PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Tuesday 4 November 2014 In Committee Room 5 (Morning) PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (In the C hair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Ian Mearns Mr Michael Thornton _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Witnesses: Mr David Reilly, Chair, Lea Marston Parish Council Mr Kevin Oakley, Vice-chair, Lea Marston Parish Council _____________ PUB LIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Chairman’s opening 3 Lea Marston Parish Council Mr Mould’s overview 3 Submissions from Mr Reilly 9 Submissions from Mr Oak le y 14 Further submissions from Mr Reilly 16 Further submissions from Mr Oakley 23 Further submissions from Mr Reilly 26 Submissions from Mr Mould 29 Closing submissions from Mr Reilly 35 Closing submissions from Mr Oakley 39 2 (at 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Good morning everybody. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. And today we have Lea Marston Parish Council. We lco me, gentlemen. We normally start off with the promoters just giving a quick overview of what they consider the issues. Are you happy with that? 2. MR REILLY: Yes, thank you. 3. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Mould. Lea Marston Parish Council 4. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you very much. Yes, this is the petition of Lea Marston Parish Council. Lea Marston parish is shown – the area of Lea Marston parish is shown on the map in front of you, which is P859. It’s outlined in red, and as you can see, it’s an area which is to the east of the western midlands conurbation. And it is immediately to the east of the line of the proposed phase one railway; the line of which and the bill limits for which is shown on the plan in front of you, with the now familiar notation: the bill limits being shown in the shaded grey area. 5. I ought to point out to you one or two features, with which I think the committee is now familiar. But just by way of an aid memoir. The Birmingham and Derby railway line is running on a north-easterly, south-westerly alignment, just to the south of the village of Lea Marston, which you can see right in the centre of the map here. 6. And you’ll see that the grey notation, the bill areas, extend for a distance along the Birmingham and Derby line. That’s to enable some reception sidings to be created, to serve the Kingsbury Road railhead. And so there will be sidings created to the north of the existing Birmingham, Derby line. 7. They’ll be created by excavating to a depth of about three metres, so that the sidings can be laid into an excavated area. And then a track will be created, running alongside the Birmingham-Derby line, then angling round to the north to run along the trace, effectively, of the proposed railway. And as you go northwards, you can see that, 3 the green notation showing the phase one railway, that it – there’s a fork. 8. And whilst the railway continues on the left hand arm, up towards – into Staffordshire and towards Handsacre, the lead spur is provided for to the right. And that’s the spur that is the stub, as it were, that is shown turning into the north-east, at the point where the cursor has just shown. 9. And immediately to the east of that is quite a substantial area of land ear-marked for the bill, and that’s the location of the K ingsbury Road railhead, which I think you heard about last week. And that’s an area that will be excavated to a depth of some six metres, and a railhead facility will be created there, to serve the phase one railway. 10. Now if we turn to P860, we get a clearer sense of the facility I’ve just described to you. You can see the reception sidings along – 11. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Turned to 90 degrees. 12. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Turned to 90 degrees, yes. So north is now off to the left. So if you – you can find the Birmingham and Derby line towards the right hand side of this plan, and you can see now with the yellow notation the area which is to be excavated and used for the reception sidings. 13. And then you can see that the railway line serving the railhead, curving round from the reception sidings northwards, or moving to the left along this image. And then you can see the railhead itself just to the east of the lead spur, again with the yellow notation. 14. The railhead itself will have bunding created to the east and to the south of the facility, and that’s shown with the sort of stippled notation immediately to the east and south of the yellow shaded area. Those will – that shows where buns will be constructed. 15. And they’ll be constructed early in the process of excavating the railhead, so that they will provide visual and sound mitigation to people and communities to the east and 4 to the south of the railhead facility. And it’s proposed that those bunds should also be planted; not simply after the railhead has been – has finished its work, but as early as possible during the construction process, to provide further visual mitigation to the railhead facility. 16. The railhead itself is a facility that will – just bear with me. It will be – it will take three years, 10 months to construct, and then it will be in operation for one year and 11 months. It’ll – the site will then be used for a further two and a half years, as a main compound for rail related work, testing and commissioning. After it’s completed its work, it will be decommissioned, and the railhead and compound operations will take about six months to decommission. 17. Afte r it’s been decommissioned, both the railhead and the reception sidings area will be grassed over, and will be subject to detailed restorative mitigation works. Now, as a qualification to that, I should also tell the committee that one of the reasons for selecting the railhead at this location, as opposed to other alternative locations that were considered during the process of preparing the bill, was that it seemed to provide at least the prospect of being used as part of the phase two works, in the event that the phase two railway were brought forward, and powers were granted for it. 18. So what I have just said to you is subject to that qualification. There is at least the prospect that this facility will not be decommissioned at the end of the phase one works, but will actually be retained in some shape or form to serve phase two. And I – and it’s right that I make that point, because I know that the petitioners are concerned that, if that were to happen, then the railhead – the operation – the construction phases here, covering both the phase one and the phase two railway, could last a good deal longer than the periods I’ve just given you, and indeed could take us into the late 2020’s. 19. CHAIR: I understand, Mr Mould, the Department for Transport are safeguarding the route to Crewe today? 20. MR MOULD QC (DfT): They are. 21. CHAIR: Okay. Does this have any impact at all on this, or not really? 5 22. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It brings – well, of course, the route to Crewe is on the Manchester spur. So it would – 23. CHAIR: No. 24. MR MOULD QC (DfT): – not quite so direct. But I think it does have an impact in this sense, that it brings the prospect of at least a part of the phase two railway coming – it means the prospect of that coming forward is to some degree increased. I think that’s probably the fairest way of putting it, yeah. 25. MR MEARNS: J ust fo r context, I think David Dickens in a meeting I was at last night suggested Crewe could be ready by 2027. 26. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I know that that has been said publically, and obviously that reflects what you were told. That I think is the – that is an ambition, which would obviously, as you can see from the process we’re going on in this committee, will take a great deal of work to realise. But that is certainly the ambition that has been put forward publically. 27. CHAIR: Thank you. 28. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Just lest anybody is listening or watching, and is saying, ‘If that’s the case, what does that mean for, for example, the Handsacre junction?’, the answer is that that ambition sits very firmly alongside the government’s commitment to promote the phase one railway, and to promote this bill. 29. And one of the things that S ir David Higgins has mentioned in the report that he published, I think about a week ago,– this ma y e ven have been something that was mentioned during the course of the meeting that you attended – was that careful consideration is being given to the longer term future for the Handsacre link, in terms of the potential for serving the Staffordshire towns to the north. 30. So there are a number of matters that are being – that are in play there.