

obviously, it takes decades, centuries, to get back to something like this, if you are able to put it back.

164. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1183(11), I think you put in tabular form the measurements, the measures length of hedgerows taken and so forth, that one can therefore see.

165. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. I’ve done my best with this because it’s a bit of an unknown quantity. All I can find from HS2 is the land within the temporary construction areas will go back to farmland, so we assume some of that will go back. So, I’m a fra id that’s why I have got total unknown there. It’s not – just going on the information, I couldn’t find any more out about that. And then the others are taken from HS2 figures that I’ve taken, mostly from the ES.

166. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just to talk aloud. Four hundred hectares seem to be open agricultural land, just going back to your previous conversation.

167. MR STRAK ER QC: Well, that’s under that heading, sir. It doesn’t of course remove it from being in the AONB.

168. 1183(12), you identify the impact on the landscape pattern along the surface route being particularly high, and you indentify a number of reasons why that should be so, large land take because of the scale of works, Chiltern Hills being very well vegetated with ancient landscape features, semi-natural woodland, ancient, being 400 years old and being irreplaceable, native beach, oak and ash trees, upwards of – how many years? It seems to be a blank there.

169. MRS KIRK HAM: Oh, yes, sorry about that – 25 years.

170. MR STRAKER QC: Five years – just five?

171. MRS KIRK HAM: Twenty five.

172. MR STRAKER QC: Twenty five.

173. MRS KIRKHAM: Upwards of. I mean we’ve been talking up to sort of 200 years, sometimes.

174. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1183(13). This is a continuation, veteran trees being unique and irreplaceable, hedgerows take a considerable time to acquire matur ity, diversity and character, and then a new woodland, 35 hectares under offer, won’t conserve and enhance the special characteristics of the AONB.

175. And then I think you turn, do you, in 1183(14), to the geological resource, bearing in mind that was the third special feature that you identified. And you quote at 14 from the management plan, referring to the global scale chalk being a rare form of geology. And can we then look at how the surface route will harm the perception enjoyment of that chalk land geology? Fifteen please.

176. MRS KIRKHAM: I would particularly draw your attention, sirs, to the perception and enjoyment of it, because this area, the chalk is not exposed, that’s what – smooth landscapes and what actually, HS2’s doing, is producing an actual quarry, long linear quarry, where it’s taking the cut out, and exposing the chalk as a result of that, which – so it is a perceptual thing, it’s – it’s no harm to the geology itself, it’s just actually how people perceive the geology; it’s not in keeping with the character and also that’s actually just a major excavation exercise and that’s really what I’m referring to there.

177. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then we go 16, and we see a photograph of the M40, which was canvassed in conversation a few minutes ago, and has been 28 years or so, has it, since the M40’s been in place?

178. MRS KIRKHAM: Well, it’s – that photograph is when it was taken in 2002, at that time the cut was 28 years old. That section – because obviously, it was built in sections, that section was opened 28 years prior to this photograph, and of course, it’s quite interesting to see how exposed the chalk is still. And I think it’s important to compare that with some of the HS2’s photographs, where it’s all looking lovely and vegetated down at HS1, because it’s like that here, because it’s steep and it’s difficult for the vegetation to take hold, but also, it’s the nature of the chalk, so that you grow trees readily on a gentler slope, which is perhaps on a clay soil, but to do that here is impossible, so it takes much, much longer to it to be covered.

179. MR HENDRICK: Very probably the car fumes don’t help.

180. MRS KIRK HAM: Sorry?

181. MR HENDRICK: The fumes from the cars probably don’t help either.

182. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The fumes from the cars.

183. MRS KIRKHAM: Oh, no, no, sorry.

184. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Alfred Stern showed at Highdown in the South Downs you can grow quite a lot in chalk, but it does help to have it more level than vertical.

185. CHAIR: And you’re are saying it’s a bad thing to show the chalk?

186. MRS KIRK HAM: I’m saying it’s the perception of the chalk – when it’s younger, it’s very stark, and I think the general consensus, it’s not attractive feature at all, and I would say, even at this stage, it’s not looking – it’s not doing too badly now, but of course, we’re now another 13 years on, so we’re talking…

187. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The alternative is of course, to take out a few more hectares and make it –

188. MRS KIRK HAM: Well, this is the danger. If we…

189. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s a choice.

190. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s – it’s a choice, but of course, it’s – by virtue of that, you actually – there’s’ other impacts by going further afield.

191. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Indeed.

192. MRS KIRKHAM: So it’s a bit of a – which is why we want a tunnel because you avoid it.

193. MR STRAKER QC: Well, 1183(17), moving from the M40, we move to the hanging plateau woodlands, which you’ve mentioned as o f special quality and you indicate as to where they may be found, and you get to 1183(18), with a plan showing important but fragile, hanging plateau, ancient semi-natural. They’re fragile because –?

194. MRS KIRKHAM: They’re fragile partly because they’re ancient semi-natural woodland, which you can’t replace. It’s like any heritage thing, once it’s gone, it’s

gone. But as you can see, there’s actually not a lot of them on that stretch. They’re on the slope and because of that, they’re very prominent. You probably saw that in the photographs, but they’re no t a lot o f the m. It’s not like you only – you’re only nibbling at the edge of it; HS2 keeps cutting through these fragments that are left. That’s why I say that.

195. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1183(19), irreparable harm to the historical woodland which defines the character of the Chiltern Hills, and you have identified direct and indirect impact on seven prominent woodlands, removal of 18 hectares of woodland, sequential damage along the whole surface route and exposure of woodland edges, rendering them vulnerable through windblow, to further losses.

196. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, that’s right, yes.

197. MR STRAKER QC: And then you’ve got some examples in your pictures, 1183(20) please.

198. MRS KIRK HAM: That is actually taken right where the new route would go. It’s a beautiful bit of woodland, bluebells in at the time I was there. Second o ne is Jone’s Hill Wood, we looked at that earlier, which I showed you the left hand end of it gets sliced through. There are both ancient semi-natural woodland.

199. MR STRAK ER QC: And then we go over to 1183(21), S ib ley’s Coppice and Farthings Wood?

200. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, Sibley’s Coppice, where you are standing is on a public right of way, it – that doesn’t get affected but you will see the new route through those trees, it’s not – if you stood there you’d see it. May not, obviously, the photograph is small. The same as Farthings Wood, that’s where – after it’s le ft the portal, it comes through Farthings Wood.

201. MR STRAK ER QC: Thank you. Well, one of the other special qualities you identified was recreational value, you refer to the management plan, visitors enjoying over 2,000 km of public rights of way and 1183(23), you show many of the routes being of national and regional importance and all of high recreational value.

202. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

203. MR STRAKER QC: I think you’ve also shown the line of HS2 cutting across at least some of them.

204. MRS KIRKHAM: I have, that’s right yes. So I would particularly note, because I notice HS2 perhaps slightly underestimate it, is there are several national and regional trails and Sustrans route, and another cycle route, which would be affected in addition to all the little local footpaths. And they are affected either directly or indirectly but where their view is being affected.

205. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then 1183(24), you ask the question about how will those recreational routes being affected by the surface route.

206. MRS KIRKHAM: This goes back to my point. It’s really noticeable, which you would have got a flavour of. If you walk up and down the valley, there’s extensive network, where you will keep seeing parts of the new HS2 surface route and because people have memories, they will remember seeing it, a sequential exercise. Some very valued views from footpaths will be lost. I have an illustration coming up of that, and obviously, several are almost severed or diverted, so they won’t be quite as enjoyable, so instead of being lost in a lovely dry valley, or of a hill, you suddenly have to cross the railway line.

207. MR S TRAK ER QC: And then 25, please? The scenic beauty, you draw attention to the fact it’s enjoyed by a high number of people, both local and visitors. And the views being wonderfully varied and sequential. And we can pass, I think then, to 26, where we get into some illustrative photographs, don’t we? 26 being of the Hale?

208. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. It’s from the east of the route. Hale is just a, sort of, get your focus in. And you can see the location of the S mall Dean viaducts, right down at the bottom there, you see that there is a building there? It’s behind that building. And then there’s, that’s a good example of where you see it and then it disappears; because you can see the line and it goes behind the woodland to the left, but obviously, you’re still looking at part of it, even though you can’t see all of it.

209. MR STRAK ER QC: And that’s the proposal. And then we get to 1183(27), please? And we see the proposed railway with the line drawn.

210. MRS KIRKHAM: This is from the Chiltern rail trail which is also a cycle route, which is the location of the Wendover Dean viaduct crossing, roughly where that line is, over the top of the valley.

211. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1183(28)?

212. MRS KIRKHAM: 28 is the view I was telling you about earlier, where the existing footpath has got this lovely view across the valley to the woodland and the other side. That just disappears. Because, as you can see, the spot where I took the photograph from is in a cutting and the footpath is closed.

213. MR STRAKER QC: 29.

214. MRS KIRK HAM: 29 is back at Hyde Farm, near Hyde Lane, we’re here where you’re looking at actually one of the more intimate spaces. We’ve got lots of big open spaces, but, this is actually a really nice view as you cross through a dry valley, which will be completely damaged by the works that are going on in that space which you can see in the little illustration.

215. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then we come to tranquillity, 30, another particular quality. You refer to the management plan. And you draw attention in 1184(1) to extracts from the Buckinghamshire Landscape Character Assessment, a similar plan to ones we’ve seen before, drawing attention to certain particular features.

216. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. In the landscape character assessments, they look at each aspect, whether it’s woodlands or tranquillity. So, these are quotations that reinforce the fact that actually the route that the surface route is taking is actually noted for its tranquillity. I would say obviously when you get down to Wendover and you’ve got the railway line on a road and major, small and the larger settlement, it’s obviously less. I acknowledge that. But, when you get away from all that, up into the slopes, you’re actually in a very pleasant, tranquil landscape.

217. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. Then 1184(2), please?

218. MRS KIRKHAM: The main point of this is actually to show you that although they put the HS2 into a tunnel for the eastern end, it’s actually less tranquil. As you can see from that. There’s much more sense of bright lights and intrusion. The first one

covers things like the effect of roads and railway lines and stuff. So, there’s no logic, on a tranquillity argument, for saying, actually, no, it doesn’t matter if we do it on a surface route for the section that we’re concerned about.

219. MR STRAKER QC: Very well then, 1183 −

220. MR HENDRICK : This concept is quite a new thing for me. Could you explain the two d ia gr a ms?

221. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

222. MR HENDRICK : This concept of tranquillity is quite a new thing for me, obviously, being a new member of the Committee. Could you explain the diagram on the right?

223. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. The diagram on the right is on dark skies, so you’re looking at the effect of mostly town lighting and what those bits of the landscape are less affected. So, the darker black or blue, it means it’s a darker sky, and the orangey, yellowy bits are where your settlements are.

224. MR HENDRICK: Right.

225. MRS KIRKHAM: And then because it is very pixelated, you can see it. They do it by square kilometres, so, that actually, if there’s a settlement in half of that square kilometre it will go up. If it’s less, it will go down. So, that’s what it’s showing there.

226. MR HENDRICK: So, on the left and it’s a daytime view, on the right it’s a night time view?

227. MRS KIRK HAM: Sorry?

228. MR HENDRICK: On the left it’s a daytime view? On the right it’s a night time view?

229. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s more or less right.

230. MR HENDRICK: Okay.

231. MRS KIRKHAM: And on the tranquillity one it takes into account visual

intrusion from urban elements and it takes into account noise. That’s the two together.

232. CHAIR: There are no lights on the railway either.

233. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1184(3), please? You mentioned the importance of tranquillity in the AONB, recognised by HS2 as a special quality of the valley sides and the plateau. National Equality seeks to identify and protect areas of tranquillity prized for their recreational and amenity value. 1184(4), you ask how the surface route affect tranquillity and you describe construction and operational infrastructure being intrusive. The route cutting through a typically tranquil section and only a short section at Wendover is already affected by major infrastructure, where any surviving sense of tranquillity, as in Small Dean Lane or Bacombe Lane will be lost.

234. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. Could I add something to that?

235. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

236. MRS KIRKHAM: HS2 seem to argue that because there are other bits of the area that are more tranquil than a little bit, it doesn’t matter so much here what happens. But, I don’t think that’s quite the right way of looking at it. The Chilterns are noted for the tranquillity. And it needs to be protected and enhanced as much as any other aspect of the AONB and you don’t want to make it worse. And it’s undoubtable that HS2 must make it worse. It’s noisy. It’s got visual intrusion. And it’s completely changing the type and qualities of the landscape and your enjoyment of it. And, so I don’t, to compare it with somewhere else in the area, I don’t think it is the right approach.

237. MR HENDRICK: Could I ask what the general definition of tranquillity is?

238. MRS KIRKHAM: The general definition is somewhere where you’re away from the urban intrusion, the visually intruding elements, that is Natural England’s definition of it. So it’s busy roads and busy railway lines and something like a waste energy incinerator, something, that kind of thing. It’s generally not described as a peaceful thing to look at. It’s visibly intrusive. It’s very urban. And when you go to parts of The Chilterns, the nicest thing about it is despite the fact that all around you are settlements, you get right away from it. You’re in a place where it’s just a lovely rural landscape. There is very little visual intrusion or noise intrusion, except for the cars the gentleman

mentioned.

239. MR HENDRICK: Could I ask, I mean originally, obviously, there was no road and there was no railway, and, obviously, for the moment, there’s certainly no HS2 line. A road, which is full of traffic, that noise, I would have thought, during peak hours, at least, was be fairly constant. Similarly, with an old fashioned railway line with rickety trains. I don’t know how modern the trains are. The trains would be relatively slow compared to the HS2 and therefore there’d be a much longer period, if a train’s travelling at 70, 80, 90 miles an hour, you could hear the train for quite some time. With a very high speed rail route, is it not the case that the train will be through so quickly that it would be far less noticeable and there for such a shorter period of time, compared to the existing road and rail routes?

240. MRS KIRK HAM: Well, the road, I would agree with you. It is a constant, soft rumble. You can hear it. There’s no doubt about it. The Chiltern Railway Line, they’re fairly short trains. And they aren’t particularly noisy in the sense that they do hear them, but, they are gone quite quickly and there’s quite big gaps between them. HS2 is noise, I am straying out of my area of expertise, because I mostly consider visual impacts, but, I understand there are obviously noise impacts from it. I think you’re probably best asking someone else.

241. CHAIR: I have to say on the visits we’ve done, We’ve stood next to a number of motorways making appalling noise and people have been saying to us we’re worried about the noise of the railway.

242. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

243. CHAIR: You know, people get used to sometimes noise levels because; and they’re worried about things they don’t know about.

244. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, I think that’s true, but, of course, with a road, it’s mo re constant. So, you do blank it out. With sudden things, whoosh is the noise, and it goes away. I think it is more intrusive. I’m speaking as a lay person now.

245. CHAIR: Alright. Let’s keep going.

246. MR STRAKER QC: I think it will be something like 18 trains an hour on HS2.

Let’s keep going them. With 1184(5), please. You’ve come to look at the physical e le ments of the proposed to surface route and their effects on the AONB. You ask yourself at 1184(6), the most harmful aspects of the surface route. And you answer that by saying extensive land take over a valued landscape; tunnel portals, viaducts, bridges, highways, cuttings and green bridges, embankments and false cuttings and track infrastructure. And then you come, at 1184(7), to the proposed mitigation measures being themselves harmful because?

247. MRS KIRKHAM: I t’s just really worrying me because a lot of the – one of the elements is noise attenuation and in order to tomb that they are either have to put a bund in or they have to put an attenuation fence, which I believe they are, well, they’re three to five metres high. Neither of which are characteristic of this rural landscape. So, you’re actually introducing, through that mitigation measure, an additional harm arising from having to build a surface route. So, that’s really why I’m critical of some of the mitigation measures. Those are the main ones. Other ones, are more sort of, like, there’s balancing ponds, they’re just not typical of this landscape. And they’re all sitting up, most of them, are sitting up by the railway line. And what there are by way of ponds are mostly down the bottom. So, you’ve got this rather uncharacteristic landscape pattern being created as result, which I don’t think, although they might mitigate drainage or mitigate noise, they actually cause a landscape impact.

248. MR HENDRICK: The 18 trains are now, is that a peak figure?

249. MR BLAIN E: It’s a planned daily figure.

250. MR HENDRICK: 18?

251. MR BLAIN E: The capacity is 18 trains an hour.

252. MR HENDRICK: O n average, over that day?

253. MR BLAIN E: Yes.

254. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: At maximum peak? Any hour during the day, I think.

255. MR BLAINE: Yes.

256. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Can I ask you – I’ve been thinking about this mitigation thing, if you’re critical about these mitigation measures, are there other mitigation measures that you can suggest that were actually better?

257. CHAIR: Besides a tunnel.

258. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: Yes, besides a tunnel.

259. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, thank you. I would prefer that. Obviously, that’s our complete default.

260. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Of course.

261. MRS KIRKHAM: And there are stages in between, obviously. So, if we can’t have a complete edge to edge tunnel, well, any more tunnel would be better than just leaving it as a surface route. But, I think your question is more, if you have a surface route, can you do more about it? I think obviously they can be some improvements. It is a lways difficult. You can’t really mitigate a cutting. And if you start trying to blend in something that’s supposed to be screening something, you start increasing the land take considerably. Because, otherwise, unless you get it really, really gentle, you’re creating this rather odd lump in the landscape that’s going. So, the landscape is going like that and you’ve got a lump doing like that. So, there obviously can be improvements. And if you don’t agree with our proposition, about an edge to edge tunnel, we will obviously work with HS2 to come to better solutions if we can. But, there are implicit difficulties because of the extra land take, the extra costs, in order to do it well. But, obviously if there are ways to improve on what we’ve got now.

262. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then if we go on to 1184(8), please? You draw attention to the consequence of putting the surface route through, drawing a very large amount of land, With the land take been 400 plus hectares, you contrast with the Chiltern tunnel land and you draw the mathematical observation that the surface route affects eight times more land in the AONB. And you show that graphically, 1184(9) and certain slides which follow, using aerial photography. And the first of which is 1184(10), where you’ve marked on it, have you, the construction land take?

263. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s right. Yes.

264. MR STRAKER QC: And the Chiltern AONB boundary has been shown?

265. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s correct. Yes. I wanted to do it on an aerial photograph so you could actually really see the pattern of the landscape. The view is often obscured by works over the top and I’ve put in labels, the actual works. The operational end of it. So, it sets the construction footprint which obviously is going to damage whatever is within those red lines. But, also helps, hopefully putting in those labels actually what they’re going to be constructing, which were permanent.

266. MR STRAKER QC: And you’ve done this over a number of, one can see, at the bottom right hand side, over a number of parcels of land, so 1184(11), you go south of Wendover.

267. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s right.

268. MR STRAK ER QC: And then 1184(12), either side of Rocky Lane. Each time one can pick out what it is that is being put on to this landscape. So, that Rocky Lane: tracking cutting, large scale raised landform. Anybody can pick out the other words. And then you’ve done the same for 1184(13), plateau at Hunts Green Farm.

269. MRS KIRK HAM: Could I say something?

270. MR STRAKER QC: Yes, please.

271. MRS KIRKHAM: Briefly about that. We’ve obviously been told that there won’t be a permanent soil placement up there. But, there will be temporary. But, I also understand there will be a bund up there, still, in order to screen the actual track. But, also the material that would have been put there, I understand it’s going to be put somewhere else to do some landscaping and I’ve no idea what that’s for. And that raises concerns, you know, is that going to have an additional impact? So, it might not be so much here now, but it might be transferred to somewhere else within the AONB. I’m afraid I couldn’t find enough information on that to comfort me that the overall impact is any lesser than having it in all one place like that. I do understand some of it can be taken away down the track, as far as I know.

272. MR STRAK ER QC: Thank you. 1184(14), one goes south and east of South Heath: tracking, cutting, raised platform, tunnel, portal, tracking cut and cover, major

new junction, there to be put in. And the next slide, number 15, at Mantles Wood, surface route works, I think, are there shown, aren’t they?

273. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

274. MR STRAKER QC: And then 16, we get to the effect of the Chiltern long tunnel, we only need one slide, this single slide of the much reduced to land take for the Chiltern long tunnel. So, what are you showing here?

275. MRS KIRKHAM: Showing here, you can see the red line is obviously the same slide 1, which showed the HS2 land take. The orange line, which I’m afraid has got buried under the red on the north side, is the Chiltern long tunnel’s land take. And obviously, if you can imagine that, all right, it’s a little, there’s some land going there, but compared with what’s happening with HS2, it’s actually very, very small.

276. MR STRAKER QC: And this happens on but one slide as opposed to six?

277. MRS KIRKHAM: Exactly. There’s nothing of any major significance happening. We will come later to the intervention gaps. I will mention that.

278. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. Well, then we come to the tunnel portal along the surface route, 17, flicking into 18. Five tunnel portals being proposed by HS2, and you identify those there, And what they will include, the bases, the portals, the portal buildings, the cuttings, the access roads and the raised green tunnels, sending in to Wendover Vale. And we get then to 19.

279. MRS KIRK HAM: Could I just add something briefly on green tunnels?

280. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

281. MRS KIRKHAM: Because they sound lovely, but actually it’s a cut and cover, it’s not a tunnel. You have to destroy what’s on the surface first. And I understand that they are trying to keep the sides tight, but, I also understand it’s possible, like they’re saying today, that you could end up with something like that, because of the geology. So, you’re actually making a huge hole and then putting in and then covering that again. And it’s full of risks. I mean you know you might find that you’ve got material that you can’t get rid of easily and you’ve got to restore the whole landscape. Some things you’ll

never get back. Like some houses. Once they’ve gone, they’ve gone. O nce you’ve taken out some woodland, it takes years to get back. So, I think it’s mis-descr ip tio n, I think. It should be called a cut and cover. I don’t doubt the landscape architects can do a nice job and in 20, 30 years’ time, you might have something nice. But, it’s a lo ng time to wait and I think all of this could be avoided with a tunnel.

282. CHAIR: So, you think people that have been pitching to us for a cut and cover tunnel, we should just turn them down?

283. MRS KIRKHAM: I would say to you, sir, that if we have to have a surface route, really it needs looking at quite carefully, because the tunnels, these green tunnels, you’ve got to have portals either end. You’ve got to have buildings at either end. And all that paraphernalia that’s going on, access roads, so, it’s not just – it’s a bit of a balancing act between saying, ‘We’ll leave it exposed’ and saying, ‘That’s a impact from that’ and actually put some plants, not having all this stuff that goes on either end of the portal. But I wouldn’t like to say just now to you – I think you have to look at the merits of each case.

284. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: As someone who’s been at this for 25 years or more. I think what we’re hearing is that the tunnel is our preference. If we don’t have a tunnel, please look at each part of the landscape and decide what’s appropriate for each part?

285. MRS KIRK HAM: I’m not saying that, no.

286. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You should be.

287. MRS KIRKHAM: No. I know. No, in answer to the question that’s put to you, for yourselves, is whether you could improve on a particular location. I mean, obviously, if you’ve got to backtrack me, if you can’t have a tunnel, what is the next solution? And that’s really what, if it comes to that, sit down with HS2 and talk to them about.

288. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: This is not what you’re talking about today with us?

289. MRS KIRK HAM: No.

290. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No.

291. MRS KIRK HAM: No.

292. MR STRAKER QC: You show on 19, Mantles Wood, as an example of damage to the landscape and you pick out certain matters there. I suspect we can pass on, can we, to 20?

293. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, please.

294. MR STRAK ER QC: Where you draw attention to the fact only one tunnel portal is needed in The Chilterns long tunnel. That’s because the other ones already there. This has additional locational benefits you draw attention to, proximity to the A413 and B4009, Ashley Road junction, advantage of additional tree screening at the junctions. And then the consequence of an edge to edge tunnel, AONB 1184(21).

295. MRS KIRKHAM: This is because of the design that’s been worked out by Peter Brett, and the position, I’m sure he’s explained to you already, where it comes out of the ground. So, that all those additional elements that make the surface route so we object to it so much, are avoided, so you don’t get these exposed tunnel faces. You don’t get the need for this large, intrusive – it can be designed less intrusive.

296. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I t co me s o ut a t a s lop e.

297. MRS KIRKHAM: It comes up, I think, yes, it does. There’s a little drawing, I think, that you’ve already seen, haven’t you? And also, nicely, because it’s right down by that junction, which is already damaged slightly by roads and it has tree cover down there, its overall impact is much more limited. And we’ve looked from very sensitive views up on the escarpment, you’ll use it much better than the HS2’s version.

298. MR STRAK ER QC: And then 22, please? You then get to discuss the viaducts within the AONB. You draw attention to the major landscape consequence and visual impact, raised concrete structures, and totalling, I think that should be one kilometre within just two

299. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, sorry.

300. MR STRAK ER QC: Or three kilometres. 12 to 16 metres above the valleys and four embankments leading on to viaducts, up to 9.8 to 11.5 metres high and we get to

23, where we see the viaduct at Wendover Dean.

301. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s by way of illustrations, so you can see the viaduct itself. But, also how it has to have these embankments to kick up from and then of course it keeps on cutting between. So, it’s not just a simple, elegant viaduct you’ve got, because of the topography, you keep on having to have a point that you bounce off from, so to speak. And my photograph is at −

302. MR STRAKER QC: 1184(24), please.

303. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. That’s my best attempts to. But, you have actually seen I understand just the photo montage from HS2 showing that viaduct going through there. To give you some idea of what it looks like.

304. MR STRAKER QC: And then we have a contrasting picture, 1184(25), which has the intervention gap marked, if it comes to be needed.

305. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

306. MR STRAKER QC: The white line, otherwise one has just simply a tunnel.

307. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And that would presumably be in a cutting, would it?

308. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

309. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Or is it in surface?

310. MRS KIRK HAM: It’s in cutting.

311. MR BLAIN E: Partial cutting.

312. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Par tia l.

313. MRS KIRK HAM: Partial cutting. But it’s down on the valley floor.

314. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, I appreciate that.

315. MRS KIRKHAM: I didn’t know if you could tell from my little drawing. But, yes, I’ve tried to get that to scale.

316. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes.

317. MRS KIRK HAM: But, yes, there’s nothing else. It will just be that.

318. : And roughly how far away is the place of the camera to the possible intervention gap? About a mile, a mile and a half?

319. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, it’s about that. Less than that I think. I’m not very good at, about a kilometre?

320. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay.

321. MRS KIRK HAM: I can always find out for you, if you wish.

322. MR STRAKER QC: Anyway, if we move from 25, please, to 26? You here go back to the HS2 scheme and refer to the ancillary infrastructure. Thirteen new road and footbridges; modern standards, damaging character and appearance; elevated structures steel parapets; high embankments. And you have at 27 and over bridge design taken from HS1. And then we go to 28, two over bridges at Hyde Farm as shown in the HS2 plans.

323. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. Those two actually illustrate what we saw in that view, where you were looking back, up to Hyde Lane, earlier on.

324. MR STRAK ER QC: And then we come to 29, please? You here refer to the new highways and the junctions in the landscape having a major landscape and visual impact. New roundabout and major diversion for Chesham Road, altering its historic alignment. Urbanising the open landscape. Diversion of ancient sunken lanes. You give examples. Major highway changes at Ashley Road. Highly visible from the escarpment

325. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. That’s because in the HS2 scheme there are road changes down at that junction which we’re suggesting you could do better; in conjunction with constructing the portal, the long tunnel portal.

326. MR STRAKER QC: Well, then we go through some examples of these, don’t we? 30, which is Chesham Road, the historic route of that, being altered. The road alignment is lost. We can see the red dash, on 1184(30)?

327. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. That seems to be a, something has got in there twice.

328. MR STRAKER QC: And 1185(1) is the same one, again.

329. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. So, the green areas is the open landscape, the plateau. And the dotted red line is the current alignment of Chesham Road, which is, although it is a little busier, it is actually on an old ancient route. As is the road in the bottom of the valley actually. It’s an old route. It has just obviously been modernised. And, so that is what’s there, to illustrate. And you can obviously see the highway junction infrastructure there, quite clearly.

330. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you. And then 1185(2). You turn to cut and cover, the green tunnels. And suggest that there will be major harm to the landscape. You give some numbers. 6.2 kilometres of cuttings, 2.4 kilometres to cut and cover. Deep cuttings, 25.2 metres deep. Average depth, 10 metres. Wide land take, up to 12 metres wide, possibly greater. Surface features being removed, including houses, fields, hedgerows, woodland, road networks, with the materials stored in the landscape. And you give at 1185-3, a typical exposed cutting of HS 1.

331. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s correct.

332. MR STRAKER QC: 1185(4).

333. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Ah, we went there didn’t we?

334. CHAIR: Yes.

335. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’ve got to walk down a footpath that goes nowhere to see that view, don’t you?

336. MR STRAKER QC: 1185(3), sir, we’re talking about.

337. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Indeed. If you stand above the railway, which I think we did as well, I don’t think we noticed very much. I think we had to walk down a path.

338. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. This one came from the Conservation Board, actually.

339. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes. I think we get along quite well. And I think

the reason it was covered over was to make life better for people.

340. MRS KIRK HAM: It’s a form of mitigation, but, obviously.

341. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But, the experience of a typical exposed cutting is not from where you go into a fitted bored or a weed tunnel, probably bored. It’s actually, it’s there to actually protect people who are nearby. I think you have to, I’m sure you have to go from an amble to −

342. MRS KIRKHAM: This is one of the problems with trying to, conflict between trying to mitigate the impacts on people and −

343. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we might pass on to the next one.

344. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

345. MR STRAK ER QC: 1185(4). You talk of the further infrastructure which damages the landscape from the green tunnels, then you draw attention to raised land forms, a gap in the residential terrace along Ellesborough Road, grassed mounding over the tunnel exits, loss of agricultural fields to mitigation planting at South Heath and modern, new road networks. And 1185-5, you give an example of that, don’t you?

346. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

347. MR STRAKER QC: West of former Annie Bailey’s public house.

348. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, that’s right, which is just east of, so, you can see there, each one of the numbers is in the key and it’s just to indicate to you the works that are required to go, as I described earlier, in order to go into a green tunnel.

349. MR STRAKER QC: 1185-6. We’re talking here of embankments and false cuttings having damaging effects. 1.78 kms of embankments and false cuttings. Raised linear features, land raising over large areas and infilling of natural valleys. And your example here, I think, is Hartley Farm, 1185(7). Is that right?

350. MRS KIRKHAM: That is one example, yes. That is taken from the footpath. It’s going to be slightly diverted over the land that’s going to be raised on to the very large area. So, you’ve got the railway line in a very shallow cut and then it’s just surrounded

by this raised land fall. And, of course, you will lose that view, completely. You’d lo se the view of the hillside opposite.

351. MR STRAKER QC: 1185(8). The infrastructure being intrusive, out of keeping, including the track bed and rails, the fencing, the galvanised steel gantries, the mobile mast, the lighting, the dark landscape, the acoustic barriers. And you’ve got some photographs, 1185(9), HS1.

352. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s correct. Yes.

353. MR STRAKER QC: And the mitigation measures, 1185(10). Unacceptable harm to the AONB through, and then you draw attention to some visual and acoustic measures, through land raising and bunding and you give examples, noise barriers, unsympathetic planting and balancing ponds.

354. MRS KIRK HAM: Could I expand?

355. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. Please.

356. MRS KIRKHAM: On the third one. Because you’re probably puzzled a bit by why I think planting might not be suitable. But, you can see the planting patterns in that part of the AONB. And what they are actually they’re proposing and it’s almost inevitable, if you want to screen it, is basic linear planting, which will actually follow the line of the railway line. It’s broken up a bit. So, that in itself draws attention to the s ite – it’s hidden by it, but, also though, unfortunately, in order to hide some of these things, they’re now putting planting in, or HS2 are planting it, where there wouldn’t normally be planting. O ne example of that is of open, dry valleys. It’s really distinctive in the Chilterns. And if you start filling them with trees you lose a bit of the special quality and this is happening in one or two places along the route. So, it’s that kind of planting which doesn’t respond to the character, that I’m c r itica l o f.

357. CHAIR: Can I ask, if we don’t go for a tunnel and we have petitioners from Buckinghamshire asking for more noise barriers, it’s the view of the County and the local authorities that we should turn them down for noise barriers? I mean you represent, you’re talking on behalf of the local authorities?

358. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. I’m talking on behalf of the tunnel, at the moment.

Obviously, if that fails, I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t like to comment on anything outside AONB at the moment, because we may be back to discuss non-tunnel issues, but, if you didn’t want the tunnel and somebody wants a higher barrier, it’s actually, to me, that just means, it’s a morbid argument. We should have the tunnel. But, it’s a real problem because you can, as you can see, there’s examples there. They are not attractive feature. And it just tells you that that train’s in the wrong place, if you have to produce something like that.

359. CHAIR: Can I get this clear? You are a witness on behalf of Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury and the other authorities?

360. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

361. CHAIR: And you’ve been saying to us you don’t like green tunnels, the cut and cover tunnels, and you don’t like noise barriers, and you don’t like bunds to screen the railway.

362. MRS KIRKHAM: I’m not quite saying that. What I’m saying is, you have to have regard to the fact that those very elements cause harm in themselves, if you see what I mean.

363. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think it’s quite clear that what you’re saying to us with your experience, which is sufficient for the Secretary of State to have nominated you to the AONB Board. We know you have merits.

364. MRS KIRK HAM: I’ve been around, yes. Yes, I have.

365. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But a tunnel would mean you wouldn’t have to make decisions about green tunnels or bunding or screening.

366. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, that’s correct.

367. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think that’s understandable. What I’m wondering is if at the time that you were starting your career, when Blenheim was given World Heritage status on the grounds that nearly 300 years before, Lancelot Brown had totally redone the landscape there, would you have said, ‘Mr Brown, don’t do this. Don’t change the natural environment?’ or would you have said, ‘This is magnificent. In 300

years’ time, you’ll get World Heritage status’?

368. MRS KIRKHAM: But they are not the same, are they, at all? Because Capability Brown wasn’t putting in a major piece of railway infrastructure. He was putting in an alternative landscape design to replace one that was there before.

369. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : He was cutting down a lot of trees.

370. MRS KIRK HAM: And he did cut down a lot of trees.

371. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And building bridges and putting in false landscapes and ponds.

372. MRS KIRKHAM: He was trading one form of beauty for another, I would argue in a case like that, which I’m afraid I just don’t see that with HS2.

373. MR HENDRICK: Are you going for one tunnel all the way through? Are you not pushing for an option which actually isn’t the option from the three options that Mr. Straker was making earlier?

374. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. Sir, I think it is one of those options because all those options all go all the way through effectively, of the AONB.

375. MR HENDRICK: It is one of those options but it’s not your preferred option?

376. MR STRAKER QC: Well, The preferred option, sir, insofar as there is a preferred, comes up just inside the edge of the AONB. So, it is effectively edge to edge.

377. MRS KIRKHAM: They’ve tried to push it as far as possible to a point where it is vital. I think it’s about 20 hectares is in the AONB, something like that.

378. MR HENDRICK: Right.

379. MRS KIRKHAM: Mr Blaine will confirm that. But, can I answer what your question is about, what if? We’re hoping that there will be more discussions with HS2 to get better mitigation.

380. CHAIR: But you’re against all the mitigation.

381. MRS KIRK HAM: Sorry?

382. CHAIR: You’ve been telling us, you’re against bunds, you’re against noise barriers, you’re against any change in the environment, most of which is mitigation.

383. MRS KIRKHAM: No, what I’m saying is because this route fits so ill well into the landscape, you have to introduce these elements, that in themselves become intrusive. I’m not against bunding, per se. And it is a matter of finding the least impact. So, you start with the best, an edge to edge tunnel. And then you go down the options from there. And that’s I hope what we will be able to do.

384. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I t’s a hierarchy.

385. MRS KIRKHAM: It’s a hierarchy. Exactly, sir. And the last thing is probably, right at the bottom, it’s a bit of tree planting.

386. CHAIR: Right. Let’s keep going.

387. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I just say? So, what you’re really saying, is you’d like a tunnel all the way through, and, if you fail, you’ll negotiate on that later?

388. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes.

389. MR STRAK ER QC: Then we go to 11. 1185(11). You ask why the cutting, soil placement and bunding, why are they so harmful? And you draw attention to the surface route being the equivalent of a major extraction project. Disposal of soils being a major land raising exercise and how that’s very harmful to the special topographical qualities of the AONB. And you’ve seen some figures earlier today in terms of what is dug out. Then you come, 1185(12), to the proposed planting mitigation measures being unacceptable. The emphasis on the linear nature of HS2. The obscuring characteristic of the natural features, they obscure the natural features, including proposals to infill open agricultural dry valleys, blocking views. Not reflecting local landscape character. And can’t replace the centuries old woodland and hedgerow alignments. And you give one example, 1185(13), please?

390. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. That’s the thing I was referring to before, it’s where they’ve got a mass tree plantings proposed in this view. I accept the fact, that I’ve

already said to you, that view will disappear any way, but, say, the route alignment did n’t do that. But, by putting in all the planting in there, you end up, you lose that kind of view all together. So, the impact on that footpath is partly from the route, the infrastructure itself, and partly from the mitigation planting. In that particularly, actually, I think it’s going to be exposed more or less, anyway. There’s some illustrations from HS2 that show the trees.

391. MR STRAKER QC: 1185(14). You ask about the proposed drainage mitigation measures and whether they are also unacceptable. Why are they also unacceptable? And you draw attention to the mainly dry holes or the canals in the landscape due to the natural porosity of the chalk, potential for wet, ecological mitigation plans limited at best. Ponds not a defining feature of a chalk land landscape. Ponds found on the valley floor, not on the upper and middle slopes as proposed. Often engineered and fenced, not natural. Further extraction of soil materials and a further soil disposal and you give an example, west of Rocky Lane, 1185(15), please.

392. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes, that’s a photograph taken from the edge of the existing road there. Not the road you can see on the little diagram. And they’ve got this little canal like structure going down the side of the railway line, which you can imagine we don’t have, that sort of thing doesn’t happen in the Chilterns here. It will be dry, I understand, as well, from speaking to the HS2 engineers.

393. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1185(16). The noise barriers. Three incongruous, three to five metres high, not in keeping with the beauty of the AONB. Blocking off views. And 1185(17). Found illustratively in three locations where they increase the visual impact. Full length of viaduct. Top of embankments, next to open fields and Wendover Vale, and you give examples, 1185(18).

394. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. A blow-up of the aerial photograph.

395. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1185(19), you turn to change to the pylon line, removal of four, replacement with five new and higher ones, not conserving or enhance and the photograph from HS2 map book, page CFA10, shows existing scene from Bacombe Lane. Yes?

396. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. That’s right.

397. MR STRAKER QC: And then you’ve got a photo montage, 1185(20). And then you summarise, 1185(21), damaging elements of the surface route.

398. MRS KIRK HAM: Could I just say something?

399. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

400. MRS KIRKHAM: About the pylons, because they are diverted, part of the line, and obviously they’re not a very attractive thing. And we find, which I didn’t realise before, that they are, the replacement ones, are all higher than the existing ones, so, as a result of this route, we’ve actually got higher, and more pylons going into the Chiltern switch. It actually exacerbates the harm. But, also you can see a portal, tunnel portal also in that photograph, that photo montage.

401. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We don’t know that that’s what the portal is going to look like.

402. MRS KIRK HAM: Right.

403. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We don’t know that that is what the portal is going to look like.

404. MRS KIRK HAM: That’s what HS2 have illustrated it as

405. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I know. But still I don’t think it is a design fault. That’s my guess. And we also don’t, I think, know, whether we have any influence or whether HS2 have any influence on whether the pylons which come in will be the new modern slenderer ones or whether they’re going to be these great big World War II radar type things.

406. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I don’t know what influence we have on that. And I’ll see if we can get you an answer for Wednesday.

407. MR STRAK ER QC: 1186(1). You summarise damaging elements, huge footprint, extensive loss of landscape features, permanent losses to the landscape, severance, intrusiveness, engineered infrastructure out of keeping, new road networks, land raising, unsympathetic and intrusive noise attenuation and screening solutions, unsympathetic and incongruous planting and drainage solutions. And you summarise

the harm to The Chilterns AONB in the following slide 2: Landscape impact, visually intrusive and incongruous. And 1186(3): How will the C hilterns long tunnel avoid these severe effects and conserve and enhance the Chilterns AONB. You ask that question and then you come to answer it, do you, at 1186(4)?

408. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes. I do. I tried to supply something that is the best fit for the AONB. And what is a proper landscape led solution. In other words, you look at and value that landscape and this is of the highest value and the value of its assets and come up with a solution that matches that value that is attached to the landscape. So, that is why I say that the Chiltern long tunnel is a landscape led solution. It minimises the impacts. There are some. We don’t deny that. But, it minimises them and it greatly reduces the land take.

409. MR STRAK ER QC: And then 1186(5), Benefits. No spoil disposal, no new higher infrastructure, diversions or redesign of the ancient route ways and footpaths, no noise attenuation measures needed. And then you draw attention to landscape and visual benefits of the Chiltern long tunnel. Are there any landscape and visual impacts? Yes. But, very limited, you say. 1186(7) draws attention to those, does it?

410. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. We have extra vent shafts. And the illustration there is from the little Missenden one, which is one of ours and we have some extra, three of them. There, as you can see, from that, the design, they’re fairly localised impacts, in landscape and visual terms. So, we acknowledge these, but compared with the surface route, these are very localised impacts.

411. MR STRAKER QC: And then we go please to 1186(8).

412. MRS KIRKHAM: Here is the intervention gap, of which we saw the little line on the photograph, which is down the valley bottom. I understand from that has to be 900 long to accommodate the portals and the train. And you can see an access route. So, we are seeing there is some cutting and there will be some mitigation needed. But, because of its location right down on the road, because it’s right in the valley bottom, it will be very easy to mitigate, without creating incongruous features.

413. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. We’ve just got to pause here because 1186(8), is tha t talking about the underground firefighting feature?

414. MRS KIRK HAM: No. Oh, it is. Sorry. I’m getting confused.

415. MR STRAKER QC: And then it’s 1186(9), which draws attention to the ground intervention gap.

416. MRS KIRKHAM: Yes. I am sorry about that. Yes, that’s correct. So, the first example, obviously it will be basically cut and then covered. This one of course it’s open, it remains open with cutting is shown in the drawings.

417. MR STRAKER QC: And we’ve seen a photograph?

418. MR STRAKER QC: 1186(10). The Chilton northern tunnel portal effective solution in landscape terms and we’ve touched upon this matter before. No need for incongruous and visually intrusive long raised mound, tied in nicely to the existing infrastructure, takes advantage of tree planting which is existing and a much shorter section of landform needs to be modified with cuttings and embankments. And you’ve got so me ‘a lso ’ points here. 1186(11). Open agricultural vale, landscape undisturbed, existing views only temporarily affected, landscape will return to as much as it looks today.

419. And then 12, please? Avoidance of many landscape risks and uncertainties. So, here, we’ve avoided the need to navigate the varied undulating topography, no need for large prominent structures. No additional major landtake. Only a small amount of screen planting needed. No need for higher or bigger soil mounds. 1186(13). No major additional roadworks. No need for time and money in delivering long term manageme nt of the new landscape. No risk of unforeseen indirect effects, such as wind blow, de- watering or contamination.

420. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes.

421. MR STRAK ER QC: And we also have 1186(14). No risk of failed establishment of translocated ancient semi-natural woodland. No need for more or higher noise attenuation barriers or extensive drainage systems. And you then come to your conclusions. And I suspect we can take these, can we, at reasonable pace?

422. MRS KIRK HAM: Well, unless anybody needs to explain anymore?

423. MR STRAKER QC: And so we can just see there that you’ve described how sensitive it is. High. The magnitude of change is major adverse. Combination of high sensitivity. Major significant adverse. Surface route doesn’t comply with national policy and you give reasons why not. And you then summarise the case for the long tunnel. All parts of the AONB, equal national value. Can ensure that HS2 doesn’t result in a major adverse impact.

424. MRS KIRK HAM: 22 is obviously something we would like to be, at this stage.

425. MR STRAK ER QC: Yes. There you draw attention to it can’t be re-considered later at the detailed or construction stage. The decision has to be made now to protect the AONB. And I don’t think we need do with, to travel through the balance of those slides?

426. MRS KIRK HAM: Because they just summarise.

427. MR STRAK ER QC: And absent anything else you want to draw out from your slides, those are your slides.

428. MRS KIRK HAM: Yes, they are.

429. MRS KIRK HAM: Thank you very much.

430. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you very much.

431. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Can I ask a question before you finish? We clearly have a very difficult decision to make on this. If, on a scale of 1 to 10 – if you can’t have the tunnel and on a scale of 1 to 10 the mitigation measures at the moment are 10 – i.e. dreadful –1 being the best you could possibly get to. If you had a generous HS2, giving you the sort of land mitigation measures you want to do, where do you think, as an expert landscape architect, you would get to, on that scale?

432. MRS KIRKHAM: That’s a very hard question. It’s very difficult. How would you do it, if you wanted to get the best solution? Is that?

433. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Without a tunnel.

434. MRS KIRKHAM: Without the tunnel. I think we’ve got a problem here, that

you, there are some things that are unmitigable, if that’s the right word. You’ve got to live with them.

435. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mitigate.

436. MRS KIRKHAM: Cannot be mitigated. And if the alternative is what you’ve got now, we might get down to 6 or 7 or something. Because it’s such a big project. There’s a point where you can’t hide it. You can’t blend it in.

437. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Thank you.

438. MRS KIRK HAM: Thank you very much, sir. I’m sorry.

439. MR HENDRICK: A final question. Obviously, you’ve made a very good case because of the natural beauty that you wouldn’t want any development to adulterate that. So, there’s clearly a case for maintaining the landscape and everything that’s there, but, at the same time, speaking in particular to yourself, Mr Straker, you’ve valued the land and the non-market effects at something like 510 million pounds, which clearly if you weigh that against the other costs, actually makes it look as almost as if it’s a cheaper option, which is actually very counter-intuitive. Anybody thinking that a tunnel is cheaper than going overland would obviously argue otherwise. If that is the case, why, in the past, for example, are there not a much wider use of tunnels rather than going overland like trains generally do?

440. MR STRAK ER QC: Well, I suspect, sir, that the use of tunnels has probably been more extensive than one might suppose because if one thinks of London as a place where there has been very substantial tunnelling. It’s done for a different reason, of course, in London, but, it’s done because a value is being weighed up in terms of what choice do we actually make. And the character of the case being put by the petitioners, touching back on your observation, it’s counter-intuitive to suppose that building a tunnel ends up cheaper than putting it at surface level, is to say, when one makes the contrast one needs to do it on an even handed basis, to bring in all these ingredients, and if one then goes out of London, and thinks where one may have put something at surface level before, over attractive ground, one might have thought before, oh, well, we don’t need to worry too much about that because it’s just pounds and pence that, the cost of the compensation, rather than thinking, this land has got some intrinsic value,

let’s weigh it all up and think what the true cost to the country is going to be in terms of tunnel or no tunnel. And that’s what we’re really asking. And that’s what the Department of Transport are, in their own way, suggesting in their mechanism of saying, if you take the infinite value of this, in terms of how they’ve done that, then this is how it should be recorded, and you leave then your balancing exercise to say, well, let’s look at the numbers. Let’s look at these qualities and we arrive at a view that actually, tunnelling, in terms of preservation of national assets, is a better course to take than anything else. Because we are talking here about something which is a national asset, the area of natural beauty.

441. MR HENDRICK: I think case in the big cities, there’s very little choice. Most big cities in the world will have, if they’ve not already got one, an underground one because of the capacity problems in terms of moving people around. But, outside of the big cities it’s not a straightforward.

442. MR STRAK ER QC: No. That’s absolutely right, sir. Of course, it is not as straightforward outside the cities because it is one’s mind set, if you like, inside the cities one immediately realises, well, where does this balance lie? We can’t just put a railway to go along the Victoria Embankment. It’s got to go underneath the Victoria Embankment. We can’t just put the Northern Line to High Barnet all the way to grade. We’ve got to put it in tunnel because of all the things that otherwise it would damage and so instantly one sees the balance and it’s here, when one gets out of the large conurbations, that one has to think about the balancing effect and what does one bring into the balance. And here the big, big, big question for this Committee is how does one assign some sort of value to something which Parliament has given a label to, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and has said it’s very particular and has said you can have a Conservation Board in these very particular areas, how do we give a value to that in reaching a view between two sincerely held views? One is, we’d like to build a railway, please, and we don’t want to spend too much upon it. And the other is we don’t mind you building a railway but we would like you to build it in a way which accommodates this national treasure, the Area of O utstanding Natural Beauty.

443. CHAIR: Okay. Mr. Mould?

444. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m going to ask Mr. Miller to respond on these matters

on Wednesday.

445. CHAIR: Okay. S hall we move on to Catherine Murray?

446. MR STRAKER QC: Yes, sir. If you’d wish to do so, sir.

447. CHAIR: It’s still daylight.

448. MR STRAKER QC: Ca ther ine Murray, please. And this is 1187(1), please – Heritage. And 1187(2). I think we see, do we, Ms Murray, your qualifications come up on the screen? Or they will come up on the screen in a moment. 1187(2).

449. MS MURRAY: I think with regard to qualifications, I’d just like to say, I’ve been in my post for 14 years now, so, I know my area quite well. I’m very fond of it obviously, and I think I’ve come to understand a lot of the quirks that you can see from it.

450. MR STRAKER QC: Good.

451. CHAIR: Do you live in it yourself?

452. MS MURRAY: No, I don’t.

453. CHAIR: I wonder whether a local authority officer could afford to live in the Chilterns?

454. MR STRAKER QC: Well, We get to 1187(3) where you ask the request, Please, can we go in a tunnel? And you record at 1187(4), some heritage assets badly harmed by the surface route. And so if you can just pick out some of those, please?

455. MS MURRAY: Yes. My role at Chiltern is to deal with buildings. So, I’m mostly concerned here to look after buildings. But one of the things I want to do is draw out how buildings are just part of the historic pattern of the past of the landscape. So, here I have labelled all the ones that are within absolutely close, next to the route, or perhaps up to within 2 to 300 yards of it. My biggest concerns are the listed buildings up Hyde End. The Little Cottage at 86 King’s Lane. Berry Farm is slightly less affected but still only 200 yards away from the portal and green tunnel. The fate of some unlisted, but historic, little cottages along Potter Road, which I’ll point out later on.

Right on the road and ready to be jiggled by all the construction lorries. And then to draw on later, Leather Lane. I can’t reach your screen to – Leather Lane is just this little lane coming down here. There. Hunts Green Farm at the end, which is subject to have all the sustainable placement. Grim’s Ditch we’ve heard about. Those are the ones that I think are just a few of the ones to concentrate on.

456. MR STRAKER QC: Okay. Well, then, 1187(5), you ask the question, why should harm to heritage assets be avoided, and the answer you come up with is because Parliament actually requires that that should be so.

457. MS MURRAY: Yes, it is. It’s this reference to the special desirability o f preserving the listed building or its setting in the Act which goes back to 1947 and has been reiterated in various forms. The last one being the 1990 Act. And the aims of the Act are then substantiated in national policy.

458. MR STRAKER QC: 1187(6).

459. MS MURRAY: With the National Planning Policy Framework, the main gist of Chapter 12 being conserving and enhancing the historic environment. This is where it brings in all those other features: not just the listed buildings, but those aspects of the landscape that show how human beings have interacted with the landscape in the past.

460. MR STRAKER QC: And then in the next slide, 1187(7), you ask once again, ‘Why preserve?’, and you record the importance of heritage to people; the irreparable resource, the rarity of heritage, and the threat which comes about through neglect, decay, alteration, development, erosion, and so forth.

461. MS MURRAY: Yes.

462. MR STRAKER QC: In 1187(8), in order to preserve –

463. MS MURRAY: Yes. This is really to draw the point out that there is a sort of parallel here. I spend my life at work looking after listed buildings in the public interest. I’m part of the checking mechanism that says, ‘Is this really a good thing?’ when people come up with proposals for alteration. We’ve got the Act there, we’ve got the policies, and I’m familiar with them because I’m the one who says, ‘Is this really a good idea? Is there a better way of doing it? Can we find another result that’s not quite so harmful?’

And really to make the point that all the people who’ve been living in the listed buildings in this area have been subject to this sort of control. I have recommended refusal of proposals for extensions to buildings at Hyde Farm, for instance. I haven’t thought that it was in the public good to put a large back wing, for instance, on the back of this 16th-century farmhouse, because it makes it look out of scale, and people can’t appreciate it so easily. I’m asking you to do the same with HS2.

464. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Have you seen Eltham Palace?

465. MS MURRAY: No, I haven’t. I would love to.

466. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Medieval banqueting hall with an art deco house tagged onto it.

467. MS MURRAY: Yes. Things do change, but we’ve been tasked as a nation with looking after the heritage aspects. There’s always a balance; there will be alterations that add positively and take a building on into the next stage, but I don’t necessarily think that putting a major railway through an agricultural landscape is putting a positive spec on these little historic farmsteads that I’m going to be talking about.

468. MR HENDRICK: You mentioned buildings which are not listed. Could I ask what percentage of the buildings that you’re talking about are listed, and if the ones that are not listed are worth preserving, why haven’t they been listed as well? Or is there a rush to try and list them for the reasons we’re talking about?

469. MS MURRAY: There’s a grading of systems. The listing came in in 1947 and provided a mechanism for looking after a certain range. In the early 1980s, a whole load more buildings were added to the list, because it was realised that it wasn’t just the country houses, the churches, and the big fab buildings that mattered; it was the little buildings that people lived in, that they related to. Cottages and all sorts of things; phone boxes, even, pigsties and mile posts and all of these things that make up your historic surroundings. They are, in fact, perhaps even more important than the Blenheim Palaces, on occasion.

470. And so a lot of those were added onto the list. There’s been a bit of a crisis, because you could go on and on and on adding to the list, and the policy now has shifted

to say, ‘Let’s evaluate why things are significant’. ‘Significant’ is the big word in conservation: ‘Why do things really matter?’ It may be that things that aren’t listed also matter, and we should take measures to preserve them where we can. We can’t give so much importance to looking after them, because they’re not as important as the Blenheim Palaces, so you have a scale of graduation of care, really. But the NPPF allows us to look at non-listed buildings, which it terms ‘non-designated heritage assets’, and look to preserve them as part of our policies. We haven’t got many powers to do so, but we’re encouraged to present a positive attitude towards that end.

471. MR HENDRICK: And is there a push to try and list some of those buildings?

472. MS MURRAY: No. It’s suggested that we include them on a local list, and that we bear them in mind and ultimately we identify them, but we cannot carry on giving as much protection as we do for a listed building, because it’s a high bar of protection for a listed building. It’s not always going to be as appropriate for those lesser assets.

473. CHAIR: Essentially, the railway itself won’t affect it, but the construction and the lo rr ies going through some of the communities will, I presume. And some of these buildings don’t have big foundations.

474. MS MURRAY: The little ones on Potter Row certainly don’t. I will come to other points where I’ll show you that there will be a permanent impact, I think.

475. MR STRAKER QC: On 1187(9), with the heritage tests, there was a proposal based on a real understanding as to why the heritage assets are significant or valuable; whether HS2 will sustain and enhance the heritage, and whether the harm caused is justified. And you then show scales, and we can go straight to 11, I suspect: a sound understanding of cultural heritage, please.

476. MS MURRAY: I just want to make the point that in the scales, you have got this question as to whether you’ve done what you can to mitigate the harm. To go onto the sound understanding of the cultural heritage, obviously, HS2 have done a very great deal of work on assessing the historic interest of all sorts of buildings, woods, hedgerows and so on, and it’s all encapsulated in the ES. I think that there are some flaws in what they’ve done. A lot of their research is very good and very well-grounded; some of it, I think, was only desk-based, and suffers a little bit from that, but they do make a link to

the landscape.

477. The problem arises where, as a consequence of their research, they try and make a table, put all of their results into it, and just say, ‘We will assess all harms as either minor, moderate, or major’. These are far too limited a range, in my view, and they’re misapplied. They say, for instance, that all Grade Two listed buildings are only Grade Two; therefore, they are only of moderate significance; therefore, any harm to them can only be moderate.

478. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Do they literally use the words ‘only’ and ‘moderate’?

479. MS MURRAY: No, I’m using the word ‘only’, but ‘moderate’ sounds a little derogatory, frankly, doesn’t it?

480. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think actually seeing the quotation might help us a bit more than just hearing the words.

481. MS MURRAY: It is when you come to one s like ‘The construction effect is temporarily moderate’.

482. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If it said ‘moderate effect’, I could understand that. I’d be interested to see if anyone can produce a quotation saying ‘Grade Two buildings are only of moderate importance’. If there aren’t those words, don’t worry.

483. MS MURRAY: The ‘only’, as I say, is me; it’s not HS2. But if you look in their gazette here, in Volume Five for heritage, you will find that there is a column that lists the significance of each asset as low, moderate, or high. So it’s low, medium, or high, and then the impacts are minor, moderate, or major.

484. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It may be, Mr Straker, at some stage that someone can actually produce something illustrating what you’re talking about, please.

485. MR STRAKER QC: Where the asset is identified as moderate.

486. MS MURRAY: The asset is actually ‘med ium’.

487. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Again, seeing the context would possibly helpful to

us.

488. MR STRAKER QC: Very well. 1187(12)?

489. MS MURRAY: Sorry, one of the points I should have made on the previous one is that they take each asset in isolation, in the end. What I want to do is emphasise that each asset should be seen as part of the landscape, part of the grouping with the other assets around it, linked in with the woodlands, the routes, and the landscape contours. You should not really be seeing them in splendid isolation. I’m also saying here that heritage is just so important to the character of the AONB. It’s one of the things identified in that list of special qualities of the AONB, that heritage is better preserved because it’s been in the AONB. The constraints around it are not just the listed building constraints, but also the special measures applied to the AONB, so you have a specially preserved quality of heritage asset in this area, and this special quality adds to the sum of the value of the AONB and should be given extra weight in terms of that balancing act that I slowed on the previous slide.

490. MR STRAKER QC: Then we get to 13, where we see Chapel Farm, Hyde End, and you ask why the preservation of cultural heritage is particularly important for the AONB.

491. MS MURRAY: There are two main strands to follow on here. The obvious one is the visual beauty and the amenity of the AONB, and that’s the view that we saw on the s ite visit, walking along towards Chapel Farm. It’s undoubtedly very, very attractive, and seeing the building in it, it isn’t just the landscape; it’s the buildings as well.

492. MR STRAKER QC: Then we go to 14, please.

493. MS MURRAY: The second main theme is that the heritage is important because it is showing this human imprint on the landscape. It’s showing the relationship between the people and the buildings, and I think that this is one of the mainstream interests that draws people to an area: the sense of intimacy with how the buildings fit into the landscape, the guessing at how people lived in the past. It is all part of a very rich experience, going right back to the appreciation of Grim’s Ditch. I do, by the way, take immense issue with the idea that this is a continuous, long ditch that goes right down to Dorset. It survives in very isolated stretches of a few hundred yards each, in the most

part. It’s a very fragile remnant, and easily lost. This map from 1883 shows how it extended even further south into the grounds of Woodlands Park. Those south-western stretches of it have now disappeared. Banks have naturally eroded, and it is very prec io us.

494. MR STRAKER QC: Then in 1187(15), we go back even further, I think, in time. Do we?

495. MS MURRAY: No, we’re coming forward. Grim’s Ditch takes us back a couple of millennia.

496. MR STRAKER QC: Oh, yes. I beg your pardon. The plan takes us back; that’s what I was referring to. Grim’s Ditch takes us back a long way, but the map of 1620 is some 260 years prior to the Ordnance S urvey of the preceding plan.

497. MS MURRAY: Yes. This links in with the map that Mrs Kirkham showed you. It’s upside-down; you really need to stand on your head to look at it, but it’s showing back as far as 1620, you’ve got the same sort of field patterns that she showed you. We’ve got the same Dunsmore Farm; the same little cottages at Wendover Dean. And can I mark these out? Wendover Dean are these. And these. Durham Farm is getting squished, underneath here, somehow.

498. We’ve got the London to Aylesbury Road going through and then you’ve got clear signs of the medieval strips in the, surviving from the medieval field pattern system, that’s been, by this stage, gradually parcelled up in to larger fields or closes. Or parcels of land. And you can still see these sort of relatively small parcels. This is not a landscape where people have pulled up all the hedgerows and taken everything out. You can still see these distinctive small fields today. The way in which the fields are used, and they relate with the woodlands, is part of the historic pattern. And the fact that the words leading off to the sort of middle right say ‘the heath’. The heath, implying that these fields are not terribly good quality. They’re probably rather poor agricultural land. It’s a matter of surviving.

499. MR STRAKER QC: 16, please?

500. MS MURRAY: Ancient woodlands. These are not just looking at it in the

landscape way. But, again thinking about how people have used these woods and why they retained them for so long. Obviously, for fuel, for timber for building; most of the early buildings around here are timber framed. Domesday recorded the value of woodland in terms of how many pigs you could raise in it. And the practice of raising pigs and other stock in the woods went on. Wood wares. You’ve got High Wycombe chair industry, obviously. Not so related to this area, but just over the other side of the plateau, in Chesham, you’ve got lots of industries making brushes and shovel handles and all sorts of things like that.

501. MR STRAKER QC: And 17 shows us I think, a woodman’s cottage.

502. MS MURRAY: Yes. This was before it was done up and recast in its present appearance. It used to be a little rendered cottage and tucked off to the right in between it and Sibley’s Wood was shed after shed after shed stuffed with wood in various forms of preparation. It’s in fact a seventeenth century cottage, with timber framing in it and a central chimney, lobby entry arrangement. But, HS2 is going to completely surround this. The green tunnel cutting will be made in the back of its garden. The land take goes all around it.

503. MR STRAKER QC: And then we get to 1188(1), please. I know it’s a map of 1812.

504. MS MURRAY: This shows how it all hangs

505. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY You don’t think in 3,000 years’ time, someone at Euston will come here and say: ‘This is a grand ditch you’ve got, the HS2 route, with its embankment and it’s ditch and things, do you?

506. MS MURRAY: In 800 years’ time?

507. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, 3,000 years’ time.

508. MS MURRAY: 3,000 years’ time.

509. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I mean, it’s 2,500 years since people have dug this ditch to put up the embankment.

510. MS MURRAY: Yes.

511. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And we’re talking about digging a ditch and building up an embankment.

512. MS MURRAY: The aim of policy is to say, the sustainability element, is saying that we shouldn’t be doing things that wreck the chances for the future generations to know and understand what we know.

513. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: They’ve gone and re-faced your woodlands cottage. It didn’t look like that 300 years ago.

514. MS MURRAY: But, It’s still got the timber framing and the lobby entry in it.

515. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Inside.

516. MS MURRAY: And the entry in it. Yes.

517. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, the cottage will still be there.

518. MS MURRAY: Yes.

519. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And they’ll build a railway around it. I’m only half serious. Only half joking.

520. MS MURRAY: Thank you.

521. MR STRAKER QC: 1181(1).

522. MS MURRAY: One. Yes.

523. MR HENDRICK: Can I ask as well?

524. MS MURRAY: Yes.

525. MR HENDRICK: You showed some plots of land earlier that were very, very, old and a certain pattern had been maintained. Well, I grew up in a city, Salford, which 300 years ago had lots of plots of land like that and obviously since then mankind has built on it and many of the buildings were temporary been shifted, and there’s been generations of different buildings there. I can look at old maps and see something quite similar of the area. But, I mean, people who are living in this area that we’re talking

about now, how many of them are aware of all of the details and the history of what you’re saying and can actually appreciate that like yourself? And would they miss them if it went?

526. MS MURRAY: I think it good number of them do, because these maps came from a local history project that was run in the area. And they made a study of them. And worked out all the fields and the names and so on. And, yes, I think Mrs Campbell will probably be able to give you more information on that. But, in a funny sense, it doesn’t necessarily matter that people understand it fully now. It is the fact that they have the possibility of doing so in the future and that because we’ve realised that this is special and precious in this way we continue to give them the opportunity to do so and do their own, you know, find their own way of enjoying it and doing what seems appropriate with it in the future. But, we don’t just presume to say: To us, it doesn’t matter. Because we do have this duty of thinking, preserving for the next round, as it were.

527. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Wondering whether you would agree with this, in an AONB, which is after all the highest landscape designation, National Parks and AONBs, in a sense, the built environment is more important than non-AONBs because, you, as a planning authority, would take great care in what planning permissions you gave and what extensions you would give. So, what is there is in a way more precious. F irst question. . Second question. You’ve only talked about Grade II listed houses. Are any of the buildings in your area Grades II* star or Grade I buildings?

528. MS MURRAY: None of the ones that I’m talking about here. No. Not in this tiny little bit. Because they are the little rural farmsteads that relate to this very, very rural, sort of quite backwards, Chiltern landscape.

529. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: And the first point?

530. CHAIR: Planning permissions.

531. MS MURRAY: The planning permissions. Yes. I think, as I said earlier, you have, the AONB is a category 15 planning constraint, which means that you can’t alter, you can’t develop in it, except in exceptional circumstances. And we would look at the listed buildings and the way that they survive and because they survive better because of

that, we will give better care and attention in keeping them. You try and keep what is really good. We don’t throw away the others, certainly. But, if they do have a special quality here.

532. MR CLIFTON-BROWN : Thank you.

533. MS MURRAY: This one, can I just point out here? What I put this one on, this route, is to show how it all hung together and to stress the route ways that you’ve got. The main yellow road is the Aylesbury Road, with the main settlements down in the valley bottoms and then you have a very distinct historical pattern of these narrow, sunken lanes going up the slope to a sort of secondary, high, parallel route, which is made up of Potter Row, Kings Lane, and Hyde Lane. And that this kind of gives you an alternative high route to use in the winter period when the valley might be bogged. It’s along that sort of route that you get this line of farmsteads. The farmsteads are sort of daughter settlements of the main ones down in the valley. Beyond there, you have the plateau where you have a bit of pasture land. You also have a lot of your building materials up there. It’s the chalk. And you have the scatter of clay with flints which you can exploit for brick making and also for the many flint cottages in the area there. And so the lanes, and not just the topography, but the way that the lanes all join together is of interest.

534. MR STRAKER QC: 1188(2). We see some ancient route, I think, don’t we?

535. MS MURRAY: Yes. Leather Lane is one of these narrow, sunken lanes that lead up. You can see the depth. It’s about two metres down below the fields on either side of it, with an ancient hedgerow surviving on at least one side. Potter Row. Obviously, the name Potter Row comes from the pottery industry. There’s evidence of medieval pottery found there, and later on brick making. And this is one of the construction routes to get to the Leather Lane satellite compound.

536. MR STRAKER QC: And we can see on the Jefferys Map of 1760, Potters Row marked up.

537. MS MURRAY: Yes. This has the same names. We’ve got Hunts Green at the top. Potters Row. Missenden Berry is Berry Farm and then coming down to the bottom left, you’ve got, it’s simply describes it as Hyde. And this is Hyde End. It’s an ancient

name. A hyde is a Saxon land measurement.

538. MR S TRAKER QC : And then we’ve got the today map on the right-hand side.

539. MS MURRAY: Yes. The point being here is that it is so much the same. You’ve got this sort of long continuity of history going on, that’s still so clearly recognisable. Unlike, the places you were mentioning. It hasn’t changed. It hasn’t been developed. And that’s perhaps why it’s deserving of the special attention.

540. MR STRAKER QC: 1184. In the landscape today, the heritage. This is an aerial photograph.

541. MS MURRAY: Just to stress again that still you’ve got the narrow lanes. You can see quite clearly the patches of woodland. Small scale field patterns. The farmsteads are still in these terribly rural setting. And still, part of the setting, in planning terms, is your physical environment in which you experience the listed buildings. And that is taken to include noise, vibration, dust, as well as the pure visions.

542. MR STRAKER QC: And 1185, we look at Hyde End, I think, don’t we?

543. MS MURRAY: Yes. I want to focus the next few slides on Hyde End because I have got several listed buildings here. There’s a little, again, one of these very narrow lanes, snaking down through the middle of it. You’ve got, clearly, the green fields surviving around. That very attractive location at the head of the dry valley that we walked across and, that as Edina was showing as well. The links with the ancient woodland. And then Grade II listed buildings, up Hyde Farmhouse.

544. MR STRAKER QC: That’s 1186, is it?

545. MS MURRAY: Yes. And just to point out, Sheepcotts Cottage at the top will come up as another one. Then, Hyde Farm, itself, a Grade II, sixteenth century hall house, originally with no upper storey. You had the open hearth in the middle of the floor, smoke went right up through the top. Still in use as a farmhouse. Or was in use. Mostly as an equestrian thing. Lots of stables. And the barn in use as stables.

546. MR STRAKER QC: That’s 80 metres from the cutting for the railway, 110 metres from the railway line.

547. MS MURRAY: Yes.

548. MR STRAKER QC: And you’ve got 1187.

549. MS MURRAY: That’s just the timber framed, sixteen century credentials. You can see the wind bracing here is part of the sixteenth century evidence for the medieval hall, with a later seventeenth century chimney built in to it.

550. MR S TRAKER QC : And then Chapel Farm. Number 8.

551. MS MURRAY: Chapel Farm is another one of the group. This one is the one that you were swept past into on your site visit. I’m afraid you were swept past Hyde Farm. It was a hoof there on your left, because this one looks so glamorous. It has got a seventeenth century core inside it. It isn’t actually listed, because I think that the listers would have looked at the gables and said, ‘well, those are too modern’. It’s part of the phase, and it shows one of these positive developments for a historic building, that somebody comes along in the 1920s and says: ‘This is a lovely country cottage. We’ll turn it into a really lovely country house for a sort of out of London commuter’. And there’s not only this one. There’s another one further down the road.

552. CHAIR: Are we nearly there?

553. MR STRAKER QC: Yes. Number 9, Sheepcotts Cottage.

554. MS MURRAY: This is a real one again. Seventeenth century, whopping great big chimney on the end. Timber frame. This one is really close to the railway. And it is actually marked out has been down for sound insulation because it’s so close.

555. MR STRAKER QC: And then number 10 shows where HS2 goes, referable to Chapel Farm and Hyde Farm which we’ve just seen and Sheepcotts Farm Cottage will be just off the −

556. MS MURRAY: To the right.

557. MR STRAKER QC: Yes.

558. MS MURRAY: Yes. Really just to point out, as Bettina was doing, the overbridges, the barriers, the catenaries, mounds of spoil in front of them. The setting of

these buildings is just going to be totally devastated; I would put it not just during the construction period but permanently afterwards if there is no tunnel.

559. MR STRAKER QC: And number 11 shows diagrammatically what is happening.

560. MS MURRAY: Yes. Here we’ve got it in shallow cutting. It’s one of these instances where the topography is changing so much that the line virtually emerges almost on the surface at one point and then goes into the cutting and then into the portal just before Annie Bailey into the green tunnel. But these buildings at Hyde End, Sheepcotes Cottage, Hyde Farm, Chapel Farm, they are going to have these sort of construction mess put there. You’ve got all the mounding of what is dug out of the cutting being temporarily stored. You have got two overbridges. One of them is going to be 4 metres up above present ground level. Now, that is going to stick out like a sore thumb in that lovely sunken valley. Yes, it will.

561. MR STRAKER QC: 12, the work’s completed, shows what has happened has now been transferred in plan form into the railway running.

562. MS MURRAY: Yes. We have possibly had the mound taken away but the only effect of that would be that it will spread the noise closer up towards the main farmhouse so the inhabitants won’t be very happy and it may very well become neglected. We’ve got some tree planting going on but trees don’t really stop noise. We’ve got the delight of one of those 3 metre high sound barriers. The landscape issues and the listed building issues will start being at odds because in order to save something of the listed building we will have to make it liveable in and you’ll either have to have sound barriers and bands that won’t look right as part of the landscape or you’ll have the landscape looking slightly better but the poor people not fancying living in the house any longer.

563. MR STRAKER QC: And when you ask at 13 whether this ‘sustains and enhances’; you use that language because that’s what one is supposed to do hereabouts.

564. MS MURRAY: That is the policy language.

565. MR STRAKER QC: And then you go, 14, to how great is the harm. And you record HS2 saying ‘moderate adverse’. Just before you say anything further, if I can mention the illustration of the labelling of something which is a Grade II listed as being

‘moderate’ under significance or value. And the reference I can give you is Environmental Statement volume 5, ‘Central Chilterns Area Heritage Assets Gazetteer’, ‘Kennel Farm: three Grade II listed buildings under significance or value. Reference: moderate.’

566. If we go then back to 14 please, the reality of the circumstances please.

567. MS MURRAY: The reality is that you have this awful situation where you either can’t live in it or the setting is devastated; probably both together given that it’s so close. Just to point out that Hyde Farm and Sheepcotes Cottage are both already vacant. We have got near the commencement of construction but people have already just gone and these buildings are empty. They are having to be looked after by security minders with Alsa tia ns.

568. MR STRAKER QC: Who provides the security?

569. MS MURRAY: I imagine it’s HS2 but that’s a supposition on my part.

570. MR HENDRICK : Can I ask how long they have been listed?

571. MS MURRAY: This one is. A barn associated with it. And the little cottage with the big chimney is listed. Chapel Farm House was not listed.

572. MR HENDRICK: Could I ask how long they’ve been listed?

573. MS MURRAY: Oh, sorry, how long? Sorry, I didn’t hear. They’ve been listed since at least 1984.

574. MR HENDRICK : And can I ask you again the question I asked you earlier: what percentage of the buildings that you are highlighting today are listed?

575. MS MURRAY: I am talking about a few sites. Three of the buildings on this site are listed. At Hunts Green Farm two sets of buildings are listed. At Berry Farm there are about four or five listed buildings, although I’m not going to go into detail. The Woodman’s Cottage was listed.

576. MR HENDRICK: So just as a rough percentage without being exact.

577. MS MURRAY: Well, I am not going to talk about many of the ones that aren’t

listed, frankly. Of the ones that I’m talking about I’d say 70% would be listed.

578. MR STRAKER QC: So there we see the farm empty and unless someone is living there help us as to what happens with the farmhouse.

579. MS MURRAY: Well, my experience is that buildings that aren’t lived in deteriorate. They start getting damp; they are not maintained; they will have water problems through the roof; they are not well enough ventilated so you get mould problems inside; they begin to become more and more undesirable. And they descend, if we turn to the following slide.

580. MR STRAKER QC: 15.

581. MS MURRAY: These are some extremes as to what happens when buildings are neglected in the moderate to long term. One of them is a farmhouse very close to the M25 that really hasn’t been itself since the M25 went up. It has had sporadic periods of occupation. It was on the market about 10 years ago and didn’t sell on the market; again about three years ago. I can’t say any more about what’s happening to it because it is confidential.

582. The burnt down barn that you see as a load of charred stumps is a site that was used very informally as a farmstead and then the owner died. It took years to sell and was sold to somebody who wasn’t actually able to do anything with it and left it abandoned and the vandals got it and there was a police report saying ‘well, we don’t know who did it’ but obviously it’s a case of arson.

583. These buildings are very hard to protect. The barn one and some of these, they’re not in the immediate public eye. People don’t drive past them and say ‘oh, somebody’s fiddling with this building’. They are a bit too remote for that and if they’re left then nasty things do happen to them.

584. MR STRAKER QC: And so you ask then, 16, whether the promoter’s solutions avoid this and you say ‘no’. You get compensation for the owners but they leave; nothing of the building is left behind; resale; blighted by railway; basement bargain; downward spiral; loss of viability.

585. MS MURRAY: Yes. They then pass on to my books but it is up to the authority

to decide whether it needs to start taking action to secure urgent works, repairs notices. And this is not a desirable way of going about it. Buildings that you require to be preserved need a viable future. This is a core thread of chapter 12 of the NPPF: provide a viable use and they will survive; if you don’t then you’ll have problems.

586. MR STRAKER QC: 1189(1), we go to Hunts Green Farm which is one of the few historic farms that’s still in agricultural use. 17th century origins. Grade II listed farmhouse and barn.

587. MS MURRAY: Yes. This impressed me particularly because it is one of the few working farmsteads that we have in our area. Many of the historic ones have been sold off as houses and barns converted. Where a farm can continue to work on, as this works on as part of the Liberty Estate up at the Lee, then it is really worth encouraging survival in this way because a farmstead without a farm use is diminished.

588. MR STRAKER QC: 1189(2) shows the works nearby; HS2 running 500 metres away. One can see the farmhouse at the top of the plan; that half being taken for stockpiling during construction; construction traffic to use track around the farm and a satellite compound.

589. MS MURRAY: Yes. It’s masses of disruption during the construction period. I originally intended to highlight it also because of the permanent sustainable placement. I gather that that’s now no longer necessary but we are told that land equating to the equivalent footprint would be needed for at least the temporary stockpiles. While this is in place and while these things are being constructed and the land is covered in that way and the farm isn’t useable, my suspicion is that the mounding will take up half of this farmer’s holding, and my strong suspicion is that the farm use will cease for that period. Whether it will ever re-establish again is highly doubtful.

590. MR STRAKER QC: Number 3 shows what HS2 says the effect as being: temporarily moderate permanent and minor in heritage terms. You have got a picture here on the left-hand side of some –

591. MS MURRAY: Yes, this was the site visit and I think that the tractor was there to show how high the sustainable placement was going to rise above the natural ground levels. And it would have covered much of this area that you see in the field in front of

us on the right. We will have that temporarily but not necessarily permanently now.

592. MR STRAKER QC: And then 1189(4), the real impact on Hunts Green Farm. You identify the loss of the use, vacancy, dereliction unless converted to residential use. Loss of historic farm.

593. MS MURRAY: Yes.

594. MR STRAKER QC: We then come to 1189(5), Leather Lane, a historic lane leading from the valley floor to the ridge sunken by centuries of use. Tree lines and part of the historic setting for Grade II listed Hammonds Hall Farm, early 17th century. And we can see there in the photographs where the crossing is going to take place.

595. MS MURRAY: Yes. The farmhouse is part of the togetherness. The farmhouse is up there because this is where the lanes converge clearly.

596. MR STRAKER QC: And 1189(6) shows what’s going on here, I think, does it?

597. MS MURRAY: Yes, it shows the lane being diverted, the hedgerows chopped down, the route is laid to one side. Instead of being sunken it is raised up on an embankment so that it has to rise to an overbridge 4 metres above the level of the land rather than it being sunken down 2 metres below the level. And the idea of it, as a sunken historic lane, I think is completely destroyed at that point.

598. MR STRAKER QC: And so you’ve recorded, ‘Complete destruction of distinctive historic character,’ and you say why won’t lesser mitigation work, 1189(7).

599. MS MURRAY: This is much the same points that Mrs Kirkham was raising. Obviously if you don’t give us the tunnel we have to come back and look at this and decide which is the least of the evils. But if you have a natural landscape it’s obvious that if you’re going to put sound barriers and bungs into it you will distort that landscape. And you might be able to turn it green again eventually but it is not that landscape that was there before. And the buildings will not relate to it in exactly the same way.

600. MR STRAKER QC: 1189(9) shows, is it…?

601. MS MURRAY: This is Sheepcotes Cottage again. Sorry, I didn’t label that, did

I? This is the one down for double glazing. You could put secondary glazing inside all the windows. I would be reluctant to double glaze all of them because they have a traditional appearance. But in fact a measure like that only answers half the problem. This is a thin skin building; the upper storey is a timber frame with tile hanging on the outside: it’ll let the sound through just like that. Certainly the roof. Are you going to provide insulation for the whole of the walls and the roof as well as the windows in order that the occupant can sleep at night? And if you do so you will cause harm to the interest of the building.

602. MR STRAKER QC: Then we come to number 10 where you continue to answer the question as to won’t lesser mitigation, lesser than the tunnel, work and you draw attention to some things which have been said, I think, by HS2.

603. MS MURRAY: Yes.

604. MR STRAKER QC: Grim’s Ditch totally altered; changes in the ability to understand and appreciate the resource in its historical context and setting; permanent major adverse; mitigation planting will mitigate overall impact but not appreciably; Hyde End rural agriculture context comprehensively changed, permanent moderate adverse; Hammonds Hall Farmhouse, permanent moderate adverse; 86 King’s Lane, permanent minor adverse.

605. MS MURRAY: Yes. It is a kind of clinical language that doesn’t actually seem to sum up what’s really going to happen in future to these buildings.

606. MR STRAKER QC: And then 11 you recall the owners moving away, not securing a future for the historic buildings that remain. We see a guard dog warning.

607. MS MURRAY: Yes, this is the barn at Hyde Farm.

608. MR STRAKER QC: And then 12, the cost of the proposed scheme to HS2; mitigation of barriers; landscaping; compensation, security farms and guard dogs; interim maintenance, refurbishment, resale; and you make the exclamation ‘no need for the cover’.

609. MS MURRAY: No.

610. MR STRAKER QC: And the cost to the public, 13: potential loss of viability; loss of visited buildings; irreparable damage to settings; irreparable damage to an especially distinctive historic environment; irreparable damage to understanding the experience of the AONB and its history; diminution of a national asset.

611. And then you suggest that the tunnel should be extended, 14: preserve ancient woodland, Grim’s Ditch and local lanes; preserve historic buildings, residential, agricultural and equestrian use; incentive to repair and maintain and preserve the rural setting; preserving heritage is important to enjoyment of the AONB. So that’s looking at different things from your heritage perspective.

612. MS MURRAY: Yes.

613. MR S TRAKER QC : Thank you very much, sir.

614. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Mr Mould?

615. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I will ask Mr Miller to respond on Wednesday, including giving you some information about the current occupation of these buildings. The buildings that you have heard about, two of them are owned by HS2 and we can explain arrangements to refurbish them and how they’re on the market for letting and so fo rth.

616. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Mr Straker, we will leave your last witness until the next time you come to meet us.

617. MR S TRAKER QC : Thank you very much, sir.

618. CHAIR: Thank you very much. Thank you for moving through quite a lot of stuff very quickly.

619. MR STRAKER QC: Thank you, sir.

620. CHAIR: And I would ask you to withdraw from the room so we can just have a little chat. Order, order.