PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Tuesday, 17 March 2015 (Morning) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Ian Mearns Yasmin Qureshi _____________ IN ATTENDANCE: Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Ms Doreen McIntyre Witnesses: Mr Alexander and Natasha Douglas Mr Nicholas Ward Ms Janet Brown Mrs Christina Wane Mr Jose Wiggins Mr Anthony Cooper Mr Paul Stone Mr Anthony Wilkinson _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION 1 INDEX Subject Page Decisions on Burton Green and Kenilworth Ridgeway Statement by the Chair 3 Alexander and Natasha Douglas Submissions from Mr Douglas 3 Submissions from Mrs Douglas 5 Further submissions from Mr Douglas 13 Submissions from Mr Mould 18 Nicholas and Veronica Ward Submissions from Mr Ward 28 Response by Mr Mould 37 Christina Wane, Geoffrey and Pauline Crawley, and others Introduction by Ms McIntyre 42 Submissions from Janet Brown 44 Submissions from Mrs Wane 46 Submissions from Mrs Wiggins 47 Response from Mr Mould 52 Closing submissions from Ms McIntyre 54 Mr Paul Stone, Mr Anthony Cooper and Mr Anthony Wilkinson Introduction by Mr Cooper 55 Submissions from Mr Wilkinson 55 Submissions from Mr Stone 58 Submissions from Mr Cooper 61 Response from Mr Mould 68 Closing submissions from Mr Cooper 70 2 (At 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Good morning and welcome to the HS2 Select Committee where we will hear some more petitions but firstly I would like to impart some decisions, which we will also be doing tomorrow and on Monday. 2. The village of Burton Green will be bisected by the railway. The Bill proposes a green tunnel which additional provisions will extend by 50 metres at both ends. Petitioners argued for a deep bore tunnel or a short bored tunnel. The additional cost of a deep bore tunnel would be somewhere between £179.5 million and £645 million. The cost of a short bored tunnel would be between £28 million and £32 million. Even allowing for possible overestimates we have concluded that neither option would represent value for money. Additional mitigation proposed by the promoter together with other measures that we have suggested should help. 3. A new proposal for relocating the village hall is being worked on. We have requested that the promoter seeks views on location and that the HS2 Ltd budget for the new hall be generous. The new facility should be open before the existing hall closes. We have requested that the promoter suggests specific ways to support pupil numbers at the local Church of England primary school during construction and for one year after the scheme opens. 4. HS2 Ltd have proposed improvements to footpaths, including reduced diversion of the Kenilworth Greenway, which we welcome. We have encouraged HS2 Ltd to maintain a dialogue with the Greenway Trust and with the local tree warden group. It is important that the community sustain itself during several years of construction in the area and that properties acquired from HS2 Ltd for let be well maintained. We have received a detailed and satisfactory report from HS2 on rented property maintenance in the area and we expect further reports in due course. We will also be keeping an eye on the success of the Need to Sell Scheme as it operates in this area. 5. Now we move back to Chipping Warden with Mr and Mrs Douglas. Alexander and Natasha Douglas 6. MR DOUGLAS: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Can I have the first slide of my presentation? Thank you. We are Alexander and Natasha Douglas and we live at 3 Mill Lane House in Chipping Warden. We are both going to do a double act on this presentation. We have five main points which we will be sharing between us. 7. Can I have the second slide, please? The red blob on the screen now is where we live and the next slide shows the extent of our property, which is, I think, important to the background to the environmental area. We have lived here for three years. Prior to that we lived for four years nearby in the village of Greatworth, which is also on the route of HS2. We spent most of that time, in fact, looking for somewhere to live. We had two key criteria, or two reasons, I guess. One was that South Northamptonshire is particularly beautiful and an unspoilt rural county. The next slide shows our view, which I think gives a flavour of what it looks like and what it is like. It is also totally tranquil. That is a big reason why we chose this particular house and the area. 8. MR BELLINGHAM: Which way is that map facing? 9. MR DOUGLAS: That is looking south. 10. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, looking from the property out to your land? 11. MR DOUGLAS: Yes, and the railway is off to the left, which will not be visible. It will be off to the left. The other key criterion was to be close to Natasha’s parents. Both of them are in their seventies and we had a key criterion that we wanted to be within 10 minutes of them because Natasha’s mother has recently had several emergencies, so we need to be close by to visit at least daily and also to be able to get there quickly in the case of an emergency. We will come back to this because it is integral to how the village is connected today to the rest of the world and how it is proposed to be connected during construction and afterwards. 12. Could I have the next slide, please? This is just intended to give a little more flavour of how we live. We have three ponies and three children. We use our land for the ponies and we use the area to bring the children up in the way you would choose to live or choose to live now and maybe not be able to afterwards. 13. Could we have the next slide? That is just the house, so the next slide again. On the map with HS2 on it our house is just on the left-hand side of that purple blob. So, our house is around here. I guess the point I am trying to make is that there are a number of bridleways and footpaths underneath that purple blob where currently we ride 4 with our children. We would, as they get older and bigger, extend further and further away on those bridleways, but clearly we are not going to be able to do that because the railway is going to cut clean across several of them and where they are reinstated it is still probably not going to be suitable for small children on ponies, due to the noise and visual distraction of the train and the fear it imposes on the ponies. 14. So, just to summarise, the reason we are here is that we think HS2 will clearly have a financial impact on us and the value of our property. It also has a personal impact on our lives. The real nub of all of the things we are here to ask for is to eliminate or at least mitigate those effects because, as I am sure many petitioners have said, we do not see why we in our village should suffer for an amenity which is entirely for other people because we live smack between the two stations and will not use them. So, we are very keen to eliminate the downsides of the railway itself. 15. As I say, I know that many of the issues have been raised by other people. We have submitted a fairly detailed and lengthy petition, which I am sure you will be relieved to hear that we are not going to go through step by step, because I know that a number of those points have been covered. So, just to let you know what we are planning to talk about: the Chipping Warden bypass, which is agreed but we wish to raise a few issues on that anyway; the future of the Culworth Road and the portal compound, the construction compound, for the tunnel portal at the eastern end; noise to the extent that we can and then the main construction compound at Chipping Warden, which was in our petition and we have some issues arising from the response; and also the A361 road itself, particularly where it passes through Wardington which we feel is of personal and of more general public interest and impact. So, that is where we are going to focus. With that I shall turn to Natasha who will present some of those points. 16. MRS DOUGLAS: Can I have the next slide, please? We are very relieved that Chipping Warden is being given a bypass. We are, however, concerned that the consultation process around the bypass has been quite rushed. The village itself has been asked for feedback by 25 March, which is unrealistic. We are not quite sure why there is such a rush. The issues that need proper consideration and have been identified so far are the balancing ponds, which are here and here, and their impact on the drainage system of the village – this village is prone to flooding; the severance of footpath AE19 and how that will connect to AE18 over the road; the footpaths are here and here. 5 Moving further north there is the relocation of footpath AE15 and how that again will join to AE17 on the other side of the road.