PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Monday, 19 October 2015 (Afternoon) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Henry Bellingham Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr Timothy Mould QC, Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Mark Lowe QC, Counsel, Aylesbury Vale District Council & Buckinghamshire County Council WITNESSES Ms Tracey Aldworth Mr David Richards Ms Hazel Morrison Mr Jeremy Banks Ms Melissa Laing Mr Philip Gaskin Ms Lesley Taylor Mr Peter Miller, Head of Environment and Planning, HS2 Ltd Mr Tim Smart, International Director for High Speed Rail, CH2M Hill _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Buckinghamshire County Council (Cont’d) Ms Aldworth, examined by Mr Lowe 3 Submissions by Mr Lowe 10 Turweston Parish Council Submissions by Mr Richards 15 Submissions by Ms Morrison 19 Further submissions by Mr Richards 20 Further submissions by Ms Morrison 29 Response from Mr Mould 30 Westbury Parish Council Submissions by Mr Banks 35 Response from Mr Mould 40 Closing submissions by Mr Banks 43 Melissa Laing Submissions by Ms Laing 44 Response from Mr Mould 48 Charndon Parish Council and Calvert Green Parish Council Submissions by Mr Gaskin and Ms Taylor 50 Lesley Taylor, Jolyon Brown et al. Submissions by Ms Taylor 69 Response from Mr Mould 72 Mr Miller, examined by Mr Mould 73 Mr Smart, examined by Mr Mould 80 Mr Smart, cross-examined by Mr Gaskin 84 Submissions by Mr Mould 86 2 (At 14.00) Buckinghamshire County Council (Cont’d) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome back to the HS2 Select Committee. This week we hear from Buckinghamshire north of the Chilterns, beginning with Aylesbury Vale District Council. Tomorrow we shall hear from the Speaker in the afternoon. By way of comment on the Committee’s overall timetable, we intend to complete hearing petitioners from the Chilterns by the end of this month, except those that have already deferred for legitimate reasons, such as AP4. We shall start hearing Camden petitioners in the week commencing 30 November. So we start off with Aylesbury again, and it’s you, Mr Lowe, again on duty. 2. MR LOWE QC: Thank you, sir. Can I say that we are going to be brief? Although there are three witnesses on the slides, A14641, in fact Ms Aldworth will be dealing with these matters herself. 3. CHAIR: Okay. 4. MR LOWE QC: Would you like to introduce yourself to the Committee please? 5. MS ALDWORTH: Yes. Thank you. My name’s Tracy Aldworth. I’m a director at Aylesbury Vale District Council, and I’ve worked for the authority for 16 years. 6. MR LOWE QC: Slide 2 sets out the strategic context of Aylesbury Vale, and I think the Committee will already be well familiar with that from last week, so we move on to the next slide, please, which is that dealing with the strategic road network. Again, the Committee heard evidence about that last week, and in particular the request of Buckinghamshire as highway authority to have the passive provision made available for the southwest link part of the link road. And I think you would like to see, from the penultimate sentence there, you would like to confirm the Council’s commitment to working along with the County Council and HS2 to find an appropriate solution. Is that right? 7. MS ALDWORTH: Yes we would, and I think, reflecting the earlier slide in terms of the context, for the growth particularly that Aylesbury is likely to be facing in the coming years, we’re obviously particularly concerned to ensure that HS2 helps us in that 3 provision rather than precluding some of those issues that we are going to have to be grappling with in the coming years. 8. MR LOWE QC: And so we undertook, I think, last week to report back to the Committee on the progress of those negotiations, and, sir, since we’ve last met we’ve received a statement from the landowners supporting this option in principle. I don’t know its number. Oh yes, I do. I’ve got it written down. I beg your pardon, forgetting my prompt, A1475(1). And this is a brief note from the landowners that indicates in principle their support for the idea, and I don’t know whether you want to look at it in any more detail than that. Thank you very much. 9. Well, can we move on then please to slide 4? This is the station at Steeple Claydon, and I think you’re here to really report the support of Aylesbury Vale to this concept, and tell us a little more about the help that Aylesbury Vale might be able to give to this idea. 10. MS ALDWORTH: Thank you, Mr Lowe. I think during the proceedings last week we were very conscious that the Committee were keen to see if there was a solution that could be found by the key parties working together. Fully appreciate that the County Council are in a very challenging position, as all local authorities are, but it was really an opportunity today to present to the committee the concept really that the District Council would be very keen to be part of that negotiation to see what funding it may be able to find to help facilitate a joint solution. We obviously haven’t yet taken a formal decision on that, but it was really that we’re very willing to be a party to that and explore how we might be able to help contribute. The local authority as the District Council is already contributing £5 million towards the East West Rail project, and that’s a commitment that it’s already made, and obviously we’d be keen to see if there’s anything further that we could contribute to help bring forward the prospect of a new station. 11. MR LOWE QC: I think you have at the moment from the New Homes Bonus funding, provided that continues, quite a substantial income every year. 12. MS ALDWORTH: We have, and again that’s really the primary source of where we have identified the commitment we’ve already made of £5 million towards the East West Rail project. And, as you say, subject to the Chancellor continuing with that in 4 November we’d be obviously looking to that perhaps as an opportunity to put some additional funding in. 13. MR LOWE QC: So I think, sir, that’s a refinement of the evidence you heard last week from Buckinghamshire, and indicates there could well be some public contribution to the pot. 14. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: What it seemed to me from those discussions last week was that the cost proposed was astronomically high. Have you had any discussions with Network Rail to see if that cost could be brought down? 15. MS ALDWORTH: We are a member of the East West Rail consortium, and I think that’s something that we’ll be actively pursuing in the near future to make sure that we’re very clear about how that cost was arrived at. And our priority obviously would be to try and deliver a station within the most reasonable level that we could. 16. MR LOWE QC: I think it’s fair to say we never got the base cost because the Parsons Brinckerhoff material had the cost with an optimism inbuilt to it. So it’s obviously substantially less, the base cost, than 5 million, but quite how much less we don’t know. Thank you. So that’s Steeple Claydon. Oh, perhaps there’s one other matter to be mentioned when we deal with Steeple Claydon. I think you have had, just before we came in here, received an assurance from HS2 with regard to Calvert and works at Calvert. Is that right? 17. MS ALDWORTH: We have, and unfortunately we received it just shortly after one o’clock so we’ve not really had the opportunity to consider that in detail. And I think really what we’d be looking to do is to review that to ensure that it met our concerns, which were primarily that as a local authority we need to make sure that the coordination is effectively managed on behalf of those two national schemes, and certainly another concern that there isn’t any undue delay to the East West Rail project. 18. MR LOWE QC: Yes. Can we come on to those, because I think the letter itself only deals with construction activities around the village and the need to coordinate those with you. Is that right? 19. MS ALDWORTH: That’s right, yes. 5 20. MR LOWE QC: And as far as that goes, is that helpful? 21. MS ALDWORTH: I think it is helpful, but obviously there’s further work that we would need to do in order that we’re completely satisfied with that. 22. MR LOWE QC: And does it contain any commitment to the cost of the Council through the service level agreement for working within those activities? 23. MS ALDWORTH: No, and I think that’s one of our concerns is we’d want an assurance that that would be covered by the service level agreement with HS2. 24. MR LOWE QC: Last week we presented evidence on behalf of the County Council on the need for a consent for or express permission for temporary lighting during the construction period, temporary landscaping works during the construction period, a permanent footway up the road up to Steeple Claydon, and the movement of the FCC sidings.