Public Session

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Tuesday, 24 February 2015 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Henry Bellingham Ian Mearns Mr Michael Thornton ______

IN ATTENDANCE:

Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport

Witnesses:

Mr Simon Marinker, Radstone Residents Group Mr Murray Brown Mr Simon Harris Mr A. M. and Mrs R. J. Herring Mr Robert and Sally Drummond-Hay

Mr Tim Smart, International Director for High Speed Rail, CH2M Hill

______

IN PUBLIC SESSION

INDEX

Subject Page

Radstone Residents Group Parochial Church Council for Helmdon with Stuchbury and Radstone Introduction from Mr Mould 3 Submissions from Mr Marinker 4 Mr Smart, examined by Mr Mould 17 Mr Smart, cross-examined by Mr Marinker 23

Murray Brown Submissions from Mr Brown 26 Submissions from Mr Harris 27 Submissions from Mr Mould 34

Simon Marinker Submissions from Mr Marinker 40

Mr and Mrs A Herring Submissions from Mrs Herring 44 Response from Mr Mould 49 Further submissions from Mrs Herring 53

Robert and Sally Drummond-Hay Submissions from Mr and Mrs Drummond-Hay 57 Submissions from Mr Mould 71 Closing submissions from Mr Drummond-Hay 73

Hugh Smith Submissions from Mr Smith 77 Submissions from Mr Mould 80

(At 9.20)

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome, good morning everybody to the HS2 Select Committee. It is nice to see such a large audience of interested people.

Radstone Residents Group

Parochial Church Council for Helmdon with Stuchbury and Radstone

2. We start off this morning with Radstone Residents Group, With Parochial Church Council for Helmdon with Stuchbury and Radstone, which sounds like an impressive organisation. Well done for getting together. I know that we have been there but can we have the map up, please?

3. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. It is 4743. I can also show you the fly through if you would like that.

4. CHAIR: Let’s have the fly through for a change.

5. MR MOULD QC (DfT): All right. As always we are approaching from the north, the best place to approach from, and we are now just approaching Radstone to the left or to the east of the railway. If we stop there, we have the village of Radstone. I think you can just make out the church to the west of the village. The railway is running through here in a false cutting, so we have embanked earthworks to either side and you can see balancing ponds, and then to the south west in the distance we are beginning to get into the further reaches of Brackley, an area which is subject to development just beyond the arrow.

6. Perhaps we will just show you the area that has been shaded in white. That is an area that is owned by Mr Murray Brown, who I think is the second petitioner in the list this morning. It is part of his agricultural holding and an area that under the Bill scheme was identified for ecological mitigation planting, but more of that later. So, that gives you a rough idea of the environs. I suppose I just ought to show you, if we pull the cursor down, that you can see a road which runs obliquely in a south-westerly alignment across the railway. That is the Radstone Road which goes over the railway on an overbridge. Then there are overbridges to serve public rights of way, which are being pointed out to you now. So, that is a swift summary of the features of the route through

this area.

7. CHAIR: Mr Marinker?

8. MR MARINKER: Thank you very much. I am Simon Marinker and I live in Radstone. On my right is Murray Brown, a farmer who also lives in Radstone. Murray is here just to offer me some support while I do some presentation. I am here representing all of the Radstone residents – all the eligible ones. They all signed the petition and are part of the Radstone Residents Group. I am also going to be covering the points raised in petition of the Church of St Lawrence as they have an interest in voiding the petition if we could drop their petition as their points will be covered in ours. So, that would make sense.

9. I think the first thing to say is that Radstone is significantly adversely affected by HS2. It is probably worth putting up a slide but our main request of the Select Committee today will be to ask the promoter to create a slight deviation of the rail line past Radstone. But before I go into the detail I would like to very quickly remind you of Radstone’s setting, to explain the issues and then discuss our proposal.

10. The next slide, please. That is slide 2. Radstone is two and a half miles north of Brackley. We have 18 properties and 40 residents. We have a farm and two other businesses in the village. Six people from the village actually work in the village. The vast majority of our residents have lived there for well over 20 years. I am a newcomer at eight and a half years, actually. We are home to our 12th century Grade I listed church, which we are very proud of, and home to some very rare bats. I think everyone will agree that Radstone is a very tranquil, rural and beautiful village set in the South Northants countryside.

11. The next slide, please, number 3.

12. CHAIR: How old is the village?

13. MR MARINKER: How old is it?

14. CHAIR: Yes. Do we know?

15. MR BROWN: The church tower is the second oldest church tower in

Northamptonshire.

16. MR MARINKER: And that was 14th century, but the church is 12th century, so I think it probably goes back as far as the 12th century. I know that most of you visited Radstone. The picture on the top left is where you got off the coach and walked up the footpath, so that is a view down the road to some of our houses. On the top right there is a view from the village which overlooks where the railway line would be. The bottom left is the view from the proposed rail line to the bottom part of the village. Although you cannot quite see it here, there is about 14 of the 18 houses in that area alone. The bottom right is the church of St Lawrence, which you walked past on your walk through.

17. The next slide is a Google Earth map, so you have seen the fly through anyway, but basically this shows the proximity of the line to Radstone. All properties are between 220 and 400 metres from the centre of the line. There are no natural structures between the line and the village, just the field, and an important point, I think, to make here is that at the closest point to the village the line is now at ground level. In addition to all of that there is a proposed overbridge to accommodate the Radstone Road, which is within 250 metres of the village. You can see from that slide that everywhere around Radstone is covered in beautiful countryside.

18. I think we can skip the next slide because that is just a close-up of the line again, and go to slide 6, if that is okay. You will be familiar with this map. It is the official map of the area. Here you can see that the rail line goes from a cutting away from the village then comes up at ground level in front of the village where the ponds are. The yellow indicates the village of Radstone and you can also see the position of the overbridge as well.

19. So, that again is just to orientate yourself. The next slide, please. The big issue for Radstone is what are the consequences for the village. Clearly, we are significantly affected by the rail line. The Environmental Statement actually states that 15 of the 18 dwellings will experience major adverse noise effects and they consider this to be significant. It goes on to say that the forecasted increase in sound from the rail line is likely to cause a major effect on the acoustic character of the area surrounding the dwellings close to the line. Along with Thorpe Mandeville, which is in the area CFA15,

Radstone is the worst affected village in terms of noise in South Northamptonshire.

20. Could we have the next slide? I do not want to dwell too much on the technicalities of noise. You have just heard a couple of comments I have made from the ES which are quite explicit about the fact that we have a noise issue and that is despite the currently proposed mitigation. Even HS2 have agreed that Radstone does have a noise issue as described in the ES. The readings go from 45 dB to 65 during the day and from 35 to 55 at night, ahead of the LOAEL’s guidelines, and that is if you average it out. If you take the extremes it goes up as high as 78, which I have been delightfully informed is the noise of a washing machine going off every 10 minutes in your bedroom.

21. So, I think the point I want to make here is a big issue. We are concerned about what the mitigation will be. so whilst I shall talk shortly about an alternative proposal, the current mitigation as we understand it or understood it, was to have a fence barrier and bunding. That option was reaffirmed in a meeting we had with HS2 on 26 January. It has subsequently been withdrawn. We are confused because in the Environmental Statement it actually says that we have landscaping and/or a fence line barrier. So, if you read that literally that means that we should be entitled to a fence. If I understand it correctly, we are not being offered a fence. Mr Mould, on 4 February at the Select Committee with South Northants Council you said, ‘One caveat to that is that we don’t actually propose a noise barrier’. So, it is all a bit uncertain. As a minimum we want to get clarification about fence barriers and bunding. That is what it says in the Environmental Statement but the words that we are hearing subsequently do not support that. Perhaps we will come back to that at a later stage.

22. Could we go to slide 10, please? I have talked about noise impact. There are visual impacts too. We do accept, by the way, that there will always have to be a compromise between noise mitigation and visual intrusion. Therefore, the earth bunding and the deep cutting would solve this problem. The ES again goes on to state that during the operation, 10 properties, over half the properties, will experience significant adverse visual effects due to trains, noise fence barriers, overhead lines and the overbridge. So, again in the ES the words are saying that there is a fence barrier. So, again, we are slightly confused.

23. It goes on to say that the historic village of Radstone, an asset group of high value, will be subject to changes to its settings, construction constituting a high adverse impact and a major adverse effect. I also just wanted to point out that on numerous occasions we read the words, ‘Reasonable endeavours will be used in mitigation’. I have no legal background but I have done some research on what ‘reasonable endeavours’ means. I understand it is quite weak as opposed to ‘best endeavours’. Again, when we come on to our recommendations we might ask for slightly more meat to be put into the endeavours clauses.

24. Slide 11 really just gives you the consequences. The combination of noise and visual effect will have a permanent major adverse effect on the residential amenity and therefore is considered significant. Hopefully, that has set the scene at Radstone and highlighted the very negative impact the line will have on the village and, more importantly, on the lives of the residents, all of whom are very distressed by this proposed impending rail line and hence why we have asked you to support them in the petition.

25. With slide 12 perhaps I could very quickly move on and talk about the church of St Lawrence. I won’t repeat everything about the village itself other than to say that over two and a half per cent of listed buildings have Grade I status and they are supposed to be offered special protection from developments and alternative options, which have always been examined to protect our English Heritage site. You could question whether that has actually been done because we have alternative options that we shall talk about which I don’t think have been explored fully.

26. The ES says that there will be a major airborne noise effect on the acoustic character around the church with a risk of disturbing activities within the church. It assumes, by the way, that the doors and windows are closed. I can tell you that during the summer it gets very hot in there and they do have to keep the doors open.

27. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How often are there services in the church?

28. MR MARINKER: On average once a month, sometimes twice a month. I do not want to spend a lot of time on the rare bat issue. I don’t want you to think it is a cynical ploy to get the line moved, etc. What I would say is that we have engaged the help of an expert and, like all experts, they always disagree with other experts in terms of what is

good quality mitigation or not. His view is that the proposed solutions by HS2 are based on unproven mitigation measures. I guess there is no evidence about how you deal with high speed trains. We understand that there are many biodiversity issues that you are still wanting to look at. Cyril Richardson who is the bat expert that we have been talking to, said that he will be very happy to engage with whichever body is required to talk about protection of bats, but his view is that the current scheme does not go anywhere near helping to protect them.

29. Slide 13 I put in purely for information about the housing market. I guess there is no news here. Properties are impossible to sell at the unblighted market value. However, you will hear separately from three petitioners, two today including myself, on our personal circumstances so I do not intend to spend any more time on that during this presentation other than to say that it does have a social impact, clearly, on the village.

30. Before I go to our proposed solution, I would just like to remind you of the background to the current position of the line. We talked about this on the visit back in October. In September 2010 the line was moved about 600 metres closer to Radstone and was moved eastwards towards Radstone in order to minimise the noise and visual effects from receptors in Mixbury, Turweston, Brackley and Greatworth and in particular the urban extension referred to earlier in Brackley, which will be completed prior to the line operating. By the way, in 2010 the Brackley urban extension did not have planning permission then but obviously subsequently it has.

31. So, Radstone was sacrificed for the greater good. If I am perfectly honest, I understand that. We all understand that. It is probably the right thing to do as well. If I was trying to be objective about this and say if I was person involved, would I do that? Probably I would. I can see why they did it. So, we are not actually complaining about the fact that they did it. It makes sense to me.

32. However, in doing so, HS2 do make some commitments. There is a document that was presented back in September 2010, which is called The London to West Midlands and Beyond Supplementary Report. In that report I just want to quote two lines. One states, ‘We propose a revised alignment a little closer past Radstone but in a deeper cutting’ and then the other point is that on the same page later on it says,

‘Although closer to Radstone, it will be in a deeper cutting, enhanced by earth bunds to provide protection against noise, and a site of special scientific interest would be effected as well.’

33. So, clearly there were some commitments made that we believe have not been adhered to. Not least of all, since then there has been a line deviation of, I think, three to four metres raising it up on top of that. But at the end of the day, outside of the village of Radstone, the line is at ground level; it is not in a deeper cutting as committed to by HS2.

34. So, when we did our original petition, we came up with three proposed solutions. The next slide, please, and the one after that. We had three proposed solutions. The first one was to restore the line to its original position. Now we realise that that is impractical. The housing development has been built, so we know that that cannot happen without massive disruption. The second one was to create a green tunnel. What I would say is that that is an option. We found out last week the cost of it; it is very expensive, £30 million, and I think we all probably would agree that it probably does not solve the problem anyway. So, we can park that.

35. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It has not solved the problem.

36. MR MARINKER: Because it is a very short window. The tunnel has quite a short window and so I think there would be noise coming in and coming out. Apparently, there would be some noise mitigation in the tunnel itself but I guess at £30 million the Committee aren’t going to be minded to spend that kind of money when I think there is a much cheaper alternative, which we will come on to.

37. The second point was to create a deeper cutting. As I say, that was what was proposed by HS2 in the first place but not delivered. We understand that it will take slightly more land. There are some technical challenges, but we understand it is very doable. That has been costed, though, at £7 million. However, what we think would be an eminently sensible and very good solution would be just to deviate the line further away from Radstone. We started to discuss this option in the field in Radstone when we were looking at alternatives.

38. If we could go to slide 17, I can give you a brief overview of what I am looking at

and then I will go into a bit more detail. You can just see a slight deviation. It does not look great on a map in terms of visually but basically what we are saying is that yes, we understand that you can’t move the line all the way back down towards Turweston and beyond, but actually as you get closer to Radstone you can deviate it into really what would be more open countryside. We wanted to discuss that with HS2 back in 2013 but were told that there was no point because the final ES had not come out at that stage, so that kind of made sense. But then we did discuss it in February 2014 when the final ES came out and were told it was too late to make any amendments to the ES, hence why we are here, I am afraid.

39. If you go to the next slide, slide 18, perhaps I can first of all remind you of the conversation that we had back in October outside the village. We discussed, with Mr Syms yourself taking part in the conversation, about whether to move the line back to its original position and I think you made the suggestion, ‘Well, couldn’t we just deviate it?’ The question you asked of Professor McNaughton was, ‘Is it possible to move the line closer back to its original pre-September 2010 route?’, and Professor McNaughton replied, ‘Yes, it’s quite possible and not difficult. It was changed to allow for new housing development’, to which, Mr Syms, you replied, ‘Because presumably that would cause problems either side of the line deviation of the existing route?’, to which Professor McNaughton said, ‘Not particularly. You can move the line without disrupting the route elsewhere’. I would like to just point out that Professor McNaughton was neither opposing nor supporting the principle of moving the line; he was just answering the questions factually. I want to make that very clear.

40. Can I also confirm that I knew a few weeks ago that you heard from South Northants Council and when asked whether they would support the movement of the line they said no. They have subsequently sent me an email to say that actually the question they were answering in their opinion was would they support moving the line back to its original position, which would have reflected the Radstone housing development, which they would not. However, they would support a deviation of the line by Radstone, which they recognise is significantly affected by HS2 provided it did not impact on the residential amenities in Radstone and development of other properties.

41. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Your alternative line goes straight through Hall Farm?

42. MR MARINKER: It goes straight through Hall Farm, which has now been bought by HS2 as blighted and because they bought Hall Farm, that is what actually gave rise to the idea that this could be done. So, if you look on the map you can see the original line in black on the left. That was the line through 2010. You can see the line as planned in the middle and this cuts it halfway in between. So, a slight bend in deviation just south of the A43 roundabout. It goes through Hall Farm and skirts the side of Murray’s land. Most of the land is still Murray’s and we feel very supportive of this.

43. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And it does not affect Greatworth anymore?

44. MR MARINKER: No, we bring it back before you get to Greatworth, but just the other side of Halse Copse, which is the 200 year-old ancient woodland, so the other beauty of this proposal is that it avoids taking any woodland from Halse Copse. Now, it is a line in a map.

45. CHAIR: When we stood there, there was a farm in the distance but it was mainly farmland.

46. MR MARINKER: That is correct.

47. CHAIR: So, you are not moving it towards any other community?

48. MR MARINKER: No, and that was the beauty of this idea that it is actually completely out of all land there, so you are moving it closer to the Radstone housing development and our argument there would be that well, if people choose to buy a property there it would make it more –

49. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that at Brackley?

50. MR MARINKER: At Brackley. It is the new Brackley housing development. It would be closer to the edge of that but it would actually be equidistant or more equidistant between Brackley and Radstone. Our argument is that those people will have the choice to buy a property knowing that the line is there. I believe that the houses are selling on there anyway regardless of HS2. We just felt it seemed a sensible solution which does not cost a lot of money. In the original report back in 2010 it did say that moving the line to the current position was not going to cost any more money or

make any difference in the general environment so our argument is that whilst this is not fully costed here at this stage, we do not think – we are laymen here – that it will cost an awful lot of money.

51. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just going back to the original purpose, which was to reduce the impact on Radstone, the distance from the centre of the present proposal to the first property in Radstone is roughly how far?

52. MR MARINKER: The first houses are between 220 and 400 metres.

53. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And what does your middle line, if I can put it that way, do to change that distance?

54. MR MARINKER: That would move that distance by a further 200 to 400 metres depending on where it is.

55. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Double or more than the existing one?

56. MR MARINKER: Yes, that is right.

57. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, the issues essentially, among other things, are whether the curve required for the south is acceptable in terms of the speed of the train; is there anything in the topography of the middle line which is significantly different to either the original proposal or the present one in the Bill, and lastly is there any other reason why it should not happen?

58. MR MARINKER: Yes, I think those are two very good questions.

59. CHAIR: And if it weren’t moved 300 or 400 metres but, say, 200 metres, any movement would take in those contours and all the rest of it?

60. MR MARINKER: Absolutely, yes.

61. CHAIR: So, you are not a fundamentalist on the issue; you just want some improvement?

62. MR MARINKER: That is absolutely right, yes, thank you.

63. MR THORNTON: I note that the curve on the pre-September 2010 line is

actually marginally less than the curve the other way on yours.

64. MR MARINKER: Yes.

65. MR THORNTON: So, the change of the actual effect on the train, one would have thought, would be slightly less than the pre-September one, as a layman.

66. MR MARINKER: Thank you. I support you totally. That is our understanding of it as well. As I say, we have submitted this. We tried to engage HS2 with our proposal but we have not had any meaningful feedback. I think they wanted to wait until today.

67. MR THORNTON: Do you mind me asking when you first proposed it to them?

68. MR MARINKER: It really emerged from the Select Committee visit to Radstone. We were talking about the problems we had and we had an open conversation with Professor McNaughton as well and I think from that we felt encouraged. We totally accept that nobody was proposing it at that stage, but we felt encouraged that actually this might be a sensible alternative solution, rather than saying, ‘We insist on having a deep cutting’, which is going to cost £7 million and has lots of other complexities to it. That is an alternative option if we couldn’t get what it is we have asked for, but to me or to all of us we felt this warranted some more investigation.

69. CHAIR: I think that a Member of Parliament, Andrea Leadsom, is quite keen to look at this.

70. MR MARINKER: She is. She again is very supportive of this. I have nearly finished. Could we go to slide 19? That is just another view of the line. I think I have covered all the main points I wanted to make here. I have to say that I am not totally sure about this but somebody said to me that they weren’t aware that the Select Committee had authority to go beyond the 100 metre deviation of the line and there was some debate about that. I raise the point because obviously it may be an issue but I understand that your colleagues in HS1 decided that they would not be limited by an arbitrary restriction and obviously it was an important to do the right thing and the fair thing. I make that point because I am not quite sure whether or not you have the remit to move the line more than 100 metres away.

71. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Don’t worry. That is our problem, not yours.

72. MR MARINKER: Okay.

73. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And I wouldn’t take any point on that.

74. MR MARINKER: Okay, thank you. The other point by moving the line is that it also moves the overbridge, which is right in front of the village, 300 metres further away, so that would be another benefit.

75. Slide 20 just illustrates where a new line would be. You can see in the middle of the fields that it is not any closer to residential communities, etc. Slide 21 is a summary of the benefits – I have mentioned most of them – about how it reduces the serious noise and visual impact on the village; it moves the overbridge; it makes the church service issue go away; it avoids taking ancient woodland; it is more equidistant between Radstone and the new housing development and it would avoid the bat fatalities, we believe.

76. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Bats will go 200 metres.

77. MR MARINKER: In fact they are a law unto themselves, but we believe that if obviously it was further away, it has to be less likely. We think it is cost neutral; we think it’s genotype neutral. We cannot see any real downsides.

78. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I just ask you on that point – I accept what you are saying, but of course from what we have had to face up to in other situations, you solve one problem and then unfortunately you create other problems and have the law of unintended consequences. So, have you done a detailed analysis of the impact of this realignment in either direction?

79. MR MARINKER: We haven’t, other than that the way we have created the deviation we feel there is no impact. The line goes back to its original trajectory fairly quickly. All I can quote is the conversation with Professor McNaughton who, when asked whether it would cause problems either side of the deviation said, ‘No, not particularly’. That was a conversation, obviously, in the middle of a field but that is the only way I could answer that question.

80. MR BELLINGHAM: And if HS2 decide to do this, are they then going to have a number of other farmers and landowners saying, ‘Well, actually, this is not in our interests and we are not very happy with it’?

81. MR MARINKER: The majority of this deviation is on Murray Brown’s land – not all, but the majority is.

82. MR BELLINGHAM: And supported by him?

83. MR MARINKER: Yes.

84. MR BROWN: I think there has to be a compromise between the starting point and the finish point. Our line is just a theory line but I think there must be a compromise within that. If it moves it any distance away from Radstone it will be of benefit.

85. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It will curve rather than be in a straight line. I am looking at 83419. If it is going in a straight line from the bottom right, and you had a curve that went, say, a third of the distance from your straight line and the existing Bill proposal, that again would be an advantage to you.

86. MR MARINKER: Yes, absolutely. I think we would just like to sit down with the technical engineers and see if there is a way to plot this properly. My last slide is slide 22, which really was just to reaffirm our request, which is, one, to realign the railway line some 400 metres further away from the village; two, through the earth bunds and three, a fence barrier so you don’t lose all the noise mitigation. Points two and three commit to a deeper cutting or a green tunnel and we are saying, ‘Only if you can’t do the other’. The last point I just wanted to make is to replace ‘reasonable endeavours’ with ‘best endeavours’ in HS2 mitigation commitments because best endeavours means you have to try really hard to get mitigation, whereas ‘reasonable’ means, ‘I gave it a go’. Thank you very much.

87. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould?

88. MR MOULD QC (DfT): In a nutshell, two options were put forward for further consideration. One is line one on the slide in front of you and as the petitioners have reasonably indicated in response to your question, they are not saying it has to be 400

metres; a review of options can move the line westwards. The second is to improve the vertical alignment on its current proposed route by a combination of deeper cutting, enhanced earth bundings and, possibly, barriers and so forth.

89. The petitioners have made a pretty formidable case for a review of those two options and I am quite happy to say that we will review that case. Indeed, we are already in the process of reviewing it. I might just put up for you P4768, which puts on the screen the commitment that we have already given to South Northamptonshire District Council which, broadly speaking, is to do that which the petitioners have asked today.

90. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It covers the second line rather than the first line.

91. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It does but it should not be read as being limited to that. I would also draw attention to the third bullet point here that we would expect to engage in this process not only with the district council, or the unitary council, I should say, but also with the residents, with the petitioners as well.

92. As Mr Bellingham has, if I may say, rightly pointed out, no change comes without a challenge and there are going to be some challenges here but that is what the review is designed to examine. One obvious point is that we need to be careful about the effect of shifting the route to the west and the impact on Turweston to the south, but that is the kind of thing we would have to look at. Mr Smart is very happy to spend a few moments just giving you a summary of the key factors that we will need to look at if you and the petitioners would find that helpful.

93. CHAIR: I think a brief contribution from the centre would be useful.

94. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you.

95. CHAIR: I think we want to know if there could be movement, will it go up or down and what would the impact be for the speed of the railway, those sort of issues and, indeed, any provisional thoughts on cost.

96. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

97. MR BELLINGHAM: I think it would be helpful for you to take away this request

and do some further work on it.

98. MR MOULD QC (DfT): We certainly are going to do that. Indeed, as I say, we are already embarked on that process.

99. MR BELLINGHAM: So, not just on mitigation but on the possible realignment as well?

100. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Absolutely.

101. MR BELLINGHAM: Good.

102. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Mr Smart, shall we start with that, the proposal for realignment? Perhaps we can put up the petitioner’s slide, which is P83419, I think, or I think 17 is better.

103. MR SMART: This covers the length of the route from Turweston through to Greatworth, which is about 6.4 kilometres. We are substantially cutting all the way through that bank except, of course, where we cross the valleys at Greatworth, Helmdon and Brackley, where we do have to come out of cutting.

104. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is this real cutting or false cutting?

105. MR SMART: They are substantially real cuttings, although when we crossed the valleys and we put in the earthwork mitigation to create the effect –

106. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which we saw on the fly through?

107. MR SMART: Yes, but we do have some fairly deep cuttings here. In fact, Brackley cutting is about 18 metres deep as it is. To achieve the alignment that the petitioners have put forward, we can’t keep the railway in the term that is shown here. I am sure that they didn’t mean it quite that way, but there are limitations to what we can do. So, in 3D space we are obviously traversing an area of high ground and low ground and achieving the best alignment in those terms, and of course mindful of the water course that we have to cross and there are limitations there as well. So, we are kind of threading our way through and we hoped to achieve the mitigation around Radstone by a combination of the cutting and then the false cutting where we cannot achieve that across Helmdon.

108. What we can do is to look at the alignment. As has already been noted, if we shift the alignment in the way that the petitioners propose, there will be increased effects on Turweston and we will also take the Brackley cutting, which is already 18 metres deep into slightly higher ground, so that will make that cutting deeper and therefore, apart from the engineering issues of excavated material and disposal, it will also potentially increase land take.

109. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It will take a lot of ground.

110. MR SMART: Yes. It is this area here.

111. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It is almost on that straight line between Brackley and Redstone.

112. MR SMART: Yes, that’s right.

113. MR BELLINGHAM: Will the line be curved?

114. MR SMART: Yes, in terms of our alignment through here, we are on a 400 kilometre alignment, which means that we have a limitation of about 9000 metres curvature in the horizontal.

115. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What does that mean?

116. MR SMART: There is a railway curve.

117. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What is the radius?

118. MR SMART: It is not as bendy.

119. MR THORNTON: What is the degree of that arc?

120. MR SMART: There are exceptional values and there are limiting values. You also have to look at the design length. So, you have the combination of the vertical alignment where, if you can imagine an arc radius of 55,000 metres, and then a horizontal of 9,000. Then you have design element lengths within that. A lot of this is also about the effects on passengers. It will be around 250 to 300 metres where you can change the alignment, so there are a number of factors.

121. I think the point I am trying to get across is that we can look at the alignment. My own view is that moving the alignment is going to be far more challenging for us but, as has already been said, we are going to look at the mitigation through this area, so it might be that by a combination of slightly lowering the alignment and a raise of the false cutting in the areas where we come out of the cutting to cross the farrows would help the petitioners in terms of the effect on the noise and also maintain the kind of landscape mitigation in terms of the visual intrusion as well. So, I think that there is a better balance that we can strike here and we can certainly advise the Committee of what would be the effects of a move. I think they would be quite significant, actually.

122. CHAIR: What we are discussing is doing something between the red line and the black line, coming up with some kind of proposal so there is still a curvature on the line and it is moved.

123. MR MARINKER: Yes.

124. CHAIR: The petitioner was suggesting it was cost neutral, which I am a little suspicious about. I believe that may not be the case, but can you give some indication using your experience of HS1 and other things of what you think?

125. MR SMART: I think the key things are going to be the increased cost. We have a cost on the slide of just going deeper, which is the £7 million cost. I think that the costs for that will be based more on the increased cutting depth that we have to go through because we are going to be passing through higher ground, so that seven could potentially go as high as – I am just giving you a finger in the air here – another £5 million, but we would look at it.

126. CHAIR: Okay, but we are not talking cut and cover tunnel and deep bore tunnel here?

127. MR SMART: No, no, we are talking adjustment.

128. CHAIR: We are talking at the margin?

129. MR SMART: Yes, but the other issue would be the effects on Turweston and what property issues we might encounter in achieving that curvature at Turweston. That is potentially where there might be some more costs, which I would have to look at.

130. CHAIR: Okay.

131. MR THORNTON: Just very quickly, Mr Marinker was concerned that the reports used the word ‘reasonable’ rather than ‘best’. We have a fine lawyer over there with Sir Henry – Henry, rather. I promoted you to give you a knighthood. I am sure it will come anyway – but you’re concerned about the ‘best’ and ‘reasonable’. I think that Mr Marinker has a point about ‘best’ and ‘reasonable’. Is there a significant difference the two?

132. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I have an idea for that, yes.

133. CHAIR: We had almost forgotten about you, Mr Mould.

134. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, sorry to disabuse you of those happy thoughts. The reasonable endeavours which is the phrase that you will see time and again is the tried and trusted way of expressing the balance between cost and benefit. It is for that reason, generally speaking, that in the level of commitment that is given in major projects, ‘best endeavours’ tends to impose a much higher burden on the promoter or the developer because it generally is interpreted as meaning almost at any cost. So, it is generally very unusual to find that phrase for that level of commitment being given in relation to matters where there is necessarily a balance to be struck between a whole series of competing interests and not unimportantly, an overarching consideration of the cost of what is being proposed on the public purse. But people should not misunderstand ‘reasonable endeavours’ as being weak or without teeth. ‘Reasonable endeavours’ does imply that all that reasonably can be done at sensible cost will be done.

135. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But more than implied, ‘requires’.

136. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Or requires, yes.

137. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You don’t have a contour map, do you, so that we can look at this? I can’t read the contours very easily on this.

138. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I am not sure that we have a contour map. We have a sections map.

139. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes, excellent.

140. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can we turn up P4754, which is the next one. That gives you a sense of the cross-sections that I am going to show you on the next page across broadly east/west to between the railway and Radstone. So, if we go then to the next page, these are the northerly of those sections with west to the left and east to the right.

141. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is four on the next page?

142. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Four is on the next page, so could we go to 4756.

143. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And 4A is roughly Hall Farm? It is on the Hall Farm line of longitude.

144. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Five is looking obliquely in a north-easterly direction from, broadly speaking, Hall Farm. So, Hall Farm is off to the left.

145. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It is not the same as going from Hall Farm and across, which is, I suppose, what I was thinking of.

146. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No.

147. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But it does not look to me as though the differences in heights are major, although they may exist.

148. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You mean the actual height?

149. MR SMART: The area of higher ground that we have to traverse is actually to the south of that.

150. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That is more towards Brackley?

151. MR SMART: Yes, we just go through the Brackley cutting.

152. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The Bill line is slightly to the east of what we are considering and I think you are suggesting that that has a lower hill than if you brought it slightly further back?

153. MR SMART: Yes. Where we are, the ground is slightly falling away so we have to go through what is the Brackley cutting length. We would have to go through the

ground at a slightly higher point than we traverse it, so that is where the increased cost of cutting would come from.

154. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, I forget what you said, was it 16 metres?

155. MR SMART: I think it is 18.

156. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Eighteen, and adding an extra four on is actually significant earthworks.

157. MR SMART: It is quite sizeable.

158. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If it were as big as that.

159. MR SMART: If it were as big as that, but there is an optimisation between, if I may use the term, tweaking the vertical alignment and, say, raising the false cutting to achieve a better balance of height to mitigate the noise effect further.

160. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think what we have heard quite reasonably from the people who are thinking about Radstone – whether they are living in Radstone or not; it is Radstone rather than the people, I think – what they are after is less impact, which is a mixture of sight and sound.

161. MR MARINKER: Sight and sound, yes.

162. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And what you are saying is that first of all on the existing route more might be done, which is what most of the stuff for the district council is about. You are also saying it is possible to consider coming towards the sketch line they have given where a mixture of vertical, how deep, how high the mound and what the curve might be might also produce something which would be acceptable?

163. MR SMART: I think the challenge is not so much the engineering, the increased cost of cutting. That is not the issue. I think the issue will actually end up being the effects on Turweston and other properties within the area either in terms of physically the land and the noise effects on them as well, but that is what we can look at to see if there is any further tweak that would perhaps prove acceptable.

164. MR MARINKER: Can I just make a point? We think on the Turweston area, the

way we plotted it we think it won’t have an impact. I am not certain. On our sketch we have tried to do the curve north of Turweston, so we were mindful of that, as I understand it.

165. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But they might have to start the curve earlier.

166. MR MARINKER: Okay.

167. MR BROWN: But I think it’s a compromise. I don’t think we are set on that line.

168. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, no.

169. MR BROWN: There must be a compromise in moving the line a little further away from Radstone but we are now creating a massive cost and engineering problems.

170. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It is probably right that any eventual compromise line, if I can put it that way, would actually be slightly further away from the new Brackley development than you are proposing, which is probably the right kind of balance anyway because there were more homes there than there would be in Radstone.

171. MR MARINKER: Although we talked about it to the agent of the Brackley development.

172. MR SMART: I think where we all end up is that it can be better in terms of our horizontal relationship of the bunds and the level? Yes, and we are clearly looking at that. We will look at the horizontal. That is far more of a challenge and does bring in the thing we discussed, the effects on others.

173. CHAIR: Given that you are going to have to have some discussions with other people and look at some options, one of the options could mean an additional provisional territory, which would need to be done by the summer. I presume that you are unlikely to get a report back to the Committee before the election but one would have thought early when we start off again in May or June?

174. MR SMART: Yes.

175. CHAIR: If there are to be any changes presumably they would have to be in the July additional provisions so that we can finish the Bill?

176. MR MOULD QC (DfT): They would certainly need to be put forward along that sort of timescale. That is a key question, obviously.

177. CHAIR: Okay. Do you want the chance to ask a few questions, Mr Marinker?

178. MR MARINKER: I think we have covered everything.

179. CHAIR: Yes.

180. MR MARINKER: The only thing I would ask is that I am still not quite sure on clarity about our fence barrier and the earth bunding. That is just unclear to me. Notwithstanding it is viable we still wouldn’t want to lose the fence barrier because they are very effective in terms of noise mitigation.

181. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The approach in the Environmental Statement has been to identify an output from mitigation and then to leave open the physical means whereby you will achieve that. That then is tempered by a recognition that broadly speaking long, tall sections of a fence in relatively open countryside bring difficult potential problems with visual impact. So, in areas such as this I think it is fair to say that broadly speaking the starting point is that you look to achieve the output in terms of limiting noise impact on local people by earthworks, cutting sand so forth. If that does not achieve an acceptable level of mitigation then you may need to think about introducing fence barriers into the mix. But you start with earthworks because you have much more flexibility in moulding the earthworks and so forth into the landscape. So here the assumption has been, and you see that reflected on this series of cross-sections, that the level of mitigation that is reported in the Environmental Statement would be achieved by earthworks and would not involve fence barriers themselves.

182. MR MARINKER: That is not clear at all because in the ES it says fence barriers.

183. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

184. MR MARINKER: It says that there will be fence barriers, so to me there seems to be an assumption that there is a fence barrier and some form of landscaping as well. Actually, that option was discussed with us by HS2 on 26 January to say you can have the fence and then cover it with earth bunding so that you don’t have visual intrusion as well.

185. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

186. MR MARINKER: I have made the point. It will all get washed up hopefully with realignment.

187. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Exactly.

188. MR MARINKER: But I just wanted to make the point that the sound barrier I think is going to be essential if we are going to mitigate the noise.

189. MR MOULD QC (DfT): If I may say, I entirely agree with you. The sensible way of resolving this is to clarify the position as part of the review that we have just discussed.

190. MR BROWN: Mr Chairman, can I just make a point as a layman that if you have more cutting by moving the line slightly away, you will need less expense on mitigation.

191. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Again, that is something that we will obviously look at when we are carrying out the review. I do not think it is sensible to make any hard- edged assumptions, though. I think one needs to look at the matter in the round and then make a judgment.

192. CHAIR: I think the work needs to be done first, to be honest.

193. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Okay.

194. CHAIR: I think we have finished that one and we will have a report back early in the summer. Are you going to stay there and kick off or are you going to swap places? All right. Are you moving into the pilot seat, Mr Brown?

Murray Brown

195. CHAIR: We now have petition 1319, Murray Brown.

196. MR BROWN: Good morning, gentleman.

197. CHAIR: Can we have the map up?

198. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I think this shows Mr Brown’s holdings, including

the area which is affected by the Bill limits, which is in the conventional green cross- hatching.

199. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Brown?

200. MR BROWN: Gentlemen, I am Murray Brown, petitioner and the owner of Radstone Estate, which I bought in 1994. However, I couldn’t move in until 1995 when the house was made habitable. Ever since, we have been building and developing the family home for us and our three boys aged 17, and twins of 15. The estate is run as a commercially viable farm with 915 acres in arable rotation and 55 acres of permanent grassland of which 25 acres is the Helmdon disused railway SSSI.

201. Over the years we have worked closely with Julian Key from Natural England to establish both a commercially viable and environmentally sensitive farm having been accepted into entry level and higher level stewardship schemes with management restrictions to enhance both the farm and also the wildlife in the local area.

202. As I find this whole process quite daunting, I have asked my agent, Simon Harris, to describe in detail the significant impact HS2 will have on my farm. However, I will try and answer any questions the Committee would like to put forward.

203. CHAIR: Okay.

204. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I ask a question of Mr Brown at this stage? Just looking at the map there is basically a red line going down the middle of the holding. You obviously own the land either side. What is the logic of that line going down the middle? That is the road is it? Is this the way HS2 drew the map?

205. MR HARRIS: Could we have slide 841(2) on the screen?

206. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes, I had a look at that in the folder. Is this the way it has been drawn?

207. MR HARRIS: Yes, the north/south line to which you were referring is the Radstone Road which connects Helmdon to Brackley.

208. MR BELLINGHAM: And did the family originally acquire it as one unit?

209. MR HARRIS: Yes.

210. MR BELLINGHAM: Have you added to it?

211. MR BROWN: We have since added the north field.

212. MR BELLINGHAM: And you farm it all as a landlord in hand or is some of it rented?

213. MR BROWN: No, no, it is all in hand.

214. MR BELLINGHAM: It is all in hand, thank you.

215. CHAIR: Mr Harris?

216. MR HARRIS: Thank you. As you have heard, there is an estate here of about 1000 acres and unusually a few roads pass through it. It is not quite within the ring fence but a few roads pass through it. Could we have slide 4, please, just to give you an idea of the type of estate here. This is the petitioner’s house. The photographer has her back to the proposed railway line. Slide 5, please. This is looking from the petitioner’s house.

217. MR BELLINGHAM: Is that the house we went into?

218. CHAIR: No, we walked past it.

219. MR BELLINGHAM: We walked past it.

220. MR BROWN: Yes.

221. CHAIR: It was next to the church?

222. MR BROWN: Yes, exactly.

223. MR HARRIS: This is the view from the petitioner’s house looking towards where HS2 will be constructed. HS2 will pass through the second field just beyond the furthest cow’s back. It is a very nice, traditional estate. Slide 6, please. There is a similar view from the petitioner’s lawn with the photographer’s back to the house. Slide 7, please. That is the view from the petitioner’s rear yard car park/drive area off Radstone Church. You heard Simon Marinker’s petition on behalf of the village and the

church. You can see the close proximity there of the house to the church and there’s no division between the two. The petitioner doesn’t propose to make any detailed reference to noise or visual blight; both have been adequately covered by Simon Marinker’s representations on behalf of Radstone. But the petitioner as you’ve heard, supports Simon Marinker and the village in all respects, both in terms of vertical and horizontal realignment, and mitigation. I support Simon Marinker’s comments when he says that it’s rather confusing, about the mitigation that has been proposed in terms of bunding, fencing, etc.

224. Can I now please have on the screen slide 3, please, which will show the estate, 841(3)? Here is the Radstone estate and we’ve superimposed on it the line of HS2. You’ll see just to the southeast of it, we’ve also put on the original line which was proposed in 2010, just for comparison.

225. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Southwest?

226. MR HARRIS: Sorry, southwest. The Radstone estate is about 228 acres, which is about 23% of the farm.

227. MR MEARNS: Would that be permanent land take?

228. MR HARRIS: Sorry?

229. MR MEARNS: Would that be permanent land take?

230. MR HARRIS: No, of the 228, we are told that 123 acres might be returned – will be returned. Hopefully returned.

231. MR MEARNS: Thank you.

232. MR HARRIS: It’s on that point that we’d ask the committee to provide some certainty to ensure that land is returned in a cultivatable condition. It’s the petitioner’s intention to carry on farming as great an acreage as possible. Could I ask you now please to show slide P4783, the promoter’s exhibit? Shown on this slide, if I could just refer you to the western section of the green land, south of the proposed land, you’ll see a ditch that runs east-west towards a land drainage area. There’s also a ditch running along the green land which is east of the Radstone Road. We respectfully ask the

committee if this ditch could please be drained, piped. The land currently has a comprehensive land drainage system, and I personally don’t think it’s too much to ask HS2 to return this land, with a comprehensive land drainage system, enabling these areas of land to be cultivated and run in with the existing fields. We can’t do that – the petitioner can’t do that with these proposed ditches.

233. The petitioner would also like to draw your attention to the large drainage area just east of number 5, which is some three acres of land. I’m not an engineer but I think it’s quite excessive to take that area of land as a proposed land drainage area. Again, I ask the committee if they could direct HS2 to consider reducing that area and so increase the cultivatable acreage?

234. This plan also – can I explain that as you probably know, the Helmdon railway line, the SSSI has some calcareous grassland and it is now the site of some butterflies, some rare butterflies, which I think are the holly blues but I’m not sure about that. About 1.5 acres of the SSSI will be lost to HS2 at the crossing point, which is illustrated on this plan as point 11. Now, to replace that area, it’s proposed that there should be additional areas planted with calcareous grassland. This proposal came through I think last Thursday afternoon. I want to make it quite clear that the petitioner agrees the planting with calcareous grassland areas 1, 3, and just east of 9. We are very happy to agree those areas. If that land could be returned, that that he owns at the moment, with the calcareous grassland, the petitioner is happy to enter into a management agreement with HS2 to ensure that it is properly managed for the flora and fauna. We also agree the area 10 on this plan. HS2 takes out an area of woodland called Fox Cover and replacement planting is being proposed and this area is agreed by the petitioner, although it’s not his woodland that is being lost! He is very happy to have additional woodland on his land, as shown in area 10.

235. Can we move on to slide 4781 please? This just shows a little bit more of the proposed construction and it goes to the petitioner’s western boundary. If I could just refer you to the western boundary, there is a balancing pond shown just adjoining the northern belt of green land – can we point? There it is – that’s the balancing pond, which again is about three acres, which is designed, I guess, to drain the area of railway line just south of it, which will have a porous surface. Again, I hasten to add I’m not expert but a three acre balancing pond does seem a bit extreme here, and the petitioner

would ask the committee to enquire of HS2, firstly whether that pond can be reduced in size; but also whether it could be squeezed into the land just next to the railway line, the white land to the south of it.

236. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just drop it down a bit, and reduce it in size.

237. MR TROTT: To follow the water course so that it’s not taking out a big area of farmable land.

238. MR HARRIS: And also to move the track closer to the boundary, the track running to it from Radstone Road, coming into its northern side, if that could just be realigned to the –

239. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s the dotted line?

240. MR HARRIS: Yes. No, it’s a solid –

241. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The brown one?

242. MR HARRIS: Yes, running north from the blue pond.

243. MR MEARNS: Am I right in thinking the estate boundary there is basically hedged?

244. MR BROWN: That’s a water course and hedge down there, so I’d like the track to be moved to follow that along so it’s therefore not taking out – got wasted land.

245. MR MEARNS: So in essence, by having the balancing pond where it is, you’ve got a small piece of land, maybe a couple of acres or whatever, just right next to the railway line, which is essence, sterilised?

246. MR HARRIS: Absolutely.

247. MR THORNTON: You will need a bridge to get over the balancing pond!

248. MR HARRIS: Great we will take that then. Moving on, could I please have slide 841(8) please? Please ignore areas ‘A’ and ‘B’, they are no longer of any relevance, we’ve sorted that. But I draw your attention to area ‘C’, part of which it is now proposed, where the ‘C’ is, should be planted with calcareous grassland. The petitioner

does not own all of area ‘C’. Part of it is owned by Hall Farm, which HS2 is in the process of acquiring. But we’d like to ask the committee please to direct HS2 to negotiate with the petitioner, enabling him to buy that land – that land that he doesn’t already own – again, with a view to cutting his losses and farming the maximum acreage. Some of that area ‘C’ he does own, but parts he does not, and he would like to buy the parts that he does not already own.

249. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are there many others who will be having their eyes on it as well?

250. MR BROWN: No, I don’t think so; it will only be connected to Hall Farm. But because we’re talking of calcareous grass management, I think if it was in my ownership, at least I have control of that to keep within the scheme that HS2 - Natural England would like to…

251. MR MEARNS: I’m just wondering, because there is a permanent land take of 105 acres from HS2, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to look at some sort of land swap?

252. MR BROWN: That would definitely be acceptable to me. I’m just a farmer, but I’d like as many acres to farm as possible because it is my livelihood.

253. CHAIR: Okay.

254. MR HARRIS: With regard to accommodation bridges, HS2 have kindly confirmed that they will have a capacity of 44 tonnes. The petitioner has quite a large combine harvester, and we would like HS2 to please confirm that the bridges will be able to accommodate the width of a combine harvester, and so link the severed parts of the farmable land.

255. MR THORNTON: Presumably, over the next 20, 30 years, you’ll upgrade your farm equipment?

256. MR BROWN: Yes.

257. MR THORNTON: It’s not unlikely your farm equipment will become larger, with modern technology, so would it not be sensible to ask for it not just what you will

have now, but what it’s possible you’ll be buying in the next 10, 15 or 20 years, while you run the farm?

258. MR BROWN: Yes, it would be.

259. MR HARRIS: Finally, the compulsory acquisition of this land is going to give rise to tax liabilities, and it’s something that we spoke about on the site meeting; and I wrote to Andrea Leadsom MP on this matter. But the forced sale of nearly 23% of this farm – although the Chancellor has widened the range of assets which qualify for roll- over relief under the Capital Gains Tax Act, the petitioner is still going to be faced with either paying tax on his compensation money of 28% or buying assets which he would not otherwise have bought. Buying any assets involves a degree of risk and expenditure, fees which include stamp duty. There is no prospect – well, there is very, very little prospect, of the petitioner being able to buy land locally within the time limits available to him, and invite the committee – some of you might have rural constituencies – to buy Farmers Weekly from time to time and just see for yourselves how little land comes on the market.

260. CHAIR: It has been a recurring point, every time we talk to a farmer, all the way up to Staffordshire – they can find land, there isn’t land that makes economic sense for their farm, yes.

261. MR HARRIS: It’s just not about, and it’s being bought by non-agricultural money and it’s not economical to farm it.

262. MR MEARNS: Can I take you back? In terms of the land that Mr Murray Brown would like to acquire within that ‘C’ plot, what’s the acreage that you would like to acquire within that ‘C’ plot?

263. MR BROWN: I think it’s about six or seven acres.

264. MR MEARNS: In the scheme of the overall –

265. MR BROWN: In the scheme of things, it’s not a huge amount but it’s still… It’s limestone grassland that, because when they cut the railway – the old, existing railway line, obviously got into the limestone banks and it’s not necessarily great for grazing cattle on, but it’s for the wildlife, the butterflies – it’s more for the environmental

benefits –

266. MR THORNTON: That’s what I was wondering, because it seems to be quite an unselfish act for you to –

267. MR BROWN: To bring everybody all in line, I think it’s a compromise I have to make, to keep in with Natural England, to carry on what we’re trying to do with the farm, because although we are – HS2 have not proposed a green bridge over the SSSI, so actually I don’t feel they’re going to lose quite as much as they think they are on the calcareous grass, because there will be calcareous grass put over on the green bridge.

268. MR THORNTON: It seems quite admirable to me, what you’re trying to do.

269. MR BROWN: I think I’ve tried to work with HS2 and that’s where we’ve come to at the moment.

270. CHAIR: We’re aware the tax issues still need following up. There has been a letter from David Gauke from the Treasury, but it’s not perhaps reassuring enough since it leaves too much discretion with the Revenue rather than with farmers, so that’s something we’re going to have to follow-up.

271. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think, when we come to Mr Mould, that HS2 don’t need to buy land they’re going to return, which solves a large part of the problem.

272. MR HARRIS: Well, coming onto that, sir, are other forms of occupancy being considered, such as licences, leases and so on?

273. MR MEARNS: It is an issue we have covered quite a lot up and down the route, so it’s something that HS2 are actively looking at.

274. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mr Mould will have a one-word answer, which is ‘Yes’.

275. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You’ll have a three-word answer: Yes, schedule 15. You don’t need leases or licences because the Bill provides a comprehensive –

276. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You can use the land –

277. MR MOULD QC (DfT): To use the land instead of buying it and you receive

compensation for the loss and damage that you sustain, if any, as a result of that, but that will obviously include in any event a payment for occupation, which generally speaking will be based upon the rental value of the property in question.

278. MR HARRIS: Rental value or loss of profits?

279. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Rental value but if you suffer loss of profits as a result of being unable to occupy the land and to farm it, then you will recover the value of those lost profits as well.

280. MR HARRIS: Thank you, there’s also the inheritance tax issue, which I just want to make reference to. The land currently would qualify, 100% agricultural property, a sum of money in the bank, compensation monies has no relief. I respectfully ask the committee if that could also be addressed.

281. CHAIR: Okay.

282. MR HARRIS: That’s it, thank you.

283. CHAIR: Anything else to add before we go to Mr Mould, Mr Murray Brown?

284. MR BROWN: No, thank you for listening to us?

285. CHAIR: Right, Mr Mould?

286. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you. If we can go back to P4783, the areas of grassland 1, 3, and 9 which the question was, would the project agree to return those to the petitioner subject to an appropriate management agreement? Yes, we would. That is land, therefore, that we would expect to occupy temporarily under schedule 15, for the purposes of carrying out the creation of the new habitat and then return it subject to, as you say, appropriate terms as to management and maintenance in the future of the ecological value of the land.

287. Drainage, this was I think covered in the letter that was sent on 18 February to the petitioner’s agent, to Mr Harris, but the principle here is the same with any accommodation work: where the railway crosses over productive farmland, as it does here, and where it interferes with existing natural or man-made drainage arrangements, then the approach of the project is to investigate, to survey, to understand in

collaboration with the landowner, the farmer, how those drainage arrangements operate, and then to take appropriate steps to maintain and, where necessary, to remedy the impact of the railway on drainage so that the land is restored. As far as we reasonably can, with drainage arrangements that work as well as those that exist at the moment. I, of course, have to acknowledge that there will be cases – I hope they will be at the reasonable minimum – where some residual loss or devaluation is suffered and the land compensation regime is available to accommodate. But the principle, as I have made clear to the committee, is that we seek to accommodate rather than compensate: we think it’s better either to prevent loss to the operation of productive farm land, or to remedy it in kind, rather than in money. So that is our response on that.

288. MR BROWN: Can I say something there? Where there is an open ditch, they have, in the response –

289. MR HARRIS: The promoter has said in their response in the letter of 18 February, they will culvert it in places, which frankly is neither here nor there. The petitioner needs to be able to plough the whole area, and cultivate it as one field. It has a good drainage system at the moment, and I wouldn’t have thought it was too much to ask for an undertaking to replace that drainage system.

290. MR BROWN: But also, Mr Chairman, if the ditches they’ve got there, it isn’t unreasonable, I don’t think to ask them to pipe those so that it’s all one field, and it can be operated as one field.

291. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I don’t think there’s very much between us, save in this respect. We are in the process of promoting a Bill through Parliament which is at a necessarily, relatively early stage in the development of the detail. The arrangements which I’ve just outlined, which are reflected in the undertaking which we have – the assurance we’ve given to the National Farmers’ Union, which is reflected in the letter to them of 14 November, reflects that position. But we have also given a commitment to work with farmers, including yourself, to continue to work and to collaborate so as to understand the needs of your farm – and drainage is as much a part of that as other matters – and to seek as far as we reasonably can, as I say, to accommodate and if there is a way of maintaining drainage arrangements which enables you to continue to farm the entirety of the field, and there is a way of carrying out the works that deprives you of

that opportunity then we will seek as far as we can, to resolve matters on the former arrangement rather than the latter.

292. CHAIR: One of the difficulties farmers have had, when they come before the committee, the detailed discussions about hydrology and piping and utilities, is almost a matter for sometime up the road, rather than today – although very important for your business.

293. MR BROWN: I think it’s the principle that needs to be set in place.

294. MR THORNTON: Are we coming to the balancing pond?

295. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The balancing pond, as I say, if we go on to P4781, I think it was? As I think I intervened, the balancing pond, I said, ‘Yes, we would be able to shift that balancing pond into that area of white land’, and thus – I hope – to achieve the objective of the petitioner.

296. MR THORNTON: The other one as well, that Mr Harris felt –

297. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The other one is a land drainage area, but even so, it takes up agricultural land? It is an area that is unlikely to have water in it for much of the time but it’s needed to accommodate periods of heavy rainfall and so forth, heavy run-off.

298. MR THORNTON: It was the size I think Mr Harris was talking about?

299. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, well, again, that’s something that forms part of the detailed assurances that we’ve given to the National Farmers’ Union and which are intended to be available to benefit individual farmers, that we will look at these kind of facilities to see if we can, through the detailed design, minimise the extend of land take.

300. MR THORNTON: This is an incredibly stupid question, but I’m going to ask it! The volume of anything is to do with not just the surface area but the depth. Is it impossible to deepen it so it could take up a smaller surface area? Or is just not possible. It seems to me, if you make it deeper, you can make it smaller on the surface, but with the same volume.

301. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That wasn’t stupid!

302. MR THORNTON: I thought I’d prepare, just in case it was! Maybe to do with the amount of water under, as you go further down, you may end up having more water in it, I don’t know.

303. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think the answer is, yes I’m sure that’s right. That should be seen as being indicative rather than a definite, immutable extent of land take. But of course, in order to build the railway and for it to operate in a way that fulfils the range of mitigation that is shown here, it does need to function effectively. So there will always be a question –

304. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The problem with the weather, it won’t empty naturally –

305. MR THORNTON: It can’t go too far down –

306. MR MOULD QC (DfT): There is room for discussion, there is room for negotiation and as you know, the watch word is, that where we can through detailed discussion as we go forward, and through the detailed design process, where we can pull things back, in terms of land take and area, so as to reduce the physical impact on the farmer to the reasonable minimum, that is the approach we are going to take.

307. MR THORNTON: Mr Brown does have the alternative again, for freshwater fish farming!

308. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I am afraid the fish are not likely to live long, because I think there will be periods when it won’t actually have any water in it at all. So perhaps something amphibious would be a better choice.

309. MR THORNTON: Frog farm.

310. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The question of the green over bridge, that I think was mentioned along the line of the disused railway, that is intended to be an ecological feature; it’s there to provide for the passage of the bats and we do not intend that that should accommodate heavy farm machinery. The Radstone Road which will be taken over the railway line just to the north, that is obviously going to be built to full highway standards, so that is the position there.

311. Then, finally, the issue of the land that will be acquired as part of Oaks Farm. I don’t think I can commit to that now, but what I can say is that obviously in line with our disposal policies, there is room for negotiation with the local market, and I think the sensible thing is for the project and the promoter to take away what has been said on that point this morning and to consider what a sensible negotiation might look like in that respect. I am sounding a bit mealy mouthed, and I know that people would much rather I say yes or no, but the reason I put it that way is because we do have a duty, as you know, to the public purpose in relation to land that is acquired for the project. Disposal, whether it’s a large area of land or a small area of land, disposal of that land needs to have an eye on the value of that land and the market price that might be obtained.

312. MR MEARNS: But it’s an issue that the promoter is taking away with serious consideration?

313. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Of course, yes.

314. CHAIR: I think I’ve covered everything.

315. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I say out loud, but I think it’s perfectly obvious that as the promoters consider whether the line can be moved, that they will consult with Mr Murray Brown and his agents on the details that we’ve been discussing on the present alignment?

316. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Of course, and it prompts me if I may say so, to say that what we have shown in detail on the plans today is necessarily subject to review to a degree, with regard to the review that is going on. But I very much accept and agree to that.

317. MR MEARNS: Looking at the line on one of the previous slides, if there was to be consideration given to the previous petitioner’s request to move the alignment, that would make much more agricultural management sense from Mr Brown’s perspective, because it leaves a lot less of his land split by the proposal?

318. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I take that point, but as against that I wouldn’t want it to be misunderstood. The design objective is that where land is taken for the creation of false cuttings and earthworks, or design objective is to restore that land to a gradient

and to a quality that enables it, as far as possible, to be returned to productive use, so we seek to limit the impact on the farm in that way.

319. CHAIR: Brief final comments, Mr Brown?

320. MR BROWN: We just didn’t cover the over bridges, the width of the accommodation bridges.

321. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Accommodation – where we provide accommodation bridges to accommodate severed farm holdings, then they will be designed to meet current standards in terms of use and machinery. I think the general position is, as a matter of policy, that where the farmer would like a bridge which is significantly improved as compared to the access arrangements that they have at the present time, then they would need to – they would expect to contribute proportionally towards achieving that. Because otherwise, the project is providing betterment rather than restoring the farmer to the existing position. So they will be constructed to meet current standards, but if one is anticipating larger machinery –

322. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How many of these bridges were you thinking?

323. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, I thought the point was being made generically, but –

324. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Generically, most accommodation bridges when I was building roads were joining up fields that had nothing between them, so there’s no question of betterment; it’s just providing access.

325. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I think what I’ve said reflects that logic. If you have –

326. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If it’s an existing bridge, you don’t expect to have that bridge improved. If you don’t have a bridge, you need one, then it’s built to current standards.

327. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It is built to current standards, exactly.

328. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which is weight and width?

329. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. I thought the question that was raised earlier about whether one would seek to future-proof them against larger machinery which –

330. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A 44-tonne bridge can take 50 tonnes.

331. MR BROWN: We have kept asking HS2 to give us a width of the bridge. I know it’s 44 tonnes, I think is the weight spec, but we haven’t been given –

332. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I suspect there isn’t a standard but I will just – Mr Smart says the working standard is six metres width.

333. MR BROWN: We’re about four metres at the moment.

334. MR THORNTON: It’s unlikely you’d be –

335. MR BROWN: Six metres would be adequate.

336. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’re not raising a new issue then?

337. MR BROWN: No.

338. CHAIR: I think we have made progress?

339. MR BROWN: Yes I do, thank you very much.

340. MR HARRIS: Thank you very much.

341. CHAIR: Order, order. We are back to petition 753 which is you again?

Simon Marinker

342. MR MARINKER: I apologise I’m back again, but I think this will be a more straightforward and quicker presentation. So I am Simon Marinker; my wife Claire can’t be here today so I’m representing the two of us. We’ve lived in Radstone for eight and a half years, we’ve married, our children have grown up, we have three dogs which take up most of our time. We chose to live there for a number of reasons, including job, transport links, but also the peace, tranquillity and beauty of the area. If we could go onto slide 38352 please? Basically this shows our property in relation to the line. We are 350 metres from the centre of the line, although from the bottom of our garden, it’s

300 metres. As you know, there’s no natural barrier between the house and the rail line, and the line is at ground level, closest to our property and we have the addition of the over bridge that we discussed earlier.

343. If we go to the next slide, that is just a view of the house and the slide after is a view from the upstairs window to the field where the rail line will go through. The following slide is a view from the proposed rail line to our property – slide 5? – that is standing at the centre of the rail line towards our property. So the point I want to make is that obviously the property as it stands, obviously very close to the rail line with no natural barriers.

344. In terms of slide 6, just to point out here our property is just above the ‘D’ of Radstone, to give you an orientation and it’s shaded orange, which basically means it’s deemed, in terms of noise, as moderately adverse, with an increase of 5dB at day, 10dB at night on average.

345. So, what’s our situation? Well, slide 7 please? We are going to be wanting to move at some stage in the near future; personal circumstances are beginning to change. We feel we have an inability to be in control of our destiny. Our property value, we’ve been advised, would have to be reduced, maybe 20%, maybe 30%, nobody can be too sure. We feel that the latest NTS scheme is just too discretionary and really isn’t fit for purpose?

346. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Have you applied?

347. MR MARINKER: I haven’t applied yet because we are not in a position to actually want to move but our concern is, the whole definition of unreasonable burden, we can’t find a legal definition of it –

348. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I give you some advice? The Need to Sell scheme which I am on the record as saying, a ‘Wish to Sell’ scheme is new. If we want to write something into a Bill, it’s because it’s necessary; if someone hasn’t applied, I don’t think anyone can say it’s necessary. So somebody in your sort of position – this is not direct advice to you – might be well advised to apply before this Committee has finished its work, to be able to say, ‘It has been successful, it has not been successful’. To work on hypotheticals about how they will be treated is a separate issue and it maybe

that somebody in your position will have heard in previous statements by Mr Mould that if an application under Need to Sell is accepted, it doesn’t need to be taken up straight away, so it does provide the flexibility which is necessary. I think if that doesn’t cover everything you’re going to say, it ought to.

349. MR MARINKER: It probably does. I think the issue – and I’m very happy not to go through every single slide, is that there is no certainty about Need to Sell. I know we haven’t gone through the process. There is definitely an absolute certainty I would say that we are unable to sell if we wanted to at this moment in time, due to what is evident, because two houses have not been sold and had to be purchased under the old Extreme Hardship scheme by the promoter. But also because there are so many disclosures which are quite negative about Radstone – we talked at the previous presentation – to get somebody to feel comfortable to buy a property in Radstone, with all that uncertainty – I know we are going to be reviewing designs etc. – makes it very difficult to sell if I’m not successful on the Need to Sell scheme.

350. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Again, at risk – I’m not trying to shorten it –

351. MR MARINKER: No.

352. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The Need to Sell scheme as I understand it, has two elements to it. One is – not in any order – can it be sold by normal sale, and the fact that they have bought some properties in Radstone at the moment suggests that it’s accepted that it won’t be sold in the normal way.

353. MR MARINKER: Yes.

354. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The second is a Need to Sell. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to put in an application – again, this is not direct advice to you – somebody in your circumstances to say, ‘We will Need to Sell, and when we do Need to Sell, we don’t need to wait four years to go through everything, so we are applying now, because we might have to go within six months or so’, and then test which the examiners – not examiners, wrong word – can it be sold? Is this a Need to Sell that we should accept. I don’t think they are going to put it up to public examination. It’s probably on the borderline of the wish-need, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near being on the wrong side of being, ‘Is it marketable and would you be at a disadvantage?’ My

recommendation to someone in your position – were I an advisor to someone in your position I would say, apply and then let the promoter know what the result is.

355. CHAIR: The more people apply, the more we get a feeling of whether or not it’s doing what it is meant to do, or not doing, in which case we can make recommendations to the Department of Transport.

356. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: From the public interest point of view, where people have been told they can – their application has been accepted, the fact that that would give them comfort to stay on would actually reduce the costs of the project rather than increase it.

357. MR MARINKER: Thank you very much.

358. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I’m not saying you will be approved.

359. MR MARINKER: My concern about the scheme is, it’s arbitrary and it’s determined by something called, ‘unreasonable burden’, which nobody can truly define. If I’m honest I have got lots of little burdens, but how many little burdens make an unreasonable burden, who knows? It isn’t a financial burden I will have. So I accept yes, it is difficult to sell my property at the market value, that’s fine. I’m just not convinced that the small reasons to want to move, I will be allowed to move; or I will be accepted on the scheme, but until I apply, I won’t know, and I accept that.

360. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s a straight application and after consideration, you’ll get a straight reply, we’ll all be in a better position. But the rest is just hypothetical, I’m afraid.

361. MR MARINKER: Yes. Well, if that is the case, then that really concludes what I wanted to say, and I just felt I wanted to have an opportunity to air my thoughts.

362. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What, in effect, is in your mind will be in our mind if it turns out the Need to Sell scheme isn’t working in the way it should, because our job is to help the promoters and government do what’s right, do what’s fair, both to individuals and to the public interest.

363. MR MARINKER: And in your view, if somebody really wanted to sell for more

or less whatever reason, it shouldn’t be too difficult –

364. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I don’t think we want to go too far into doing the theology; we want to see it in practice.

365. CHAIR: It depends on the people running the scheme, how they interpret things, at the end of the day. It’s what the training is like, what the briefing is like, and if they’re extremely legalistic and they keep knocking people back, we will have issues. If they are reasonable and the scheme works well, then everybody I think will be happy with that. Is your name Dutch, btw?

366. MR MARINKER: Polish, a few generations ago.

367. CHAIR: Fair enough.

368. MR MARINKER: Thank you.

369. CHAIR: Nice to see you again.

370. MR MARINKER: It’s my last presentation of the day.

371. CHAIR: Mr and Mrs Herring who are 622?

Mr and Mrs A Herring

372. CHAIR: Morning.

373. MRS HERRING: Can I have slides 1 and 2? These were just to show the rurality of Radstone which I’m sure you’ll be aware. Slide 2 is showing the line of the railway and the blue line is the compensation zone, approximately. The reason that I started off with these is really to say that ours is a question about compensation and the effect on us. Just as a flat in Putney isn’t actually worth £1 million in bricks and mortar, the majority of the value of our property is because of the countryside and the peace and tranquillity. That’s why I started off with that.

374. Slide 3? This shows our property hatched in blue. The red dotted line is the route that you took around the village, so you didn’t actually come past our property although you could see it in the distance. It’s called Merton Cottage, which is because it was purchased from Merton College. We actually got a nice stone plaque of the crest of the

College. I’d make that point because the whole of the terrace – in fact, the majority of the village until Mr Brown bought part of the estate, was actually owned by Merton College. The rest of the properties in the terrace further down from us, they’re all rented properties. In fact, one of them is actually called ‘Peppercorn Cottage’ for obvious reasons. The other point to make on this slide are the two red thatched properties: one called ‘Bradstone Manor’ and one called ‘Timbers’. These are the two properties now owned by High Speed 2.

375. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, which two?

376. MRS HERRING: They’re in red hatching.

377. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Oh those two.

378. MRS HERRING: Yes. ‘Timbers’ was actually on the market when the railway was first announced and the owners submitted their application for exceptional hardship and were turned down, which is what perhaps gives you the feeling – not great confidence in the system. They then decided, ‘Oh dear, we’ve got to do something about this, we’ll go for equity release’, because they were of retirement age. They had a survey done, and they had a survey done by the equity release company and it was valued at £0, which was one of the reasons that caused us great upset. Number 4.

379. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But it was later accepted under exceptional hardship?

380. MRS HERRING: They resubmitted and they have now moved and it is owned by HS2.

381. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I make a public comment: I think it is shocking that someone who has a house on the market and is affected like this didn’t get accepted the first time around.

382. MRS HERRING: It was only with the intervention of the MP.

383. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That is an argument for the MP; it’s an argument against the original decision.

384. MRS HERRING: That’s a picture of our cottage in the nice setting sun. Then,

can I have pictures 5 and 6? We bought our house and we also bought the adjoining old school and this is what’s hatched in blue on this slide. So it’s next door to Merton Cottage. If we can just pull up number 6? That shows you a picture of what we bought. That’s actually next door. This was a derelict property when we first came to the village, we moved 1999-2000, and we bought this also off Merton College. My husband used it as his architect’s office. We had to stretch ourselves to buy this property as well, but it was part of our pension plan. Instead of paying into a pension, we decided to buy this property, use it as an office, and then request permission to convert to a residential property when my husband was coming up to retirement. If we go to picture 7, this is the planning permission that was granted – obviously we had to submit quite some time before then, but it was granted in May 2009 to convert the old school into a residence. Then the idea was to sell the old school and to pay off our interest only mortgage that we have on Merton Cottage.

385. The problem that we’ve got is that if Merton Cottage is worth £0, technically, at the moment, and we’ve got an interest-only mortgage, when my husband turns 65, they can come and repossess our house. We are then homeless, but we will still owe the mortgage, so we could be made bankrupt and homeless and have my husband’s office, which is now in the office and therefore the means to earn a living, all taken away from us in one fell swoop. A matter of bad timing, you might say.

386. I actually tried to some searching on the interest –

387. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just out of interest, do you want to tell us who the lender is, so we can expose them to public scorn –

388. MRS HERRING: Absolutely not, and I felt very nervous in taking the risk – because everything’s available on the internet now, of making it public –

389. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I make a general remark. Were you to be living in a caravan shortly, we’d be very interested to discover.

390. MRS HERRING: Yes. So I did some searching in the internet about what efforts HS2 have made to allay our fears with the Council of Mortgage Lenders, and I did come across their response, the Council of Mortgage Lenders to the latest compensation consultation. They made the point that their members currently hold 95% of the assets

of the UK mortgage market, they say, ‘We remain of the view that it is important to provide options that allow the market to continue to function and to protect borrowers and lenders if properties are subject to possession. In the case of possession it is particularly important that the property is able to be sold at an unblighted value, so that the borrower is not subject to a shortfall purely as a result of the market price not being able to be obtained’. They also make the point, ‘We urge the government to reconsider the scope of discretionary compensation measures to properties in the private, rented sector’.

391. So, we know that we can apply under the Need to Sell scheme, but again, as the previous applicant and said, there’s no surety. It’s an unelected body, and I don’t believe I’ve come across anything in the scheme that says there’s a right of appeal. One thing that did occur to me – a suggestion you committee won’t like is that in fact, your members, since you are so well-versed now in the issues, should offer themselves up as an appeal body, and then you would see very quickly whether it is working as you intend it to, because you will either be inundated with appeals or, if it’s working as you believe you should be, you would only hear one or two.

392. MR MEARNS: I am sorry to cut across you, Mrs Herring, because you wouldn’t be the first person to make very similar points regarding people in similar circumstances in other parts of the line we’ve already dealt with. What I would say is, I think what you need to do, as with the previous petitioner is apply to the scheme, and then if you are satisfied with that, you can then come back here. You are right, there is no right of appeal, but we need to know if the scheme isn’t working, and therefore, we have to look at that. I would say to that, there is a possibility of you coming back here to let us know that the scheme hasn’t applied, to work for you.

393. MRS HERRING: Obviously I heard what you said to the previous petitioner and what I wanted to ask, is how long do you expect to be in operation, because obviously we’ve got to get everything in order, it’s got to be on the market for three months, I don’t know how long the paperwork takes to be considered. How long do we have?

394. MR MEARNS: I regret that I’ve been told that I could be doing this until the middle of 2017.

395. MRS HERRING: Plenty of time, then.

396. MR MEARNS: That is, if I am maintained by my electorate in Gateshead, of course!

397. MRS HERRING: You definitely have some supporters in South Northants, I can tell you!

398. CHAIR: We are likely to be going for at least another year, subject to elections, and subject to whether or not a new government changes its mind or not. The situation though, is essentially this: that we will be reviewing how the Need to Sell scheme working, and we have seen quite a few people coming through to the committee and we will be able to refresh ourselves about what they said to the committee. If the scheme isn’t working as well as we hope it will be working, then we will be making representations to the Department for Transport about changing or improving or amending, tweaking the scheme. I suspect it might need at some point to be tweaked for the reasons that you say.

399. MRS HERRING: I think it’s a shame that they didn’t get this sorted out earlier, because you’d have been here for half the time, I’m sure.

400. MR THORNTON: I think that’s one of the reasons why, although we cannot be certain how the scheme is going to work out, because we do feel that as a result of petitioners and this Committee, that the HS2 promoters are aware that they have to do this right. So, no guarantee of course, but I think their response has been to think, ‘We have to do this right, we can’t not do it right’, which I think gives us some confidence.

401. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I make a simple step first, which is to say to the promoters and the government, that this village, hamlet – is equivalent of Burton Green, where it would be ludicrous to require each potential seller to go to agents to say, ‘Will you please put this on the market for three months to back up our Need to Sell?’ It seems to me that when the promoters have experience of having bought homes because they are homes very close by and are impossible to sell, to go through – what almost is a charade – of requiring them to do it again and again and again in the same area, would be a charade. I think it would be useful to hear those running the Need to Sell scheme, can get some areas which are blue-lined. In my view, Burton Green clearly should be, and a few others – not many – then people can put in an application under Need to Sell. Again, it would be surprising if an application from people in your circumstances

weren’t accepted.

402. That then leaves the remaining problem of your additional premises, where it is fairly obvious: you owned something else. If you sold and moved out, you have to leave the thing behind. It would be interesting to hear from the promoters, whether if they are buying somebody’s property, whether they would be the one that’s contiguous?

403. MRS HERRING: Do you want me to carry on with the presentation?

404. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, if that’s the point you’re going to get to?

405. MRS HERRING: There are some illustrations of it –

406. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think they are known to the promoters. The issue is not changed by the pictures.

407. MRS HERRING: Obviously the cottage, we stalled for a while, thinking, ‘What do we do?’ then of course, there was, ‘Will HS2 go ahead? Won’t it go ahead’, consultations and so on. So we carried on with the conversion and it is now let as a private let, but it’s not covered in the scheme as it was a business premise when the announcement –

408. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We heard some words about exceptional circumstances and this might be one that would be an exceptional circumstance, but Mr Mould?

409. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I know you won’t be disappointed and you will understand that by far the best way of exploring this kind of case is for the full facts to be placed before those who will be making the actual decision. As the committee has very kindly pointed out, the best way of proceeding is for an application to be made under the scheme. There is, as I said yesterday, always – and there is in this case – a specific component of the generalised blight, discretionary compensation scheme, which covers cases, which are unusual or special. It is for those who have property which they wish to make application under one of the various components of the discretionary scheme, to consider how best they would want to present their application. That would apply to these petitioners as it would to others. I think if I were to offer my own view, it would be necessarily speculative and it would be based on a partial understanding of the

facts, and therefore it would I think be probably unhelpful, not only to the committee but also to the petitioners. I think I ought to sound one note of caution and that is that the Need to Sell scheme is rooted in the principle that, in order to qualify, you need to be able to show that you would qualify on the statutory qualification principles that apply to the blight notice regime. That’s the conventional position, and of course, there will in any scheme of this kind, as I’ve said, there will always be exceptional cases which are thought to be meritorious, but I don’t think I can go any further than that. That’s the ordinary position, and there is the opportunity to seek to make out an exception.

410. In terms of the question of establishing that the market here is not working as it should, and that properties are unable to be sold other than at a greatly reduced value. The scheme, as I think we’ve discussed on previous occasions, does acknowledge that it would be futile, frankly, in some cases to require people to go through the burden of putting the property on the market for three months when the evidence points overwhelmingly to the fact that properties aren’t selling, other than at very significantly reduced value as a result of the blight and effect of the railway. What we have heard today, suggests that Radstone may well be such an area. But again, I think that’s addressed under the aegis of the scheme, where that element of the scheme makes allowance for the fact that people should be able to come forward and say, ‘I know that you’ve purchased three or four properties already under the exceptional hardship scheme, we have had a number of people who have tried to sell their properties over the last year or two or three, and there have either been no sales or any sales that have taken place have been at a value that the local agents have made clear is very significantly below what they would expect in the absence of the railway’. So there are ways in which people can address that under the aegis of the arrangements. I am loath – if you will forgive me – to step beyond that mark.

411. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think unless tells you something different, someone in your position could make an application under Need to Sell. Do be explicit about the additional property which is part of your plans and your lives and everything else, say that this should be regarded as an exceptional circumstance, and that you ask your application to sell your own home goes with the cottage and if I was you, I would make sure you openly copy that to your Member of Parliament. And say, ‘We are copying this to the Member of Parliament, who’s been showing an interest in the whole

thing.

412. CHAIR: Okay.

413. MR THORNTON: Unless, of course, you wanted to keep the rental property for future income?

414. MRS HERRING: Depends how good the mitigation is.

415. MR MOULD QC (DfT): If I may say so, that is a point that I hope people will bear in mind, that the idea is, as I’ve explained before, is that these schemes are designed to provide a remedy for generalised blight, and they are designed – put it in another way, they are designed to provide people with an element of choice and people must think about what works best for them, and it may be that maintaining the rental stream is a way of – is actually – because rents may well be more robust against the effect of blight than freehold values, for example.

416. MR THORNTON: Yes, because you are putting yourself in a permanent position.

417. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: There’s no way that – let’s ignore the Herrings as a couple for the moment, suppose I own the cottage they own, and suppose it’s going to need a great deal of insulation, as a rental property and an absentee landlord, owner, is there any way that the promoters would insulate the home before the railway started, or do I wait until a year after the railway’s gone and get the compensation, then do the insulation myself? At this sort of distance from the railway.

418. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, again, that’s the kind of question that I think is probably first and foremost for the landowner concerned, to consider what would work before then and to prepare an application on that basis. I also…

419. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s not an application under the Need to Sell, that’s an application for protection against the effect of the railway.

420. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well – but in order to decide whether and when to make an application, under Need to Sell –

421. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I am separating the property, for the moment, for this discussion. I don’t live next door; I do own this cottage, which is the distance of

theirs from the railway line. And that cottage will clearly need – well might need some kind of protection, unless…

422. MR MOULD QC (DfT): So you are not an owner/occupier.

423. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No.

424. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You an owner? In those – broadly speaking, someone in that position would be – would not qualify, if that is simply – if that’s the only interest they have, that they are the owner of a – of a rented premises that – whose freehold value is affected, then they wouldn’t qualify under the scheme, and that’s a judgment that’s been made, again as part of the overall balance between seeking to support the market, and the exposure of the public purse.

425. Might I just make one other point because this – the petitioners have emphasised that they’re concerned that there isn’t a right of appeal, as they put it. But – they’re right about that, but there is a complaints procedure and if – people will receive a letter which will explain – which will give reasons for the decision on their application. Now, obviously, when the application is successful, then no doubt they will be pleased and the reasons will almost be – almost be superfluous to that. Where people are unsuccessful, and there will be applications that won’t succeed, the reasons will be given for that outcome. And if people believe, for example – if people look at those reasons and say, ‘Well hang on a minute, that doesn’t seem right, there seems to be a misunderstanding’, for example of the factual basis, then they have a remedy, in the sense that they can make a complaint, they can ask for a review. And if, on consideration of the complaint, the promoter sees that something was misunderstood, then obviously, the promoter, if they’re well advised, will take steps to put that right, and if that if that leads to a reconsideration of the application, then that is what will happen. I simply make those points because I wouldn’t want people to think that, as it were, you get your decision and then we wash our hands of it; there is a remedy – not an appeal but there’s a remedy along the lines that I’ve just mentioned.

426. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay. Just switching subject completely, we had an earlier discussion about using reasonable endeavours and best endeavours, and we half understand the difference, in the exceptional hardship scheme and the Need to Sell scheme, the exceptional hardship, there’s an urgent need, which is a time critical one,

and for the Need to Sell, the word is ‘compelling’, which doesn’t suggest the urgency, so if someone has a good reason to apply under Need to Sell, which isn’t there in the next six months, it could still be a compelling reason, even if not an urgent reason? Am I correct?

427. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think that’s fair, yes.

428. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thank you.

429. MR HERRING: The overriding concern we’ve had though is that we have two mortgage properties, we have to sell, the having to sell period is within three years; in three years’ time, which very poorly is coincident with the commencement of the project, it will be absolutely impossible because of the disruption.

430. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think that –

431. CHAIR: If you look at the guidance, it lists a number of things, but then it says, ‘Any other reason’. The fact that you have – you know, you’re mortgaged up, is pretty compelling, because you’re going to lose your house if you don’t sell it.

432. MR HERRING: Indeed.

433. CHAIR: So, clearly you should be able to make a case on that basis.

434. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think it will be interesting for you to apply.

435. MR HERRING: Okay.

436. CHAIR: And, if you go through that process, then let us know how you get on. But you’re not going to – I mean, there will be lots of people who will be trying out the process and we will get a feedback to see who was accepted, who wasn’t accepted, and at that point, we may want to nudge the Department of Transport.

437. MRS HERRING: I will skip eight and nine and go to just slide 10. Just because I’ve made the effort…

438. CHAIR: Sorry, we cut you off in mid slide.

439. MRS HERRING: This is the view from the centre of the – I actually just didn’t

trust maps and I decided to make my husband actually come out with his three 30 metre tape, and we actually walked it. And put sticks in, and we didn’t cheat, and we – and then the next slide, number 11 shows where the 300 metre runs out. But, obviously we’re now about 74 metres –?

440. MR HERRING: Seventy six metres.

441. MRS HERRING: From our property and noise and visual blight do not stop, just magically because you’ve got to 300 metres, so it was just the issue of this arbitrary 300 metres. And slide 12, I think as the previous petitioner had said, we’ve no physical barrier of any kind. And of course, the line at this point, will be five metres in the air, not just at ground, but five metres raised at the closest point to the village.

442. MR HERRING: Plus, if I might add, six metres in the overbridge to the Radstone Road which goes over the railway line, which will be right in our view, which is quite a ramp.

443. MRS HERRING: One of the other issues that I’d raised was in fact the fact that there are two schemes going on, simultaneously. There’s the Need to Sell, but people are also getting compensation under the Town and Country Planning Blight provisions. So, Hall Farm, which is actually about equidistant – we’re about the same distance either side of the line, at the moment, is able to get compensation under the Town and Country Planning Act, because its land is blighted, because there is a spoil heap going to be adjacent to their land, but they get full compensation, with expenses, legal costs, removal costs, etc, because their whole estate is affected. And there’s another one that you will come to that’s in a very similar position, in Turweston, but it does, to the normal citizen, seem that there’s one rule for the landowners…

444. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Land that is taken.

445. MRS HERRING: It’s not taken, it’s actually just – they’ve got to put a spoil heap adjacent to their land. But they get everything; their house, they’re letting – and I’ve no argument with that to the owners of – it’s quite right and proper that they can get compensation, but it’s the fact that they’re treated differently and they get all these extras as well. Not like the people who –

446. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We are trying to get you into the Need to Sell scheme.

447. MRS HERRING: But we don’t – even in the Need to Sell scheme you don’t get legal fees, removal fees and all the rest of it…

448. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We know that.

449. MRS HERRING: But they do. It doesn’t seem fair.

450. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Do you want to keep page turning?

451. MRS HERRING: Okay. I had – you want to say something about your office that’s at the back of the –?

452. MR HERRING: Well, only that from my point of view, I’m one of the six people that Simon Marinker highlighted earlier, that live and work in the village and run a small design practice there, where I do get regular clients visiting the premises, and during the next – well, during the construction phase, that will be very, very disruptive for them, and make visiting our offices very unpleasant experience. And one of the main reasons that I decided 15 years ago to invest to live and work in the village was because of the peace and tranquility and accessibility and what seemed like a good plan in 1999, it all seems to be blown out of the water now. So –

453. MRS HERRING: That’s my husband at the coal face.

454. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, turn one more picture, go on.

455. MRS HERRING: The next one, 14. Yes.

456. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: There he is.

457. MRS HERRING: So, in summary, we wanted an assurance that we’d get timely compensation, that members of the Committee recommend the compensation package is revisited and improved and if necessary, be prepared to legislate on our behalf, if Government does not listen. Need to set up some sort of appeals procedure for those refused under the Need to Sell scheme, that people be given the same package compensation package for their home and costs that statutory blight offers to

landowners, that HS2 secure the agreement of Council of Mortgage lenders as a matter of urgency so no citizens are disadvantage by the intrusion of this rail line, and remember, that buying property is not a loss for HS2, if they get the mitigation right, the property will rise in value and it sits on the books as an asset to the company, and not a cost. So it’s just an issue of cash flow. Thank you.

458. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much indeed. That’s been very useful and – so you’re one sixth of the work force to Radstone?

459. MR HERRING: Indeed, I am. A significant sixth.

460. CHAIR: I worry about what’s happening back there now, as you’re sitting down here in London and we’re not getting the product over to you.

461. MR HERRING: They’ll go slow, I suspect.

462. MR THORNTON: I think the main worry you’ve got, is if you became unemployed, the unemployment rate in Radstone would dramatically increase.

463. MRS HERRING: Good for the figures.

464. CHAIR: Anyway, if you decide to apply, let us know and if it’s not working in the way we hope it’s working, then of course, the Committee will – has the ability to nudge the Department of Transport.

465. MRS HERRING: Do we – I mean, I was very enamoured with the idea of not having to go through, as you say, the charade with estate agents, particularly since estate agents are asking for money up front because they know it’s a charade, so is there any point in waiting for an answer on that?

466. MR THORNTON: Can you talk to – have a meeting outside with that, Mr Mould?

467. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. We’ll point you in the direction of the guidance documents on this, and also there’s a helpline which people speak to and they’ll be able to give you – or how in practice to deal with this, but you – if – as Sir Peter says, the scheme is not – it may have – people may complain about its shortcomings in many ways, but one thing we have sought to do is to be realistic about cases where the

evidence – there is already a body of evidence that shows the market simply isn’t able to sustain prices, because of the blighting effect of the railway. And if Radstone – there’s some evidence today suggested it is, if Radstone is such a place, then the – then the scheme is designed to avoid fruitless and unnecessary, and sometimes costly marketing of properties, where we know what the outcome will be.

468. CHAIR: You do get a couple of local estate agents to say that they want an upfront fee and put that in writing, and plus use the fact that a couple of properties next to you have also been taken by HS – the Government, then I think that will be – should be good enough.

469. MRS HERRING: Thank you very much.

470. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much, nice to see both of you. We now come to Robert and Sally Drummond-Hay.

Robert and Sally Drummond-Hay

471. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Thank you for that. Good morning, my name’s Robert Drummond-Hay, we live in Mixbury and my wife is going to start off. I will then take over for the second half of our presentation.

472. CHAIR: Okay.

473. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Good morning. My name’s Sally Drummond-Hay and if you cast your mind back, yesterday, you had most of the Mixbury presentations. My part of the presentation is going to be very much taken up with equestrian activities as we have got a pony cart and we are going to be very severely affected by HS2. Could we have the first slide, please? And the next slide please.

474. We’ve lived at Barryhill Cottage since 1992. We moved there from Otmoor where we were living in an isolated farmhouse at which – ended up 200 metres from the central reservation of the M40. We fought the public inquiry very hard, the inspector, Sir Michael Giddings, ruled in our favour, and favour of isolated farms down there, that the motorway should be move further away. It was overruled by the minister and we found that the house – we couldn’t live in it anymore. We bought it because there was silence there. We were woken at night by the nightingales, our children had freedom to

ride anywhere they wanted, all over Otmoor, and it was an idyllic upbringing for them.

475. We were forced to move long before we wanted to move. Our children were growing up, but we were not ready to move, and we moved to Mixbury, where we brought a much smaller property, which was fine, but one of the chief attractions at Mixbury was the amenities for riding, for driving, pony driving, and dog walking. And these main reasons are – fall very much at risk with this proposal.

476. I think you’ve all visited Mixbury, it’s is an extraordinarily quiet village. We’ve lived there over 20 years, and ever since we’ve been there, there have always been small children and they have always played football in the village street, it’s a really unusual village. It’s got a wonderful community, no shop, no pub, but it’s a community and there’s always children, and they’re going to be very, very much put at risk.

477. To put it personally, I’m a grandmother of seven. My oldest grandson’s 20, and our youngest is one and a half, and one of the great attractions of coming to grandparents is taking out the pony cart. If we could have the next slide, please? This is the pony cart. It’s a very modest little pony cart, but it gives a huge amount of pleasure. That first photograph is taken outside the village shop at Evenly, where it’s a huge treat to go and buy ice-creams, or sweets. The bottom left is one of my daughters and friends with the cart piled high with little children and the last one is actually Robert, but with the oldest and the youngest granddaughters. It’s a way of life. A lot of grandchildren don’t like visiting their grandparents very much because it’s boring, and one of the chief attractions of coming to Mixbury is we’ve got these wonderful facilities to go out and drive.

478. Now, David Trott, yesterday, giving evidence for Mixbury, went into great detail about the dangers of sports horses and race horses, who have to be exercised up there. We do as much off road work as we can because obviously, if you’re walking or trotting along the road, on single tracked roads, we’re holding up the traffic and all the locals are really nice about it, sometimes other people use our roads and they’re not so nice about it. But, if it’s a slippery road, I’m not going to trot down it; I will continue walking and if the roads are being used as rat runs or there’s construction traffic coming, unless I am to give up driving altogether, some alleviation has to be made to allow us to get us off road.

479. Our youngest daughter lives in South Africa on a farm, and I don’t know how au fait you are with the situation of white farmers in South Africa, but if you look on Google, since 1994, between 1,200 and 4,000 white farmers have been murdered in South Africa. There are more white farmers murdered in South Africa than there are in Zimbabwe, and we are all very aware of this.

480. The children have British passports and they are extremely keen that they should look on England as a second home, and if England is to be a second home, and they will spend a lot of time with their grandparents, it’s got to be fun, and pony carting is fun, and they love coming. And every time I speak to the four year old on Skype, I’m always asked about the pony, ‘Granny, have you been out pony carting?’, ‘Granny, when we come and stay, can we got to the village shop and buy chocolate balls’, which is what he calls Maltesers. It’s a way of life, and it’s going to be destroyed, and we are really, really worried about the safety implications.

481. MR BELLINGHAM: Can we just see a map, Mrs Drummond-Hay of the Mixbury village and just get a feel?

482. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Could we have the next slide please which is the one I was just going to call for.

483. MR BELLINGHAM: I want to know where these construction lorries might be going.

484. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: On this map, I’m sorry, it’s not a terribly clear map, you can see Mixbury village marked and underlined, and the green routes are all routes where we go with the pony cart.

485. MR BELLINGHAM: Sorry, those are the pony cart – the trap routes you go on?

486. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: All the green routes are routes which we use.

487. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.

488. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: At the moment. Where I put red lines across, these are all closed off for us, until yesterday when it was agreed by HS2 that Featherbed Lane should be kept open. Now, I hope that that is a firm undertaking, a guaranteed

undertaking, even during the eight to 12 weeks…

489. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can you point out Featherbed Lane, so we can –?

490. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: What do I point with?

491. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Finger.

492. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Oh right, okay.

493. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I just want to see where…

494. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: This is Featherbed Lane crossing here, which has now been agreed to be kept open.

495. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Fine, thanks.

496. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: I am not sure if this is an agreement for after the first eight to 12 weeks when they’re building what we call the satellite station at Tibbetts Farm – what did they call it? What do they call the satellite station at Tibbetts Farm?

497. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Tibbetts Farm satellite station, I can’t remember what it’s called…

498. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: It’s got a proper name.

499. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: It doesn’t matter.

500. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: It’s always known as the satellite station. And from the A421 there, up to there, up to that crossing, we don’t use very much, so that’s not a problem, that’s up the line. This is the A421 running along the bottom. We do cross it on a Sunday, when there’s not too much traffic, but to cross a main road with the pony cart, you have to keep well back from the road so that you can see what’s coming, your passenger gets out and calls you forward. Well, I think it’s not going to be possible with the extra traffic on that road. So that’s closed off.

501. If you go up to this next crossing, which is the crossing that David Trott was giving so much evidence about yesterday and asking for a wide, safe bridge; this is the one which we are most concerned about and we would like to reinforce everything that

was said yesterday by David Trott. And then the other one – should we be able to get to that, is our circular ride which takes us round and back up to Evenly and then back down the road, and that will also be closed off to us, so we are totally reliant on this crossing here that David Trott was talking so much about.

502. Well now, if you’re riding a horse and it spooks, you can get off the road, you can go up a bank, you can get into a field. With a pony cart you can’t do that. We can’t reverse. To turn round, the overall length of the pony and cart is 13 foot six, and even with a really neat pony like mine, they have to cross their legs turning round, and I need at least an extra six foot. So that’s 20 foot. So I’m in trouble before we start because I can’t get out of the way; with the best will in the world, I can’t get in the way, and if we have construction traffic which gets impatient with me on the roads, I’m sorry, it’s going to have to wait. The local traffic is really good. If I take the pony cart to Evenly, the grandchildren will very often say, ‘But Granny, you know everybody round here’, and it’s true, it’s local traffic, we know the people.

503. If we get contractors’ traffic, they’re going to get really cross with us; it’s very dangerous and there will be an accident. If you have an accident in a pony cart, you usually end up underneath it, because that’s the nature of it, and it usually ends up as a nasty accident. If you end up riding, you probably get thrown clear, not always; there is the danger of the horse getting on to the A421, which has happened once since we’ve been there, and there was a woman killed hitting a lose horse on the A421.

504. MR BELLINGHAM: Is that the –

505. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: This is the A421…

506. MR BELLINGHAM: You can’t quite see it, that’s the A421 there?

507. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, the main road along the bottom there, which goes from Buckingham through to the Barley Mow roundabout where it meets the A43.

508. MR BELLINGHAM: Just can we look at the map, Mrs Drummond-Hay, of your routes.

509. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: The route which we like the most?

510. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes, yes. Is there anyway – I appreciate that if this does go ahead there will be – we’re not talking about just a few years of construction, we’re talking about a lot of years of construction. Is there any way you can mitigate the route? Are there alternative routes that are as good as this route?

511. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Those are the only routes. There’s this route which is a road, which is now going to be kept open, for which we are extremely grateful, because that is going to make such a difference, but that is all road work and – at the moment, even the four year old can drive the pony and cart, but I don’t allow him to do it on the roads, I only allow him to do it off road. And suddenly, he’ll come to England, and I’ll say, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t drive the pony any more, we can only go on the roads’. So it is really, really important that that crossing up there is made safe. And that is the same crossing that they were talking about yesterday where everybody exercises their horses.

512. MR BELLINGHAM: We were talking about the parapet, weren’t we – I think? Is that the one where we were talking about –?

513. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: We were talking about a wider bridge and a 2.8 metre parapet.

514. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.

515. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: If you think back to that other side, with the pony cart – maybe we can just look back at it, which is slide 3. You can see the pony always wears blinkers. Which gives you a very limited view, so if you’re approaching the railway line, a ridden horse can look right and left and see what’s coming and say, ‘Oh, I’ve been shown that lots of times’. This pony will see nothing except what’s ahead of it, which makes it more dangerous, I mean, it is really dangerous, when things happen unexpectedly or give the pony a fright. It’s a good pony, but I might not always have that pony, I might have another pony which might not be quite so good. You can’t base your assumptions on one pony.

516. MR BELLINGHAM: Does it always wear blinkers? Do they always wear blinkers, these –?

517. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, driving ponies always wear blinkers. And you’ll see there my whippet behind which trots along, almost glued to the axle on the roads, it’s a really good little dog. Where we go loose cross-country, the joy of the children is racing the pony, the dog and the pony. We have fun, and nobody’s brought any fun into this whole enquiry since we’ve been here because it’s all facts and figures, but there are two sides to it, there are human beings involved here.

518. MR BELLINGHAM: And is the whippet allowed on the road as well?

519. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, and we have a local policeman who lives in the village, and it’s so well behaved, she’s very happy to see it on the road. It sticks to the axle like glue. So my submission is that, if we could go back to the map, please, that this crossing here, you follow the recommendations put forward by David Trott. Now, I have one further request; this road to Evenly, crosses the county boundary, consequently, nobody is interested in keeping it up at all. Could we have – let me just see the map –

520. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: I think it’s 11.

521. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: 11.

522. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, it is.

523. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Could we have map 11 please? These photographs were taken about two weeks ago; this is what the road looks like at the moment. We maintain that there will be rat run traffic, I know HS2 denied this yesterday. We’ve lived through M40 construction, there was a lot of rat run traffic, although it was not admitted to. And it caused problems for all of us. Now, a single track road like this, can you think, if I’m going up the middle of that road, in a pony cart, even if I pull off when I get to a parking place, I’ve got somebody cross behind me, this what you have to go into beside the road, the roads are appalling. This is one the joys of living on county boundaries; everyone who lives on county boundaries has the same problems, but this road is particularly bad. If you’re in the car, going up to get the newspaper from the village shop, which is a perfectly normal thing to do, do you think that traffic which is not local traffic is going to go into that mud? No. We get broken wing mirrors regularly, I think it’ll be a lot more than broken wing mirrors if nothing is done about

this. So, one of my submissions is please, this should be improved, brought up to standard and made safe. My whole submission is safety, please will you take safety seriously.

524. Now I’m going to let me husband talk about the facts and figures of traffic. Thank you.

525. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: I think we’d better change places so I can reach the screen. Can I have slide 5 please. This is the western end of the slide you’ve just seen and it’s to properly show the roads I am about to talk about and the place I’m about to talk about. Mixbury is here. We are – we live at the south end of the village. There is a road from here to the A421. Now, the A421 is a very busy road. Milton Keynes to Buckingham, to the A43, which then connects it to the M40, at the Barley Mow roundabout. The A43, which comes up from the M40, bringing traffic from Southampton and London, via Oxford, and goes onto Northampton and the M1. Again, carries a lot of traffic. It was dual carriageway a few years ago, which has made a huge difference, but even now, getting out onto these two roundabouts, which is where we have to go, either through Evenly or the Barley Mow roundabout there, it can be quite a long wait. A lot of heavy traffic.

526. Ignore the very heavy traffic during the Silverstone Grand Prix, they’ve got that reasonably well organised, but it does make a huge difference; I won’t mention that again, it is only one weekend a year. Featherbed Lane, which is down here, Featherbed Lane, Fulwell Lane, Church Lane into Mixbury, and where we live. Can I have the next slide please?

527. I took these traffic figures from CFA13 and 14. I am very glad to hear that Featherbed Lane is going to be kept open, I hope it really will be kept open. I have been told to be very suspicious of the word ‘assurance’, as opposed to ‘undertaking’. To us, it makes a huge difference. We use Church Lane out of Mixbury and then down Featherbed Lane, Fulwell Lane towards Fulwell, by car and with the pony cart. It is an essential route, as far as we are concerned. And going down in the Fulwell direction, with the pony cart, there is no real way round because it would mean going along the A421, and into Finmere; with a car, it’s a long way round, like an extra four or five miles. You heard Mr Kerford-Byrnes yesterday talking about the problems of extra

traffic through Finmere. I’m not going to reiterate what he said. Can I have the next slide please?

528. The traffic figures given on CFA 13 and 14 refer always to return journeys. I’ve expanded these to actual journeys. I will admit I don’t totally understand them all. Can I have slide P4279? I’m hoping the right hand side is going to come up with the figures that I want. Ah, yes, we’re getting there. What I would like is on the right hand side – these figures. Can you – the Featherbed Lane figures – can you enlarge them? It appears to say that Featherbed Lane, northbound, the increase in traffic will be 1701%, southbound, and that hasn’t come up clearly, but the figure I have was 850%. What happens to the difference? I don’t see how that can possibly be. But, if we could go back please to the previous slide, which is –

529. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are these daily flows or are these hourly peak flows?

530. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Sorry?

531. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I was wondering to myself, are these daily flows or peak hour hourly flows?

532. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Daily flows.

533. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And it’s talking about HGVs, 20 –?

534. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, that explains the huge increase in percentage because you’ve got the existing flow – the non HS2 flow is one, on –?

535. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s 20 HGVs in a day?

536. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: But it’s 850 in one direction, and over a 1000 –

537. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, we’re talking about a maximum of 20 vehicles, so the question is whether we have lost eight vehicles, I think, is the question you’re putting?

538. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes.

539. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, Mr Mould, no doubt, will be able to solve that

problem in a moment.

540. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: I’m sure he will. Could we go back to –

541. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: You’ve got the other –

542. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, indeed. I think I’ll skip those. Could we go back to the previous slide, 8407? That’s eight. Now, this shows the traffic which HS2 is going to generate on the 421. It’s a busy road at the present moment. Past the turning to Mixbury, and indeed past the end of Featherbed Lane, it’s fairly straight, people go fast. It is – yesterday, Mr Kerford-Byrnes was told that the extra traffic would be no problem. I would dispute that. I suspect it’s a figure that comes purely from statistics. I’m not talking at this moment about any noise because that obviously rises, but the phrase used yesterday was, ‘All traffic will be within the capacity of the road’.

543. At the end of the Mixbury Lane, there are accidents; my elder daughter had one there about 15 years ago. But there are others, because of the speed of traffic. Coming from the east, the Buckingham direction, if you wish to turn into Mixbury, you are in the middle of a fairly straight bit of road, there is a traffic – white line type traffic island marked, I haven’t counted the number of times I have pulled into that, with a vehicle behind me, and somebody has tried to overtake both of us, coming past at great speed.

544. At the bottom of the slide, you will see I’ve put we need either a traffic island or traffic lights. I don’t think lights are probably practical, we certainly need double white lines on that road. We also – a better form of traffic island would be good; it is actually not particularly safe at the present moment. You increase the overall traffic by over 3000 vehicles a day, the mind boggles, frankly. Turning right out of Mixbury to go towards the A43, is also going to become difficult. I don’t think any traffic island can probably make that easy, unless there is some sort of place in the middle of the road so you can get half way over and then stops.

545. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A refuge.

546. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: A refuge. Can I have the next slide please? The A43 carries a lot of traffic. The junctions between Brackley and the M40 are described by HS2 as having a major adverse effect for at least three years. Three years is a long time

to be effectively – trapped is the wrong word, but it – take it a lot longer to get anywhere, major adverse effect means that if you’re, as I understand it, if you are on either the A421, or indeed, coming out of Evenly, the traffic coming down the road from the north, is going to make it a very long wait to get out. I haven’t included the traffic figures for the construction site just north of Brackley – there is, I gather going to be, and the traffic coming off the A422, I haven’t included them, they just make everything worse. To get onto those roundabouts, at busy times of day, we are going to need lights. Can I have slide 9 please?

547. MR BELLINGHAM: Can we just go back, or stay on this one for a second. The traffic lights that you’re requesting on the A43, how realistic is that, from a highways point of view? I mean, I think that’s a good solution there, because it would obviously enable slow moving vehicles, pony traps, horses, cyclists to cross. How realistic a solution is that because the Highways Agency –? I mean, certainly, in my experience of roads in my constituency, they are not that keen on putting in new roundabouts or traffic lights, but on the other hand, if we can make a case for that, it will be very desirable.

548. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: There are roundabouts there for the present moment, and you can wait at the present moment, quite a long time. There are other roundabouts – you know, around the country which do have traffic lights and I know it can be done. I haven’t discussed it with the highways people. They have traffic lights on the roundabouts at Junction 10 above the M40, that junction is being redesigned at the present moment; it’s been a bad one for a very long time. We’re all hoping this will be an improvement, but they have traffic lights there.

549. MR BELLINGHAM: Well, maybe Mr Mould could come up with an answer to that because I would have thought the key thing would be to have them programmed so they went on at night.

550. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

551. MR BELLINGHAM: Programmed to come on during busy times of the day maybe.

552. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes. And certainly that is the way they have it at the M40, they have it during peak times. Dare I say, they don’t always get peak times right,

but – no, it does make a huge difference.

553. MR MEARNS: Just for clarification, I mean, I’m kind of trying to look at this on Google map as well, so when you talk about the Barley Mow roundabout, is that the 421 and the 43 junction, is it?

554. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes.

555. MR MEARNS: And the other one’s Broad Lane and the 43 junction? With Evenly?

556. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes. The – the Barley Mow junction, which has the A421 on one side, the other side is a B road. A surprisingly busy road, going through to Aynho, because if you look at a map of the country, it actually is quite a long, relatively direct route that takes you through to Cheltenham and indeed, to Wales, and it may be a B road but it carries quite a lot of traffic. Right. Slide 9 please.

557. I accept the fact that the contractors can keep their traffic out of Mixbury and the other villages, if they want to. But it is human nature, if you are used to using a road and it suddenly becomes clogged with other traffic, that you look for a way round. This creates a rat run. Now, yesterday the idea of rat runs was – well, basically, Finmere were told that there wouldn’t be any. I can’t accept that, it’s human nature, it’s the way we all, I am sure behave; if you come across a place with a lot of traffic, particularly if it’s on your normal commuting route, you’re going to look for a way round. That will bring some people through Mixbury, and the other villages.

558. My wife has already referred to Main Street in Mixbury, being overcrowded, because people – the children play their games of football and all sorts of things. Can we have slide 10 please? It’s not very wide, cars park on the pavement. There is nowhere else for a lot of people to park their cars, somewhat ironically, Mixbury was built at the time, or a lot of it, when they were building railways, there are two disused railway lines very close and a lot of the cottages are in groups of four. This means people can’t get their cars off the road. Can I have slide 11 please?

559. You’ve already seen this slide; I want to add one thing further to it, which is that the verge which you can see up here, on top left hand side, along there, there have been

gullies made to take water from the road into the ditch. If you have to pull off the road, there are muddy parking passing places but they’re not good. If you have to pull off the road there and you get a wheel in one of those gullies, it’s best described as a spring breaker, they are quite deep, necessary, but they are quite deep. Alternatively, and I’m here talking about cars, not the pony cart, exactly the same applies to the pony cart, if you go off, except there, they can also trip the pony up.

560. If you go off into something like the mud that is shown there, you may well have to be pulled or pushed out. The road has a major problem. The problem is that halfway along, it switches from Oxfordshire to Northamptonshire, and frankly neither county council is interested. They occasionally come along, patch a few potholes or something, which last until the next serious frost. We have spoken to our county council, it doesn’t seem to do much good. Can I have slide 11 please – sorry, 12, next one.

561. Coming back to something that I’ve so far avoided. Noise. I don’t believe that the noise from the railway, because of where we live, is going to be too bad. I think the noise that we will get at home, and in the garden, will principally come, not, as it were, down the village street, which is the shortest distance to the railway, but from the other direction, from the direction of Mixbury Lodge Farm, and Warren Farm, because there, it is – the countryside is relatively flat, and I think it’s further way, but I don’t think that is going to be – I think that’s going to be the problem as far as noise is concerned, and also the extra traffic on the A421. I asked about this at a meeting in Brackley, and was quite simply told that HS2 didn’t have the figures. I pointed out that they’re putting a bridge in, which would raise the traffic up above the level of the existing hedgerows, and that sort of thing, and what would the noise be. They didn’t have the figures.

562. What is also worrying is, I asked for actual noise figures. Now, we’ve seen a lot of diagrams with average noise figures. If you’re out walking, or in the pony cart, or on a horse, and can I here, please go back to map – the first map, which is slide 4. And you’re up here, where you’re away from the existing road traffic, I don’t pretend it’s total silence, nowhere is, but you’re in a part of the world where, yes, you can hear the birds, you can actually – it is actually relatively peaceful. That is why that area is used by many people, not only us, from Mixbury, for walking and riding and that sort of thing. Now, when a train goes by, you don’t get average noise, you go from almost silence, to something that, as far as I can make out, is – to put it simply, ear shattering.

You’re not protected in any real way.

563. I have tried – I asked in the early days what the – what these noise levels would be; I was actually told we don’t have them we only have average noise. Well, if HS2 have discovered a way of calculating average, without knowing maximum and minimum – minimum is probably zero, they’ve discovered something that I wasn’t taught at school. Admittedly that was some time ago, but even so. It is actually important. It is particularly important, in the case of the pony cart because it is the sudden noise that frightens animals, and yes one should be able to hear it coming, it’s not as if it suddenly popped out of a tunnel, but even so, we are talking about if you’re 100 yards from the line, or maybe closer, what are you actually going to hear? That, I think, is something that, you know, it needs to be addressed. And it is a problem, it’s also a problem during the construction period.

564. Now, as my wife said, we were involved in the M40 inquiry. I became very suspicious of any noise figures that were given at that time. For some reason or other, the Department of Transport seemed to think that when you live in an isolated house in the country, the noise of sheep, birds and that sort of thing could be compared with the artificial noise of a motorway; they actually said that. They tried to take a noise reading on our house by putting one of their metres between two swallows’ nests. They did actually come to the enquiry with a reading from the Oxford ring road, taken on a foggy day on the back of a house. The inspector may them pay the protestors expenses for that day. But I am very suspicious of noise figures and how they’re calculated and how the zones that we see on the map, because we don’t hear that; what we hear is when a train comes by. The sudden noise. And in the early days, when the line is open, they are not going to be probably quite as frequent as they become later, but even so, that will make the sudden noise even more noticeable now.

565. Can I please return to slide 13. And this is just to round off. Point 5 on that slide, I’m hoping is no longer relevant. But the other five are all most important. And I would ask HS2, who have said that the bridges and things will all be ready in five years’ time. What will we do in the meanwhile? It’s quite a long time and I’m not going to add, ‘at my age’, because I hope still to be going on long after that, but even so, it is quite a long time. Thank you.

566. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much, to both of you. Mr Mould?

567. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Traffic through Mixbury. We do not propose to route HS2 traffic through the heart of the village. The – Featherbed Lane, the revised arrangements were explained, I think yesterday, but I can say that Featherbed Lane will be kept open to traffic throughout the construction period, save for very brief periods which are likely to be either overnight, or at weekends, when we need to tie in the off-line diversion, which will be in action during the construction process, we need to tie that in or perhaps more, actually tie it out, so that we can restore the existing line over the permanent overbridge. Those brief periods of closure, to allow the new permanent overbridge to be tied in, will be notified in advance, to the local communities so that people can make arrangements as far as possible to avoid too much inconvenience whilst that was being done.

568. The traffic that is - to a very significant degree Featherbed Lane will be free from HS2 traffic. As Mr Miller explained yesterday, at the moment we do see the need to route traffic down the Featherbed Lane for a period of between eight to 12 weeks so that we can set up the overbridge satellite compound, but we are going to continue to look at that to see whether we can limit traffic still further by routing such traffics down the haul route. But at the moment we have to allow for the establishment of that compound by using featherbed lane. I think the figures – he gave you the figures yesterday, but on a most pessimistic basis the maximum number of HGVs that one would expect to see on Featherbed Lane during that period of eight to 12 weeks, would be up to 40. But the range is 10 to 40, so it would be between that range during that eight to 12 week period. Again, when that will actually happen will be notified to the local community in advance, so that although that clearly will present some inconvenience, so that hopefully that inconvenience can be managed as successfully as possible, and we’ve given undertakings to the – we’ve given assurances, rather – to the Council in relation to that, and those have been communicated to the Parish Meeting.

569. I should say they are given in the form of assurances but, as I’ve explained to the Committee, they take the form of commitments which will be binding upon the nominated undertaker, and which the government and the Secretary of State will be accountable to parliament in the light of the undertaking I gave as part of the Environmental Minimum Requirements at the outset of this Committee’s proceedings,

back in July.

570. The arrangements for the routing of the traffic along the primary road network, and I should just clarify, I think I may have nodded to Sir Peter that the A43 is a county road, in fact it is part of the trunk road network, so that is under the aegis of the Highways Authority. The A421 is a county road. The Environmental Statement, as the petitioners have pointed out, does report an increase in congestion at a number of the junctions on the primary route network in this area, including at the Barley Mow roundabout. The assessment also reported that there was no need to undertake any physical improvements or changes to those junctions in order to accommodate HS2 construction traffic. That remains our position but, of course, the assessment of traffic management and of seeking to limit the degree of congestion and traffic problems on the roads during the construction of the railway, that is something that will continue to be examined and planned for in close cooperation with the Highways Agency and with the County Highway Authority.

571. Rather than commit to any particular intervention now, such as those on the screen in front of you, the convention has been in previous schemes, and I would suggest it’s sensible now, that that is – that the need, if any, for the introduction of temporary traffic lights or while lines, or whatever it may be, that that is dealt with as part of the traffic management process that I’ve just described, and there is a local input into that, because we have, as you know, committed to the production of Local Environmental Management Plans, known by the acronym LEMPs, which will – into which there will be participation at local community level. In this case, I would have thought, most naturally through the auspices of the Mixbury Parish Meeting, from whom you heard yesterday.

572. Turning away from vehicular traffic to equestrian traffic and to the pony cart. Mr Miller yesterday explained that the project is looking at the detailed design arrangements for bridleway 3034. That was the bridleway that took one up to the crossing at just midway between the viaduct and Featherbed Lane. Hollow Barn I think it was called. I explained that the project would take a – would look at the circumstances and the evidence of equestrian usage of that bridleway, and in particular of the crossings that would be put in place to take equestrians and equestrian traffic across the railway line at that point, and that the guidelines given in the British Horse

Society guidance document that we looked at yesterday would be applied sensibly in relation to that exercise, both as to the height of parapet barriers, but also as to the width of the overbridge. That’s the permanent position, I’m not going to repeat further what was said yesterday unless it would help.

573. In terms of the temporary position, the position is that the project has sought to make arrangements for temporary crossings, so that the bridleway network will remain open to users during the construction phase, although of course I accept that construction will have a degree of inconvenience and impact upon people who ride horses or drive carts around the area. That is inevitable, but it’s something which, again, is subject to ongoing management under the Code of Construction Practice and, on 6, Featherbed Lane, as I’ve said, to be kept open, and perhaps just also worth making the point that this is not – that the use of Featherbed Lane to the limited degree that I have mentioned, that is – we do not expect there to be any Saturday afternoon or Sunday working, as the operation are ultimately subject to regulation by the local authority under the Section 61 consent procedure. But we do not expect to be engaging in Saturday afternoon or Sunday working there, and on that basis there will be at least, talking those hours of the weekend, it will be possible, even during the eight to 12 week period, we expect it will be possible for people to use that road on horseback or in pony carts without any HS2 traffic being encountered.

574. So the question of noise was raised. I don’t have the noise slide on the system from yesterday, but we did show you the noise picture with regard to Mixbury, and Mr Miller touched on, as I’ve just mentioned, the fact that we look to at least to meet the British Horse Society standards in relation to overbridges and bridleway widths, which is – those standards, of course, are in part based on visual effects and noise, being startled by what they see, but also in relation to horses being startled by what they hear.

575. CHAIR: Okay. Brief final comment, Mr Drummond-Hay?

576. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes, one thing. Could we go back to map 844. You said that the A421 is a county road, yes? I hope you are able to get the three county councils involved all working along the same lines. From the A43 to about there is Northamptonshire. From there to the roundabout with the A4421 is Oxfordshire, and then you’re in to Buckinghamshire. On the Oxfordshire bit they can’t, at the present

moment, agree who’s going to push the snow aside when it snows, because it’s not really connected to any of their other main roads. I hope, therefore, that HS2 are able to get the three counties to coordinate. It will be quite clever, I think, if they do. But…

577. CHAIR: It sounds like it would be a triumph.

578. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Yes.

579. CHAIR: Have you got anything more to add?

580. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: No.

581. CHAIR: I’m so sorry…

582. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Thank you for the undertaking that they won’t be working on Featherbed Lane on Saturdays and Sundays. That’s extremely good news.

583. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Saturday afternoons.

584. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Saturday afternoon, right.

585. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

586. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Thank you very much.

587. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I should just say, there is a Highway Working Group. We mentioned this back in October, so if there is a particular problem with liaison here, and I don’t for a minute suggest that there is, far be it for me to say so, then we would be able to seek to broker liaison through that group I would have thought.

588. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you fail I’d get Mr and Mrs Drummond-Hay to come and sort it out quicker.

589. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Indeed so.

590. CHAIR: Thank you very much.

591. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: The only other point I’d like to make was also made by David Trott in Mixbury’s evidence yesterday, about evidence from the BHS. A lot of people in the horse world are not happy about it at all. I approached the British

Driving Society, and they were considerably less helpful, if it was possible. I got nothing from them at all. I think David Trott’s evidence is worth a great deal more than the BHS evidence is. He knows a lot more about it than the people who appear to be making the decisions.

592. CHAIR: Okay, alright, thank you very much for that final point. Thank you. We’ll now…

593. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: One point if I may. I remember seeing a famous Anneli Drummond-Hay win at Badminton and Burleigh when I was younger. What relation is she of yours?

594. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: Almost no relation I’m afraid.

595. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But you’re keen on horses.

596. MR DRUMMOND-HAY: I think we do have a common ancestor, but it’s a long way back. Though her sister does actually live in Evenly so, you know, we have contact with the family. But almost no relation.

597. CHAIR: And you’re like –

598. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: I do have to say, from time to time when shopkeepers, little old ladies, say to me, ‘Are you the one who rode round Badminton?’ I do occasionally say yes. It gives them so much pleasure.

599. MR MEARNS: Now the world knows.

600. CHAIR: You’re on television now.

601. MRS DRUMMOND-HAY: Well, there we go.

602. CHAIR: Thank you very much. We now move on to the next petitioner, which is Mr Hugh Smith. Will be the last one before lunch, and then we have Coventry City Council at 2.00 p.m. Last but not least for this morning. Right, welcome, Mr Smith. Would you like to kick off, or?

Mr Hugh Smith

603. MR SMITH: Thank you, yes, thanks. Can we start with 830, slide 1 please. When you visited in the coach, a number of months ago, you came up to Warren Farm. Up the dotted red line, and parked at the end of it, and had a look around that immediate area and looked across to where the line itself would be running. And you noticed, as you came up, that the line itself will sever the access drive and the line itself will also separate us from the blue dotted line, which is the access to the bridleway network that is most used by people within the Warren Farm complex. The other thing just to note on this map is that when the line comes, the first bit of the current drive, the first, the lower bit of the red dotted line, will become a cul-de-sac, and we’ve got a concern about that because of the way cul-de-sacs in this area have been used in the past.

604. The petition is mine, but the Warren Farm community, if you like, is 11 dwellings. 36 people. We have, I’m afraid, 23 vehicles between us, and about 19 horses in this whole area. So that’s the kind of scale of neighbourhood that we are. If we look at slide 2 please, this is what the group of us looked at I think when you got out of the coach. Basically see that across the fields, which are part of our property, is the line that the HS2 will take, and will obviously remove that hedgerow and treeline.

605. On slide 3, you didn’t need to look at our particular property, but it is a house and a garden and some stables and six grazing paddocks. There was no need for you to come in there, but if we take the next slide, if you turn around from where you’re standing there, you look down the former access drive. So this would, originally, have been the access drive up to the farm itself, and this was closed – and I know you’ve heard quite a lot I think about this yesterday. This was closed in the 80s when the other farm buildings were developed, and it just became a situation of too much traffic coming out at that point. The next slide just takes you a little further down there, and allows you to see that, at the moment, we are well screened from the road, just with vegetation and a bit of banking there.

606. Now the petition points that I made back in May are on the next slide, slide 6, and they were really in four areas. One was about noise mitigation. It was partly the HS2 line itself but also, and especially really from the heightened A421. I wasn’t here yesterday, I’m sorry, but I have a feeling that may have been done to death yesterday, but I will just touch on it. Secondly there was the fact that the access, the red dotted line, originally was clearly going to be severed, and the proposed solution was not a

good one; it split our grazing land, it was very intrusive, and it gave us some concerns about security. It’s probably best looked at if we go to one of the Promoter’s slides, could we?

607. MR MOULD QC (DfT): 4734.

608. MR SMITH: What were you suggesting?

609. MR MOULD QC (DfT): 4734.

610. MR SMITH: Yes, that shows that the current arrangement – can we go to 4731? This isn’t exactly it, but the yellow strip is the original proposal for how the severed access would be remedied and, of course, it comes straight past the pink buildings which are the stable block and posed a lot of really significant security issues, and it also just simply split the grazing area itself in a incredibly inconvenient way. Now, happily that’s been addressed. But if we go back to 830, slide 6, we are left with reinstated – something that effectively reinstates the old traffic exit and creates the cul-de-sac. But of more concern at the moment actually is it restores our connection to the bridleway network, using a route that goes right the way along the new, the sort of new, improved, A421. Let me just come back to that in a minute. The construction activity is the closure of Featherbed Lane has been addressed, but I had to laugh the other day when I saw the solution is to create a haul road right the way down the field that we were just looking at in that picture earlier. But clearly if that’s going to be the solution, so be it. We remain a bit concerned about mitigation of disturbance from the compound, which would be just the other side of the railway line itself.

611. Compensation was my fourth point. That it really didn’t address the areas that were affected outside the safeguarded area. Some of these have been addressed by HS2, some of these points, and some remain, and of course the blight notice has been accepted. So the issue of the remaining really two points governs whether and when that notice is served, and that’s why I wanted to press on with the petition. If we look at slide 7 please, I think I eliminate effectively the points that have been addressed. The revised route, the green points, addresses the splitting the grazing land. The closure of Featherbed Lane, we were told in the response, that the mitigation of disturbance from the compound would be governed by some fairly strict approvals, and the blight notice has been accepted. So slide 8 really looks at the noise mitigation point.

612. The Promoter’s response was, I thought, a statement of fact and nothing more. It told me there’s a policy, that it sets values, the government interprets the values, and so forth. But it did confirm that, from a noise point of view, the property is still classified as suffering a moderate adverse effect, and there’s no evidence so far yet that roadside noise has been properly addressed or mitigated, and I’m not even sure, from the documents that the Promoter has provided about noise, that road generated sound appears to be featured. The documents say rail noise only. But we can look at the detail on that.

613. The issue is that the plan removes all the current screening, and raises the road level by I think it’s three or four metres. What that does is it takes the road now above what’s currently screening us, which is the former B4021. More like a hump back bridge it was in the previous time. It brings it closer to us and then introduces this ramp up, from a very long way back. So our petition does remain, that we are requesting that there’s some screening provided from the road, some noise fence screening, preferably, and/or the road surface is lowered. I think Mr Kerford-Byrnes may have talked about it yesterday, and I don’t know what the engineering issues around there are and that there are other ways of reducing sound.

614. I was listening earlier to the point about noise fence screening helping with noise, but not helping visually, and I’m looking at the plans, which show that the current strip of trees which we have between us and the road will be affected. Be partly taken away. But I think enough of it will remain to effectively soften any noise fence barrier that is there. Does 4734 help with the fence effect? Well, I think we’re looking at the property here. Where there is a strip of trees at the moment, the ramp will have started heightening the road at that point. Much of the strip of trees, I think, will remain, but they don’t – they’re a visual screen and not a sound screen, and a noise fence barrier is really what we’re petitioning for at this point.

615. Could we go to slide 10 please? The second area that I was – and I think the only other area I was wanting to emphasise today was that the amendment to the access of the property has addressed part of the issue, but it still ignores the issue from the point of view of horse riders. I think the reply that we’ve had from the Promoters has been that the – any provision for horses to go along the side of the A421 will have to have planning approval, and – sorry, can I say, what I’m wanting to refer to first is the unsafe

exit, and the point here we make. Promoter’s response was the exit will require planning approvals. The cul-de-sac will be dealt with in a case by case way.

616. Well, I will accept that the exit, although intuitively it feels a very unsafe place to put it, I would understand that the line of sight that you get from the point at which you’re exiting onto the A421 will be different to what it is today, and if we just have a quick look at – if you just have a look at slide 11 – that is currently what you’d be looking at as you’re working out whether to turn out or not. The former bridge you can just see on the right hand side actually. This is where the bridge was before the road was changed, and that’s, I think, going to be the line of the revised road. So my point would be that what you see today is not what you’re going to see when the project is complete, and if our assurances are that it’s going to be dealt with safely, I assume that is the case.

617. Can I go back to slide 10 please? The real issue is that the proposed bridleway access is – does remain too hazardous. It’s nearly 500 metres alongside the A421 to join the network, and our petition remains that we would like that route to be amended. There is a possible route going north out of Warren Farm, which would connect to the current footpath and bridleway network and would need some upgrading probably, but it would be a much safer exit to take. Those are the two points I really want to make: one on noise mitigation, one on bridleway access.

618. CHAIR: Thank you very much, Mr Smith. To the point. Mr Mould.

619. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The, as you heard yesterday, we have discussed the access point with the County Council and, provided that we can achieve a full compliance with standards of visibility, which we are confident that we can, then they are satisfied that this will be a safe vehicular access. The issue of noise, if I turn back to one of our slides, slide 4739. The properties at Warren Farm are predicted to experience a moderate adverse effect. That is an increase in noise over existing of between 5 and 10 decibels, as you see from the key, and that’s denoted by the brown notation. That assessment includes both noise from the railway and noise from the road, and so the figures that you see reflected on the table at P4741, which – there you are – the prediction is that the change in the noise environment here will be an increase in 5 decibels during the day time, 2 at night. It’s the 5 in the daytime that gives rise to the

moderate adverse effect. Now, as part of the detailed design process, as we have explained to you, it will be – there will be a requirement for the project, and the nominated undertaker, to consider whether things can be done at reasonable cost - and taking account of visual effects and other impacts - can be done to reduce that increase, and one of the factors that - one of the things that might be – would be considered would be whether to provide noise fencing along a stretch of the road or, indeed, along a stretch of the railway line. Another possibility is, if that were found not to be effective in cost-benefit terms, to consider offering noise insulation to the occupiers of those premises. So we’ve explained to you already that that is the design process that the project has yet to follow, because we are not yet at the detailed design stage.

620. As I understand it, when we come back to the bridleway issue, if we turn back to plan 4734, the concern is with horses travelling along the revised access way and then parallel to the road, where the arrow is showing. I mean clearly there is – one can see that one of the factors that would merit consideration…

621. MR SMITH: They’ll be heading down to here. That’s where they’ll be picking up the bridleway, there.

622. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. One of the factors that would merit consideration during design would also be whether it would be possible to combine, for say at least part of that journey, a barrier for noise attenuation purposes with a screening barrier for horses as they approach – as they pass along the drive and approach the A421. Because I think we were told yesterday by petitioners, particularly by I think it was Mr – I forget his name, the gentleman with the racehorses, that the particular concern with horses is the startle effect as they…

623. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mr Trott.

624. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s right, thank you.

625. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which shouldn’t be difficult to remember, if he has horses.

626. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Even Homer nodded. Mr Trott. I’m grateful to Sir Peter for that. Mr Trott. And so that is another possibility. As you can see, the

response to the petition is to – is to pray in aid the detailed design process, and the commitments we’ve given in relation to noise and to seeking to make appropriate provision to protect equestrian users, which will form part of that process. So I’m not able, on behalf of the Promoter, to offer a specific remedy today, but I am able to offer the prospect of these matters being considered as part of the detailed design process, which the Bill – which the Scheme will go through before the final design is concluded.

627. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Smith, any final comments?

628. MR SMITH: I think that’s probably all I’m going to hear. Thank you.

629. CHAIR: It was a nice day when we visited your place, and we saw the horses in the field, and I think the oven cleaning man turned up as well, didn’t he?

630. MR SMITH: That’s right, yes. We’re seeing him tomorrow.

631. CHAIR: Okay, something to look forward to. Thank you very much, Mr Smith.