PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Tuesday, 17 November 2015 (Morning) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport WITNESSES Mr Robert Lewis Mr Greg Porter Mr William Avery Mr Mark Dearnley Ms Sophie Maggs Mr Peter Bassano Mr Neil Duckworth Mr Martin Thomas Ms Marian Elwood Ms Helen Blakeman Ms Rosanne Adam _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Springfield Farming Limited Introduction from Mr Strachan 3 Submissions by Mr Lewis 4 Response from Mr Strachan 15 Closing submissions by Mr Lewis 18 The Wood Lane Residents’ Association et al. Introduction from Mr Strachan 22 Submissions by Mr Porter 23 Response from Mr Strachan 41 Closing submissions by Mr Porter 44 The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Mary the Virgin Wendover, and others Introduction by Mr Strachan 46 Submissions by Mr Avery 46 Evidence of Mr Dearnley 61 Evidence of Ms Maggs 63 Evidence of Mr Bassano 64 Evidence of Mr Duckworth 66 Evidence of Mr Thomas 67 Evidence of Ms Elwood 68 Evidence of Ms Blakeman 69 Evidence of Ms Adam 71 (At 9.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee, another bright and sunny day. We start off with petition number 15, AP13, Robert Lewis, Springfield Farming Limited in person. Springfield Farming Limited 2. CHAIR: Could you do a brief introduction please, Mr Strachan? 3. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. P10280 on the screen now shows the location of Springfield Farming Limited land, and you can see we’re just north west of Wendover. And if I just show you the original construction Hybrid Bill plan to give you a bit more detail, P10283, this shows the construction plan that was proposed under the Hybrid Bill, and again the petitioner’s land shown outlined in red. You can see that the line has come out of the Wendover green tunnel at this point. The line itself doesn’t go over the petitioner’s land, but there is, in the top corner of the petitioner’s land, there was at this point provision for a satellite compound, and just to the north of that the haul road, and to the south of that you can see the pink line there. That’s utilities works. There are the pylons across the land, and as a result of diversions of pylons further down the line there has to be some restringing of the pylons or the conductors, and so rights taken in order to enable one to do that. 4. The petitioner wasn’t content with the proposal, and as a result of changes that are now reflected in AP4 the compound is proposed to be moved. Can I just show you that? P10284. So this is what’s currently proposed under AP4, and you can see the orange compound that was on the petitioner’s land we’ve proposed to put to the north west in that location. The pylon works of course remain, as does the need for the haul road in the top part of the petitioner’s land, and the pink area just to the south of it is where the compound would have been, which we’re retaining in the Bill in case there’s some overriding objection to the proposal for AP4. But assuming AP4 is successful as a proposal then we wouldn’t need to use the land for the compound on the petitioner’s land. We would just need to use the land for the haul road. 5. And finally, just in case it would shorten things, could I just show you P10290(1) and (2), because we have been in discussion with Mr Lewis on behalf of the petitioner, 3 and we have provided a number of assurances to Springfield Farming. If I just skip to the key points, at the bottom we provide an assurance about maintaining access to the petitioner’s property across the haul road as far as reasonably practicable. That’s at the bottom of the page. P10290(2), we’ve explained that the use of that pink land for the pylons is only for the purpose of restringing the pylons, and then we provided three assurances about returning land to the petitioner, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, all about we’re using temporary powers if we can. And the last assurance relates to the movement of the satellite compound that was previously of concern. 6. And just finally, can I show you the operational picture P10285? You can see that once the railway is built and the Nash Lee Road has been realigned there’s a new access onto the petitioner’s property but the petitioner’s property is not affected by the scheme. 7. CHAIR: Alright. Thank you Mr Lewis. 8. MR LEWIS: Good morning chairman, gentlemen on the Committee. Allow me to say please up front that you’ll hear this morning – you’ll hear from me some harsh things said about the promoter. After the way they’ve treated me, and no doubt others, over the past two years, or more or less two and a half years now, I trust you’ll understand just how frustrating a process this has been. Could I have the slides? Thank you. 9. This is actually Springfield Farming petition, both of them, not me as an individual. I’m a director of the company. It’s a small family business and owns about 130 acres, which Mr Strachan has just depicted on his graph, which is prime arable land, grade 2, grade 3, off Nash Lee Road. 1595, slides we need, sorry. 10. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): You want this one? 1595, that one? 11. MR LEWIS: That’s the one. Thank you. And before I get into the arguments, I should like to say, chairman, that it should have been possible to avoid the arguments you’re going to hear this morning through negotiation, but the other side here is the promoter, HS2 Limited, and no doubt you’ve already been told by other petitioners that they pride themselves on not negotiating with affected parties. They just like to tell us what they intend to do, and that’s as far as they’re prepared to go. 4 12. I’ll start with petition 50 and slide 2 please. Thank you. As proposed in the environmental statement, this storage compound marked blue would effectively put us out of business. The promoter proposed to acquire our entrance and just under 10 acres of land just within the boundary, which would effectively – and they would have done that for seven years. That would totally obstruct our access to the rest of our 130 acres and they failed to make any adequate alternative provision. Appendix AG of the technical appendices claims under disruptive effects that there were no impacts on agricultural activity, and under severance that there was none. Well, patently those claims were not true. There are more details set out in the petition, but, chairman, may I take that as read? 13. We’ll deal with, if I may, the pink areas shown here in the second petition. Slide 3 please. This, chairman, is what I’m asking, and after two years of disagreement it appears the promoter has at last accepted that there is a better solution for the siting of the compound, which would allow us to continue in business. They’ve brought this forward in AP4 and I believe the purpose of this morning is for me to briefly outline what was wrong with the original arrangement and otherwise reserve my position for any hearing that’s required on AP4. 14. CHAIR: Do you actually need to do that, because they’ve actually moved the compound, told you that unless there are other objections to moving – they’ve got to reserve their position. They’ve actually done what you want. 15. MR LEWIS: Well, if I may, chairman, just for a few minutes, I’ll take you through the story because I think it’s important for the rest of what I’m saying that you hear what actually happened. Could I have slide 4 please? This is a view of the entrance from across the road and one of you only, Chairman, you were on the coach, so you’d have been parked opposite this on the original visit to the Wendover area. Please note the excellent vision splays giving access to the present road. Could I have the next slide please? This gives you the view from further into the entrance, and they would have taken the entire area from that hedgerow along the left right across to the fence on the right. And there’s no guarantee at the moment – although it’s been proposed under AP4, there’s no guarantee that isn’t still going to go ahead unless we persuade you to the contrary. 5 16. Briefly, the sequence of events were as follows. The original proposal for the siting of this compound was not, shall we say, diplomatically, fully detailed in the environmental statement. The promoter knew full well there was a problem but refused to talk to me in the period following publication of the draft environmental statement right through until the final version in November 2013. They did then agree to a site meeting on 2 December, but the promoter refused to have an engineer present and chose to be represented by two ladies.