Public Session

PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Thursday, 13 January 2015 (Afternoon) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (In the C hair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Michael Thornton Yasmin Qureshi _____________ IN ATTENDANCE: Mr Timothy Mould, QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Councillor George Illingworth, Kenilworth Town Council Mr Joe Rukin Witnesses: Mr Ashley Ball, Crackley Residents Association Mr Nicholas Hillard Mrs Nicola Hillard ____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Kenilworth Town Council (Cont’d) Submissions from Mr Illingworth 3 Submissions from Mr Mould 6 Closing submissions from Mr Illingworth 13 Kenilworth Stop HS2 Action Group Ltd Submissions from Mr Rukin 15 Submissions from Mr Mould 29 Closing submissions from Mr Rukin 38 Crackley Residents Association Submissions from Mr Ball 40 Submissions from Mr and Mrs Hillard 54 Submissions from Mr Mould 62 2 (At 14.02) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome, good afternoon. Welcome back to the HS2 Committee. We’re finishing the presentation on Kenilworth. We’d like to continue. Sorry to cut you off in your prime. Kenilworth Town Council 2. MR ILLINGWORTH: No, no. That’s fine. Thank you. You recall that just before lunch I was dealing with Crackley Gap, and I dealt with two of the four issues there. I dealt with the design aspects. I dealt with the construction period. I want to talk a little bit about drainage, and could I have, p lea se, number 29? Is it 28? Have I missed something out? Sorry, 28, yes, I dealt with that, I think. 29. 3. Is it going to get any clearer? I can assure you my original was of better quality. It is actually an old map. I realised it was an old map because the A46 is shown in dotted lines, but years ago, because I couldn’t understand the drainage in my part of the wor ld – I’m a foreigner, coming from Yorkshire – I started to draw the rivers in the area, and it is quite complicated. Canley Brook, which we’re talking about crossing, happens to start in a place called Burton Green, but then goes round the south of Coventry, and Finham Brook runs through the middle of Kenilworth. I think it’s so complicated because we’re near one of the great watersheds of England, of course, in this part of the wor ld. 4. But Canley Brook drains much of south Coventry, and the University of Warwick. And one of the things that’s been happening is there’s been a lot of development in that area, both housing development in south Coventry and continuing development of the University. And of course, they are all supposed to have these SUDS – Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, or whatever it is – that says it’s going to be no worse than it ever was, but it doesn’t happen, does it? So the flow in Canley Brook has undoubtedly been increasing. Once it joins the Finham Brook, it flows up to the northeast for three miles, to join the River Sowe and finally the River Avon, and then flows back southwest only a mile from the town. So it’s going in a complete ‘U’ shape. 5. Now, certain properties in the town of Kenilworth, though we don’t shout about it 3 too much, are at risk from flooding. And indeed, Kenilworth has been a pilot in a resilience scheme piloted from the National Flood Forum. And I mentioned earlier the major Severn Trent scheme that happened a few years ago, and one of the main aims of the scheme was to take surface water, draining from the eastern part of the town – where there’s been, again, a lot of development, certainly in the last 50 years – south under the watershed – not the main watershed, a minor watershed – taking it to Cattle Brook, which flows directly into the River Avon, instead of it going into F inham Brook. And there are current plans to improve sewers in the Crackley area. 6. And the reason I’m going into all this detail is to point out that we have had flooding problems in the town. Severn Trent has spent £16 million on renewing sewers. The flow in Canley Brook through Crackley, where you are about to totally alter the flow of the river, is increasing. And our concern is that what you do doesn’t make things any worse after a lot of effort has been put into improving the system, because our interpretation from the Environment Statement is that you’re only dealing with the Environment Agency now. With due respect to the Environment Agency, they’re only one agency that knows what goes on, and they only get their information from other sources. And, for example, both the County Council and the District Council are involved in flooding, and I know that certainly the County mention in their petition that they haven’t been involved. So can I go to the next slide please? 7. We are nervous, and we really need to be reassured, not just by words as written in Environment Statement, that all that good work that’s been done to direct surface water to the Avon, currently going to Canley Brook, so that the result of all the work you’re doing would be to reduce the risk of flooding from Finham Brook in the town, rather than increase it. 8. And the second point on here is, I was going to say, a slightly cheeky one, in a way, but perhaps not. What we haven’t mentioned is that, at Crackley, there is a pumping station. Now, the purpose of this, as I understand it, is that you built a concrete trough to keep the groundwater out of the railway. But if we get very heavy rain, of course, a lot of water will accumulate in the trough. We’ve talked about leaves on the line. We certainly don’t want an arrangement that HS2 can’t run when it rains, so you’ve got a bump in that sump, which is to drain the concrete trough. I did ask some questions in December, but the detailed design presumably hasn’t reached such a stage. 4 But I had one thought, which was that, if you’re going to pump it directly into Canley Brook at Crackley, that’s going to exacerbate the flooding risk again. I’ve no idea what the capacity of those pumps is going to be, but if there’s a lot of water, why not pump it straight down the track, to where you cross the Avon, and just like Severn Trent, cut out Finham Brook? 9. Can we move on from flooding? I just wanted to mention a little bit about compensation. I know that you’ve heard an awful lot about compensation, and I don’t want to go through it all again. And the important things about compensation at Crackley you will hear directly from those affected. I’d remind you, if I may, that the Kites have already appeared in front of you, and they are one of the people that you had concern over. As a town council, our suggestion is that, because of the magnitude, and particularly that width – remember, it’s a quarter of a mile wide at its widest, and this map shows that on the initial safeguarded area, when the rural support zone was announced, which is the yellow, it was completely lost within the safeguarded area. And therefore, apart from Milburn farm, which is just to the east of the railway, it was of no benefit whatsoever to anyone. 10. When we now are improving systems, we’ve got the homeowner zo nes. Can we go to the next slide please? Actually, that’s Stoneleigh. It’s my fault. Can we have the next slide please? There is part of Kenilworth on there if we need to discuss it. So there, to the right of the screen, is the safeguard area at Crackley, and you can just see the extensions on the protected zones. And there are the three rural homeowner payment zones superimposed on it, and you’ll see that most of the houses in Crackley Crescent are still not within the area of zoning, because it is measured from the centre of the tracks. And if the idea of this scheme is to keep people in the area, which is, as I understood, one of the reasons for it, then it is the construction phase that matters, not the operational phase. And the construction phase is major earthworks in that grey area. 11. And can I leave you with a final comment? We’re delighted that you’re talking about the Need to Sell scheme becoming more flexible, and possibly a ‘wis h to se ll’ scheme. But, of course, that applies outside the zones we’ve been looking at, and if the rezoning of wide works like these isn’t recognised soon, what you’re doing with the new scheme is driving people away, because the only remedy that they have is to apply for the Need to Sell scheme, since no other scheme can compensate them in any way. Can I 5 leave you with that thought, and say that, as a request, the s ituatio n at Crackley is a perfect example of why the definition of the zones needs to be considered? And I know that Mr Mould is going to explain that the Secretary of State made a statement.

Load more