PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Wednesday 24 June 2015 (Morning) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Henry Bellingham Ian Mearns _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Edward Briggs, Bidwells Ms Charlotte Jones, Ruislip Against HS2 WITN ESSES Mr Clive Medcraft Mr Philip Corthorne, Chair of Governors, Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Mr Peter Miller, Head of Environment and Planning, HS2 Ltd _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Mr Clive Medcraft Submissions by Mr Medcraft 3 Response from Mr Mould QC 6 Fred and Jean Dawson, et al. Submissions by Mr Briggs 8 Response from Mr Mould 20 Mr Miller, questioned by Mr Mould 21 Mr Miller, questioned by Mr Briggs 37 The Governing Bodies of Ruislip High School, Ruislip Gardens Primary School and Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Submissions by Ms Jones 39 Submissions by Mr Corthorne 51 Response from Mr Mould 56 Closing submissions by Ms Jones 61 2 (At 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. We will make a start. Welcome to the HS2 Committee. We welcome Mr Clive Medcraft, who is petitioner 1757. Could we put up where Mr Medcraft lives or comes from on the screen? Mr Clive Medcraft 2. MR MEDCRAFT: You can see really that I live in the heart of the village, and so it’s important for me to get about. I work in the village as well; I’m based at home. I have a TVAV servicing business and I need to be able to get out to see clients – 3. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A TV…? 4. MR MEDCRAFT: Audio servicing. So I need to be able to collect and deliver equipment, although I’m based at home and I do the work at home on stuff, and so it’s important that I can get out the village basically. So obviously I know a lot has been said about traffic, so I’m not going to have you all glaze over with blow-by-blow comments on that. Just to say, also, my wife works in Ealing; she needs to be able to commute out of the area, so anything that can be done to minimise the impact – the obvious impact – on the road structure, is something that I’m seeking to achieve. 5. If we could go to the next slide. I’m not David Bailey – I’m sure you’ve seen lots of this as well, cars. Next slide, as well, please? That’s the end of that. Then the next slide? And again please? Probably melodramatic what I’m saying there, but basically you get the gist of it; it looks nice now. I worry about the appearance of it when work commences. That’s just a simplistic illustration that I put together to show how I envisaged things looking more in the area, once the major works start, setting up the 06 Harvil Road Compound. Go to the next slide please? Then obviously we’re also familiar with that compound that I just mentioned so we can skip onto the next on please? 6. Now, obviously from a road point of view, the main concern to me is this Brackenbury Cutting. I don’t know if actually refer to it as the Copthall C utting or the Harvil Road Compound? I’ve called it that. What you see on the horizon is basically a hill that needs to be demolished and then spread all over some fields nearby. I’ve tried 3 to capture the sort of depth down, at the track bed level, where the railhead has to be established. Obviously the Colne Valley commissioned tunnel proposal seeks to eradicate the need for that, and that would obviously be something that I would love, but I understand that it’s not something that can be taken lightly, and I’m aware of the response from HS2 Limited to what their principal objections are regarding that cavern that has to be excavated and the difficulties there, and it’s been likened to working through a letterbox to decorate your hallway, which maybe I would have used a different analogy, along the lines of keyhole surgery. That it’s actually a challenge to be able to demonstrate how you could implement precision and ingenuity in the invasion, delivering something like that. Because a side issue, that I understand that the whole project, the prestige of it is going to be something that we’re going to want to be able to showcase and maybe export new competencies that are going to maybe something of benefit from implementing the scheme. I know that’s not something that is going to be decided upon quickly. 7. So leaving that now, if we can just take, flash through the next two slides quite quickly: it’s just pictures I’ve managed to grab of where the sustainable placement is scheduled to be. Again, I understand that one of them might have moved or something, but they’re still going to be things like that roughly where they’re shown, to my understanding. Next slide please? So, the alternative I just touched upon, which is the tunnel and then I understand that quite substantial consideration was given to simply relocating to the TfL – keeping the viaduct, but I also understand that HS2 Limited have raised objections regarding the logistics of that, that you still have to have the Harvil Road compound and actually, so that that actually almost completely dials out the advantage of that relocation, so it’s my understanding that that’s probably off the table. So, really it’s just the tunnel that I’m looking for, hoping for. 8. CHAIR: I’m not sure a tunnel would benefit you, because it would mean West Hyde would have substantial amounts of traffic, which would mean would divert through Harefield, so Harefield would catch it. 9. MR MEDCRAFT: And also, the other objection I’ve got is the way it’s going to look through the Colne Valley with the viaduct. Of course, the views that we saw from the pub, The Old Orchard – 4 10. CHAIR: When we had a crowd at the top? 11. MR MEDCRAFT: That’s it, yes. It’s actually going to be more intensive because of the intervention gap, and so on. But I mean, I still think that the mitigation to the Colne Valley itself, and the absence of the congestion on the road that might arise from taking away that compound is something – at the look of it, is going to be horrible. That view is going to be ruined; irrespective of what’s done with that is going to be adversely affected. So we know we have to expect that if the scheme goes ahead. So really, my focus is just about being able to get about, and there are loads of other things that are upsetting – like the impact on the Colne Valley, the restrictions upon its use. I mean, my kids will probably be leaving home by the time it starts to recover from the shock of it. 12. CHAIR: Clearly if you say, ‘I’ll see you at 10 o’clock to fix your television or fit an audio visual system’, and you arrive there at 11.00, it isn’t going to be very popular is it? 13. MR MEDCRAFT: That’s never a good idea. I’ve tried to just keep it to pragmatism because everyone’s emotional about what it’s going to do to the area, potentially. So, can we just step through, and then I can see what they are, whether we need to spend any time on them. Next slide please? Okay, we have talked about that, so we can skip that, please? In my petition response documentation the – we pretty much knew how it was going to go, how HS2 Limited would approach the tunnelling proposition, but the only thing that is a little bit annoying, I suppose is, when we were first asking for consideration of that, the main reason was the provision for the Heathrow Spur. But when the PRD came back, and there was no mention of that, and it seemed to focus mainly on the – what I’ve got here, which is the Misbourne River Action Group and Affinity Water and people like that were concerned about the risks of tunnelling through a chalk aquifer. The annoying thing was that, on the one hand we were being told that that is not something that would be a good idea under the Colne Valley; but a very similar scheme is being adopted for the Chiltern Tunnel, under very similar geological conditions and HS2 sent a team of people along – which I discovered just be doing a bit of research – sent a team along of experts, who argue why it’s not a problem doing some of the works elsewhere. So, I notice that that wasn’t really a theme that carried through the Hillingdon Borough hearings so much, but I don’t know. I think 5 the analogy is that it’s like a subcutaneous implant, a tunnel; whereas the piers are like multiple stab wounds. So, I would just hope that some of that is considered, because I understand that there could be an implication for the drinking water supplies. 14. Really, I think that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say. 15.