PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Tuesday 16 December 2014 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr Robert Syms (Chair)

Sir Peter Bottomley Mr Henry Bellingham

Ian Mearns Yasmin Qureshi

Mr Michael Thornton

____________

IN ATTENDANCE

Mr Timothy Mould, QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Ms Celina Colquhoun, No5 Chambers

Witnesses:

Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP

Mr Ian Waddell, Chairman, Middleton HS2 Action Group

Mr Tim Smart, International Director for High Speed Rail, CH2M Hill

_____________

IN PUBLIC SESSION

2

INDEX

Subject Page

Chairman’s opening 3

Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP

Submissions from Mrs Spelman 4

Response by Mr Mould, QC 17

Closing submissions from Mrs Spelman 24

Middleton Parish Council and Middleton HS2 Action Group

Submissions from Ms Colquhoun 25

Submissions from Mr Waddell 28

Mr Smart, examined by Mr Mould 61

Mr Smart, cross-examined by Ms Colquhoun 68

Closing submissions from Mr Mould 69

3

(At 09.30)

1. CHAIR: Order. Order. Welcome everybody. We will be sitting at two,

hopefully not for too long because Dan Byles, Member of Parliament for North

Warwickshire, will be coming at two o’clock, given we are fairly busy this morning.

2. Before we start I want to say a couple of things. Firstly, we had a long session on

compensation. I have heard today from the Under Secretary of State for Transport, Mr

Goodwill. He is going to supply the Committee with the Need to Sell draft guidance but

it will be in confidence before Christmas because it is not yet a public document. The

Committee will be briefed by department officials early in the New Year. The plan at

the moment is for the launch of the scheme sometime in the middle to end of January on

both the Need to Sell and the Voluntary Purchase Scheme. At least that should give us

an opportunity to look at it and to have some input before final decisions are taken.

3. I shall also give a Committee decision on Washwood Heath. On Washwood

Heath we were impressed by the submission from AXA and our colleague, Liam Byrne.

We sympathise with the need to address high unemployment in and around his

constituency. We do not believe there is enough evidence to support a move of the

rolling stock maintenance depot from Washwood Heath. We impress on HS2 the need

to adjust the scheme so that there is minimum land take and for the shortest time with

sensible placing of balancing ponds and a hand-back configuration that after

construction will attract maximum business use of the residual site. We expect to hear

from HS2 on that and on whether they can reach agreement taking account of the more

recent AXA proposals which are dated 12 December. We reiterate our general view,

which applies to rural areas but also elsewhere that land take should be the minimum as

far as possible. In particular, where there are investors who have an interest in a site and

may want, basically, to put their money where their mouth is, we should not be

detracting from that. Mr Mould, you also wanted to say something as well?

4. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I did. Thank you very much. I just wanted to tell the

Committee that the Draft Register of Undertakings and Assurances will be made public

today. It will go on the HS2 website, www.gov.uk/hs2, before the end of the day. It

details all undertakings and assurances offered to petitioners up to 13 November of this

4

year. We would welcome petitioners viewing the register in order to check that what is

shown matches their understanding of what they have been assured or what

undertakings have been offered to them as the case may be. We intend to issue regular

updates of the register to keep the public informed. Presently, the next update is due to

be made public before this Committee rises for the forthcoming general election.

5. CHAIR: Thank you very much for that. I think that will be welcomed.

Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP

6. CHAIR: We welcome this morning Caroline Spelman, Member of Parliament for

Meriden. Thank you very much for making time to come to talk to us today. Do you

have a short statement you want to read to us?

7. MRS SPELMAN: Yes, please, if I may. First of all, good morning everybody.

Thank you, Mr Syms, for your welcome. I would just like to introduce my

parliamentary assistant, Abigail Sykes. I think that any Member of Parliament who has

High Speed 2 going through their constituency will undoubtedly have members of staff

who are finding quite an additional workload from all of this and will become quite an

aficionado of the subject. So, it is helpful then to see the outworking at the Select

Committee stage.

8. I should also like to thank the Select Committee Members. You may not be

getting the kind of positive feedback that I have heard. It should be directed to you from

my constituency, above all for your visit to the constituency so that you were able to see

with your own eyes the way in which we are affected but also the sheer fact that the

petitioning process is creating a situation where constituents are getting solutions to

quite protracted negotiations with High Speed 2. As I put it to one of my constituents,

the Select Committee is different from Government. Parliament and the Select

Committee are offering constituents this opportunity, which is bringing solutions which

might otherwise have taken a great deal longer, if ever at all. So, please do accept this

thanks on behalf of my constituents for the way you are undertaking this.

9. You have heard a lot of petitions by now, not just from my constituents but from

other places along the line. I have chosen to give a focus to my petition on the blight

that is caused by construction works, obviously not confined to my constituency, but I

5

hope that the subject of my petition will help all those who are affected by High Speed

2.

10. The Meriden constituency lies right at the heart of the Midlands motorway

crossroads with Birmingham Airport in it, the NEC, two railway lines and now a third

railway line anticipated. I have seen during almost 18 years as an MP how these major

infrastructure projects such as the construction of the M42 have blighted homeowners,

businesses and landowners in the form of noise, vibration and visual disturbance as well

as some very harsh decisions over compensation, which strike the community as unfair.

So, in a way I have always wanted to bring this subject higher up the agenda in

Parliament. The proposal for High Speed 2 creates that opportunity.

11. Regarding compensation for construction works, Ministers at the Department for

Transport have repeatedly made commitments that compensation for HS2 will be fair

and generous. That commitment was echoed by the Prime Minister in July last year.

Indeed, the promoter’s response to my petition states, on page 4, that the general

purpose of the statutory framework is to provide fair compensation for a person whose

land is compulsorily taken.

12. This is my first point of concern, that the blight is far greater than just the land that

is taken to build the railway tracks. Compensation should be fair for all those who are

blighted by High Speed 2 including during the construction process which, in the case of

my constituency is estimated to last five and a half years. Already there are many

properties which cannot be sold because of the blight caused by the proposal for the

construction of High Speed 2, but if these properties are not subject to compulsory

purchase orders, then their eligibility for fair compensation is to be denied.

13. The petition response document quotes HS2’s Information Paper, C8, pages 3 to 4

which states that where there is no land take, any claimant will need to show that

construction of the public works diminishes the value of their land, either permanently

or temporarily, in a manner for which they could sue the promoter had they not the

immunity conferred by their statutory authority to carry out public works. But the PRD

goes on to quote the compensation available under Part 1 of the Land Compensation Act

1973. Under this the claims for properties, which have lost value due to physical factors

from public works, such as noise, vibration, smoke, etc., can only be made after the

6

scheme has been operating for 12 years, which, given the length of construction time,

could be 2027. But most of the affected properties have already depreciated in value.

Indeed, the depreciation started in March 2010 when this was first announced in

anticipation of these physical factors already, and these same properties will also be

affected through the construction phase. High Speed 2 has produced Information Papers

such as Paper E23, which deals with the control of construction noise and vibration, but

does not deal with the blight perceived now of being close to construction works before

the noise and vibration can be measured.

14. The nuisance of these physical factors during construction phases may render

these properties unviable, such as the Island Project School for Autistic Children near

Hampton in Arden, which I shall talk about later. Yet the eligibility of these properties

and businesses in relation to compensation remains unclear. So, let me deal with this

issue of distance from the tracks. On the point of eligibility a further area of concern is

the eligibility criteria for the particular schemes, most of which are still judged by the

proximity of property to the proposed line. The Committee will have already have

heard countless examples of individuals who will be significantly affected by HS2 but

who are not eligible for compensation because they are not expected to be close enough

to the tracks.

15. My petition concerns the land and individuals who will be affected primarily by

construction works, many of which are well outside the eligibility distance limits for

compensation. These rigid boundaries strike me as unfair. I want to give the Committee

an example. Mr and Mrs Bates live in my constituency. They have a property on

Lavender Hall Lane near Berkswell. This is on the first map. It is marked in red in the

bottom right-hand corner. As you may be able to see, their property falls partly in the

safeguarded zone. They are approximately 150 metres from the line in the area marked

by HS2 as likely to suffer ‘major adverse effects’ from High Speed 2. The property is

semi-detached and the adjoining property has been given compensation through a

compulsory purchase order. Properties on the other side of the road have also been

purchased. However, Mr and Mrs Bates have been told that because they are on the

boundary of the safeguarded zone, they will not be subject to a compulsory purchase

order. During construction they will be surrounded by construction works and HGV

traffic. They will affected by nearby construction sites, workers compounds,

7

construction traffic and the road widening on Lavender Hall Lane. In addition, because

the adjoining property has been subject to a CPO, they face the additional risk of having

a boarded-up house right next to them.

16. These factors will cause disruption for an indefinite period of time, not to mention

disruption once the line is in operation. I think one would be hard pushed to argue that

they would be any less affected than the other half of the semi-detached property and yet

Mr and Mrs Bates still have not been offered compensation because they fall on the

border. They are eligible to serve a statutory blight notice but are reluctant to take the

financial risk involved in doing that when there is no guarantee of their success. I am

sure that that is an issue that has come before the Committee many times. This couple

are not the only ones but it does seem to serve to highlight the important point that rigid

boundaries do not take enough of the wider implications into account and there will be

many more marooned properties of this type along the length of the line once the

construction starts.

17. A second example close by is Mr Smith, whose property is on Park Lane. He is

also badly affected. As you can see from the map, the property is surrounded by a

safeguarded area but the majority of the property itself is excluded. Only the very edge

of their land, including one of the access routes, is required by HS2 for the construction

works. Park Lane, the road on which the property is situated, may also have to be

temporarily closed for the construction material. A construction compound will be built

on the farmland surrounding the property. Mr Smith may be eligible to serve a statutory

blight notice but once again this carries no guarantee of success.

18. Whilst we are discussing specific cases I should also like to draw the Committee’s

attention to a case I have been dealing with just in the past few days because I think it

highlights a few other flaws in the compensation arrangements as they stand. In the first

instance after a long battle with HS2 my constituents finally had their Exceptional

Hardship Scheme application accepted and they accepted the offer they were given.

However, they were treated appallingly when it came to the move with no consideration

for the fact that they had lived in their marital home for 43 years. My constituents were

not allowed to leave the property until the agent had inspected the house and every

outbuilding to check that they had not taken anything that the agent had paid for.

Meanwhile, there were people bustling about changing the locks on their former home.

8

When my constituents arrived at their new home they were kept waiting for three hours

before they were finally given the keys.

19. CHAIR: This is obviously a very serious, bad case. Is it possible to have more

details in terms of the name or do the constituents want to remain anonymous?

20. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We may have a difficulty, I think, where people do

not want to expose themselves to unnecessary publicity.

21. MRS SPELMAN: Indeed.

22. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, I think possibly there could be a letter to the

Chairman.

23. MRS SPELMAN: I am very happy to do that, Mr Chairman. It is a very

sensitive case and I do not have permission to use their names, which is why I am not

using their names.

24. CHAIR: Of course, absolutely.

25. MRS SPELMAN: But it may be that after the intervention of Mr Bellingham,

who I think makes a good point, supported by Sir Peter Bottomley, they would be

willing to write to the Committee and I will do that because I think the Committee needs

to know what actually happens in practice once you have agreed to give up your home.

26. I shall come on to the Need to Sell. The Need to Sell Scheme is an improvement

on the previous compensation measures. It is rightly more flexible but the scheme relies

on the need to sell point. My point is that some residents or businesses will suffer loss

of value of property and loss of business even though they may not have a compelling

need to sell. This presents a particular problem for those who will be affected mainly by

construction works. If a land or property owner is likely to want to use their land or

property again after the construction phase is finished, they may not want to sell, let

alone need to sell. However, they will suffer blight in the meantime and yet their

eligibility for compensation remains unclear.

27. I now turn to address the specific issue of construction compounds of which we

have many in my constituency. I accept that there have been some positive changes

9

between the draft Environmental Statement and the final Environmental Statement but I

know also that the Committee is aware that there are still inaccuracies in the data within

the reworked version of the Environmental Statement and that those deficiencies may

give rise to wrong decisions being made. I also understand that there are many changes

still to be made following petitions that have been heard and I sincerely hope that the

accuracy of the Environmental Statement will be addressed. I still have a number of

specific concerns in relation to this, which I shall address in due course. However, there

is also an important general point I need to raise.

28. My next slide, number two, is an extract from the Information Paper D2 on

selection of locations of construction compounds. The condensed version of this was

included in my PRD which stated that careful consideration was applied to the location

of construction compounds, which have been influenced by a variety of practical

factors. Surely, a key factor in deciding where to locate construction compounds should

be the minimisation of nuisance to residents and yet this is not mentioned at all. It

seems a significant oversight.

29. Furthermore in the PRD, HS2 also stated that the details of construction activities,

prediction methods, location of sensitive receivers and noise and vibration levels will be

discussed with the relevant local authority or local authorities, both prior to construction

work and throughout the construction period. But I would suggest that details of

construction should be discussed with the residents who will be affected, not just with

the local authority. It is important for residents to be kept fully informed and it is right

for HS2 to ensure that that happens. I know that HS2 did engage with residents through

community forums but since these have been wound up, my constituents feel there is no

meaningful engagement for the community on practical decisions with HS2 in relation

to construction works in order to iron out unresolved issues.

30. I am aware that there are plans to appoint an independent HS2 residents

commissioner to work with residents and communities, but there has been a significant

gap between the two fora. I wonder if HS2 could update us, perhaps, as MPs on where

the selection process for that residents commissioner has got to because it will be very

useful to know.

31. I would also like to stress the need to ensure that the commissioner is truly

10

independent as by now I am sure that the Select Committee is well aware that there is a

natural suspicion about the conflict of interest if it is the developer who is appointing the

residents commissioner and I think we need to be reassured that this individual will be

completely independent.

32. I want to raise the issue of construction impacts on the loss of public amenities,

such as footpaths, for although these may be substituted for, they may not be similar and

that would be helped by meaningful re-engagement with the community of the form that

we would hope a residents commissioner might be able to achieve. This kind of detail is

one of the reasons why there is disappointment that the proposed community fund does

not have enough of a local element as the local element resources could be used to

address these very local concerns about loss of public amenity. Solihull Council did

want a significant portion of the community fund to be local so that it could deliver on

the needs for the local community.

33. Taking advice from Damian Green, MP, whose constituency suffered what he

described as ‘hell on earth’ for five years during the construction of HS1, he said that

small amounts of cash judiciously spent locally can make a big difference, for example

to regularly clean the windows of the homes besides which the construction traffic

passes. Small things like that can actually significantly improve the quality of people’s

lives going through this construction period and I urge HS2 to allocate some funds in

that way.

34. A further general concern relating to construction compounds is that there will be

significant impacts on the local infrastructure with hundreds of temporary workers

moving into the area. The burden of providing for them will inevitably fall on local

public services. On Friday I was discussing with my head of clinical commissioning, a

general practitioner, how he would accommodate the needs of those temporary workers

in an already stretched GP surgery situation. It is difficult enough to get an appointment

at one’s local GP surgery without being pipped to the queue by a temporary worker.

This is something that needs to be taken into account. There are other public services

which may be affected by the temporary impact of large numbers of people moving into

the area.

35. I want to come on to discuss the impact of the blight of construction works on

11

agricultural land. The Committee will be well aware of concerns surrounding temporary

versus permanent acquisition of land by HS2 following the evidence by the CLA and

the NFU in November, so I will only reiterate that briefly. At present HS2 has the

power to take permanently only as much land as it will require. If the land is required

only temporarily it is to be made available to the landowner after construction, as my

PRD says, in the majority of situations. So, I support the NFU and CLA point. Why

can’t this land be leased?

36. The NFU and CLA have observed that it is important to provide the farm with

choice. They can sell to HS2 if they want to but if the land is required only temporarily

they should have the option of retaining ownership and leasing to HS2. I know that the

Committee have encouraged HS2 to consider a licensed model so that farmers will still

have access to land that has been acquired temporarily by HS2. The CLA also made

important points in their evidence relating to advanced payments, observing as it stands

that HS2 only have to pay for acquired land at the point at which they take possession,

i.e. when they need it and not before.

37. A further issue I want to bring before the Committee is the issue of biodiversity

offsetting and construction works. Biodiversity offsetting is a recognised requirement to

redress the loss of biodiversity through development. So, what about offsetting for

construction works? The impact on species and habitats of five years of construction is

likely to be detrimental. It goes through, for example, the breeding cycles of

endangered species. So, surely we should be making offsets for construction

compounds, spoil heaps and balancing ponds at the very least. The Code of

Construction Practice talks about setting up measures to protect the local ecology but

why not use biodiversity offsetting as a principle to ensure loss of species and habitats

are properly addressed?

38. I did pick up the point that Mr Syms made right at the beginning that land take

should remain at a minimum. That is very important in relation to agricultural land as I

am sure it is quite clear to the Select Committee that landowners will lose out if more

land than is really required for construction of the railway is taken and from which HS2

subsequently enjoys the benefits of other developments where the original landowner

might have enjoyed that benefit. I am deeply relieved to hear the announcement by the

Select Committee regarding the marshalling yards at Washwood Heath, which at one

12

stage were proposed as an alternative move to my constituency. I heard what the

Committee said, that there was not enough evidence to move the site. That will be a

great reassurance to my constituents who live in Biggin Hill and Chelmsley Wood

where the possibility of the marshalling yards was being considered, not least because

the local authority has a plan for a sustainable garden city to be built adjacent to the

interchange station, which would have competed for land with the marshalling yards.

39. I want to touch on some specifically affected areas. I know that the Committee is

very familiar with my constituency and I have been impressed by the way that they

know almost as well as I do where everybody lives these days. It is likely to be severely

affected as a constituency. We already suffer a lot of pollution from the M6, the M42

and Birmingham Airport, so I ask the Committee to take into account the cumulative

impact of the construction works of HS2 on top of all this. The PRD states, as shown in

volume 2, chapter 5 of Community CFA23 that there will be significant amenity effects

associated with visual, noise and HGV effects across my constituency during the

construction phase. In their words, the area will be significantly affected. So, I want to

mention specifically that in the PRD on page 9 at point 19 there are effects on the

residents of Truggist Lane, Lavender Hall Lane, and Park Lane. Also affected will be

the Island Project School, which I mentioned earlier, Lavender Hall Fisheries and the

Kenilworth Greenway. There are many other examples I could mention but I just want

to highlight those today.

40. Members of the Committee will already be familiar with many of those cases. In

relation to those residents, landowners and businesses that will be primarily affected by

construction works, the PRD refers to these effects as temporary effects. However, I

think that significantly understates the impact of a five-year construction period. Five

years is a long time in the lifetime of a business, a school, or even in the lifetime of

residents of properties who may see sudden changes of circumstances which mean that

they will need to move.

41. I do appreciate that HS2 have been taking steps to minimise the impacts on many

of these areas and communities and it is an ongoing conversation with them but there

are some specific issues I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to today.

42. On slide three they will see a very small community at Middle Bickenhill. It is

13

marked in the bottom left-hand corner of the slide. As you can see, the residents of this

street are effectively completely marooned because they are surrounded by construction

works. They suffer from one of the issues I mentioned earlier, which is that they are

not eligible for compensation because of the distance from the tracks. I do understand

from a letter that I received from HS2 on 27 October that there has been some progress

upon this and HS2 are now engaging with these residents, but I want to press HS2 to

ensure that the residents receive fair and generous compensation. This will not be the

only example of this kind along the length of the tracks. I know that along other parts of

the tracks, particularly in Ealing, for example, there are communities that are effectively

marooned in the middle of a building site.

43. I want to come on now to the Island Project School. I want to raise this with the

Select Committee because it is a school for severely autistic children, the access to

which is off Diddington Lane, which is also marked on the slide. I believe this issue

was raised with the Committee in the evidence from Berkswell Parish Council, but the

school itself, I think, has withdrawn its petition for now as it seeks to negotiate the best

outcome for its pupils. The school is going to be heavily affected by road closures,

material stockpiles, much disturbance, noise and vibration during the construction

phase. As I am sure all Members of this House will know, severely autistic children

react particularly adversely to noise and disturbance, so the construction of HS2 is likely

to be detrimental to a school of this kind.

44. Initially HS2 agreed to move the Shadow Brook Underbridge Satellite Compound

further away from the school, but I would contend that it is the school that needs to be

relocated, not the compound. I understand from discussions with HS2 that the latest

position is an examination of the business case for relocating the school. Such a move

will take three to four months and the Island Project have agreed to defer their petition

in the meantime but of course I would impress upon HS2 that, like every school, there is

an academic year and it would be important to try to reach a timely conclusion on this so

that very vulnerable children have a clear, safe and as far as possible tranquil start to

their education once agreement has been reached.

45. On Diddington Lane there are a number of ongoing issues. My understanding is

that HS2 has agreed with the Packington Estate to pursue the option of keeping

Diddington Lane open in an altered alignment. This will assist the farmers and others

14

who require continued access to the road while HS2 is being constructed. However,

there are others in my constituency who do not wish for the road to remain open, such as

the Parish Council of Hampton, the Hampton Society and a number of residents. So, I

do urge HS2 Limited to take these other views into consideration. For example, given

the opposition to the change for the local community, could the lane be restricted in

width to avoid it becoming a rat run, perhaps using one of the carriageways to create a

footpath and cycle path so that in fact the community would have green access to the

new station when it is built? I think there really are a number of very important aspects

with this highly strategic, narrow lane with a sharp bend in the middle that need to be

looked at again to try to get the optimum outcome.

46. I want to move on to the very important subject of the Balsall Common viaduct.

This is on slide four. Members of the Committee will have heard from many of my

constituents about the proposals to elevate the line at this stretch. The need for a tunnel

in Berkswell remains my constituency’s paramount ask to the Committee. I know that it

was discussed at length with Berkswell Parish Council last week. This is something that

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council have also supported.

47. I stood on the footbridge with Select Committee Members and viewed with them

just how high the flyover over the West Coast Main Line will be at Berkswell Station.

It was in fact the treeline, almost at eye level where we were standing, which was the

indicator of a flyover of eight to nine metres in the air, right at this crossing point of the

West Coast Main Line and there is absolutely no doubt, I think, in anybody’s mind that

that will be extremely intrusive visually and deeply disruptive during construction.

48. HS2 recently published a report which looked into the various options for a tunnel

in Berkswell, but I would ask the Committee to consider whether an independent cost

benefit analysis report of the tunnel options could be commissioned because the range of

tunnel options estimated at between £126 million to £315 million seems very high to my

constituents, and all the tunnel options seem to have been ruled out on cost grounds.

49. I also want to emphasise the need for good design for other viaducts, including the

one at Hampton in Arden. I thought in the early days that it was actually very

constructive where some of the engineers came to speak to the parish councils in my

community giving them the impression that there would be choice over the design of

15

these constructs. I think it is very important, expectations having been raised in that

way, that this is delivered upon not least because the design of elevated structures

contains an element of subjectivity. One man’s beautiful reinforced concrete monolith

is a monstrous carbuncle to somebody else, and actually getting some buy-in from local

people who have to live with these constructs over how it should appear in practice I

think is the very least one could do for communities that are thus affected.

50. There also remains concern about the level of the HGV traffic in and around

Balsall Common, Berkswell, during the construction phase, which I want to make the

Committee aware of. These lanes are narrow country lanes in green belts and have been

protected for a very long period of time. I would urge the Committee to think how

greater protection can be given from the huge impact of the construction works upon the

Meriden Gap.

51. Slide five concerns the Kenilworth Greenway, which spans the border between my

constituency and my next door neighbour. Again, the Committee will have heard much

about the Kenilworth Greenway over the past few weeks. This is a very important asset

to the local community, which will be irreversibly changed by HS2. I understand that

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council have secured some concessions on this as part

of their negotiations with HS2 but I would again urge HS2 to keep as much of the

treeline as possible to minimise the visual blight.

52. I am coming to the very southern tip of my constituency at Waste Lane and Old

Waste Lane, which I am very grateful to the Select Committee for having revisited. I

cannot in any way fault the diligence with which they have sought to understand the

impacts on my constituency. Although Old Waste Lane is not currently designated as a

construction traffic route, my constituents are seeking a more concrete assurance from

HS2 Limited that it will not be used for parking as presently happens with HGV traffic

on Old Waste Lane.

53. In practice, without adequate enforcement, this situation is only likely to get

worse, and adequate enforcement does actually mean resources. Once again comes

back this question of the construction impact on public services for which there is, as far

as I am aware, no extra provision.

54. Similar concerns about the impact of construction traffic are right at the northern

16

end of my constituency with the Water Orton Road being used as a haulage road in

Castle Bromwich, and I want to place that on the record as well. No doubt that will be

also raised by my neighbour at the northern end who is to petition this Committee in due

course.

55. There are just a few more other local issues I would like to touch on before I

finish. As to concerns about some form of compensation or mitigation not being

appropriate, at page 10, point 24 of my PRD states that Patricks Farm has been

identified as being likely to qualify for noise insulation. But what form would noise

insulation take? And a more general point is that noise insulation is very difficult to

guarantee where a property is listed because there are restrictions on the way in which

listed buildings such as the Island Project School can be adapted. So, whilst in theory

mitigations may be possible, in practice these may clash with the restrictions put in

place on listed buildings. Certainly English Heritage roundly rejected the suggestions of

the listed building at the Island Project being mitigated in this way.

56. In summary, the points I have sought to make are firstly that blight is far greater

than just from the HS2 line once it is operating. Compensation should take this into

account. Secondly, compensation is currently based on distance from the tracks except

for the Need to Sell but this does not take construction into account enough.

Construction compounds, the location of the compounds, should ensure as far as

possible that residents are relieved of nuisance but certainly kept well informed. With

agricultural land it is very important to get the balance right over temporary or

permanent use of that agricultural land and we need to ensure that farmers are not short

changed by any over-acquisition of land beyond the needs of HS2.

57. Finally, just to reiterate, the paramount ask of my constituency is to try and find, if

at all possible, a tunnel solution at Berkswell Station. It is the most visually intrusive

part of the project. The West Coast Main Line already flies over the local road system

at that point and if only a way could be found to bring it down to a height or below

ground so that it is not staring my residents in the face every time they try to come

underneath the West Coast Main Line, I would be very grateful.

58. I am very grateful for the time that the Select Committee is giving to all of this

and to the reassurance that it gives to my constituents that Parliament is seeking fairness

17

in the matter of HS2 construction. I am sure that the Committee’s endeavours will help

to ensure that that is the case. Thank you very much.

59. CHAIR: Thank you very much, Mrs Spelman. Your evidence covered a very

wide area and that was very supportive of all the evidence we have heard from your

constituents over the past few weeks. Mr Mould?

60. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Sir, with that thought I do not want to go back over

detailed issues in relation to Berkswell and Balsall Common. As you say, a number of

the points were raised on which the Committee has heard, helpfully, from petitioners in

detail. And you have the responses from us on that, including the issue of the case for

the tunnel that was mentioned a moment ago.

61. I brought you back to A6241 just to use that as a useful trigger for a couple of

comments on compensation and blight. I think I should make clear that our general

approach has been to try to keep the degree of compulsory acquisition that we need for

the project to the reasonable minimum. As a matter of policy we do not consider it right

to seek compulsory acquisition of any property unless we can demonstrate the need for

that property for the construction operation of the project.

62. The way we seek to compensate for the effects of generalised blight, for those

whose properties are not required for the project but who may show that their properties

nonetheless for a time, perhaps a significant time, experience a loss of value due to the

imminent construction and operation of the project, is through the policies with which

you are now very familiar. They include, amongst other things the imminent Need to

Sell policy. I draw attention to that policy again in the context of the two properties that

Mrs Spelman has mentioned to you at Park Lane and Lavender Hall Lane, which are on

the sheet in front of you. Those are properties where one would expect the Need to Sell

policy, when it comes into operation, to be of interest to the occupiers if they do indeed

want to explore options for moving from those properties in the light of the blighting

effects of the works. That, of course, is a matter for their choice as the Committee will

be very well aware.

63. Just touching on the particular case with the Exceptional Hardship Scheme, if

there is anything that the Committee would like us to respond to in relation to that as

and when it has information, no doubt the Committee will let me know and we will deal

18

with that as discreetly and sympathetically as we can.

64. In relation to the point that there are inaccuracies in the Environmental Statement,

again if there are particular points that a petitioner wishes us to consider as part of their

petition then of course they must make those known to us and we will seek to respond to

them as best we can.

65. Can we just go to the next slide very quickly because the point was raised about

the degree to which impacts on residents have been taken into account in selecting work

sites. The very first criterion set out in paragraph 4.1 on that page – excuse the grammar

– the primary criterion for the selection of sites, was their proximity to sensitive

receptors. So, the first port of call was always to consider how this will affect people

who live in the vicinity; ‘Is it acceptable to site working compounds in that location in

the light of that?’ That then led on to a consideration of the more detailed factors that

are set out in paragraph 4.2 on that page.

66. In relation to keeping people informed, engaging with people as the project moves

forward, that is dealt with, as you know, in our Information Paper G2. We have

mentioned that. As regards the residents commissioner, the recruitment process for that

person is actively going on as we speak and interviews were I think carried out last

week with a view to making that appointment.

67. As to the Community Fund, the Committee has received an Information Paper in

relation to that and knows that the Government are in the process of making detailed

administrative arrangements for that, which are expected to be published during the

Spring, I think, of next year. The Committee has heard from Damian Green. I do not

think I need to go over that. You published a note in relation to the key points he made.

68. On the question of cleaning windows, that would fall under the scope of our Small

Claims Scheme. If there is a problem with a particular build-up of dust on windows for

properties which are near to working sites and so forth, that would fall within the scope

of that.

69. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It is as much a small request scheme as a complaints

scheme.

19

70. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Small claims.

71. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I understand that, but were I a neighbour to such a

site and needed a bit of help, I would like to ask, to make a request rather than to make a

complaint. It seems to me that to be able to respond to requests is the first stage and

then to have the complaints afterwards.

72. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I very much agree. I do not see it as being anything

more than a request. It is only if the request is not dealt with properly that a complaint

will arise. I agree, yes.

73. In terms of the effects on local services of the temporary workers’

accommodation, that is dealt with in the Code of Construction Practice at paragraphs 5.9

and 5.10. It includes the intention to make appropriate arrangements for health care as

part of temporary workers’ accommodation. You can see that that is dealt with at 5.10

under the heading of ‘Occupational Health Care’. 5.9 makes the point that we would

expect to agree arrangements for local workers’ accommodation with the local

authority, so in Mrs Spelman’s case that would be a matter for Solihull Metropolitan

Borough Council to address with us.

74. We have approached the impact of construction works on nature conservation and

biodiversity, essentially in the way that Mrs Spelman says; that is to say we have treated

significant construction effects as permanent effects and have made mitigation and

compensation arrangements accordingly. That is dealt with throughout the

Environmental Statement. In terms of the Island Project, I do not need to say any more

to you about that. You know that we are seeking to reach a timely agreement with them

and their petition was deferred on that basis.

75. As regards Middle Bickenhill Lane the letter is at P2123. That essentially states

that we are continuing to treat the owners/occupiers of premises within that area as if

they remained within the safeguarded zone and so if they do wish HS2 to purchase their

properties, they are therefore able to serve a blight notice and to secure a remedy

through that route. That is set out in the letter that is on the screen in front of you.

76. In terms of Diddington Lane, you know that we think that that is something in

which the local Highway Authority have a particular role to play in ensuring that if that

20

road is to remain open the use of that road is something that they should control under

their own powers in consultation with the local community.

77. The only other point I wanted to make in rounding up was on the approach of the

project to compensation for disturbance during the construction of the railway as

opposed to making arrangements to remedy the generalised blighting effects of the

railway. Our approach is that we follow exactly the approach that has been followed

with all major projects in modern times. That approach is simply that as to

compensation for disturbance for construction works, the remedy is essentially as one

would have under the general law. That is to say that if the works cause that which is

illegal nuisance, then you can receive compensation for that. If the works are carried

out without due care and attention then you can make a claim for compensation in

relation to that under the general law. The only significant change that one has as a

result of the Bill is that the Bill gives statutory authority to things that would otherwise

be capable of being subject to a claim to court for an injunction to bring them to an end.

Clearly, you can’t have the court being asked to give injunctions in relation to works

that are authorised by an Act of Parliament. But subject to that obvious distinction, if

people would have a claim under the general law because their highway access was

stopped up or because they suffered physical damage as a result of the construction of

the works, some damage to a fence, or something like that, then they are as much able to

claim monetary compensation for that kind of legal wrong as they would be if this was a

job being carried out by a private contractor for a private developer. That is the

approach we take and that has been the approach taken under the Channel Tunnel Rail

Link, Crossrail and all other work schemes of this kind. Thank you.

78. CHAIR: The project clearly is likely to have an agreement with Solihull Borough

Council and will consult them on traffic on a whole range of issues. I just get the

impression – I am sure that Mrs Spelman will correct me if I am wrong – that the

villages to the east of what is a very built-up area feel a little sensitive about the

development. Because Solihull is largely a metropolitan area rather than a rural area

and there are a few parishes on the east, is the local authority responsible for consulting

with the villages or is it something that HS2 will do because clearly the parishes feel

that they want to have their say. How can we embody that?

79. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Both the local authority with its Highway Authority hat

21

on and the project through the Code of Construction Practice and through the

engagement process that is set out in G2 will be engaging with the local community in

relation to detailed traffic management plans to bring construction traffic through the

area with as little disruption to local roads and the local community as we can

reasonably achieve. The decision as to the significant lorry routes, as you know, is for

the local authority. They have the power to say yes or no to what we propose under

Schedule 16 to the Bill. But, of course, that is the back end of an engagement process

which will, I can say quite clearly, involve discussions and engagement with the local

community.

80. CHAIR: Mrs Spelman, do you have any questions of the promoter before we go

to your final comments?

81. MRS SPELMAN: Yes. I won’t go back on all the points that have just been

made but I would like to come back on one to say that I really welcome the news that

biodiversity offsetting will be considered in relation to the construction works. As I am

sure the Select Committee understand, I was Secretary of State at the time that

biodiversity offsetting was introduced as a legal requirement in planning. Could I,

through the Select Committee, make the point that proposals for biodiversity offsetting

do not have to be at the point at which the development occurs? The right answer may

be to group up the offsets and do something very significant of benefit to the natural

environment at another location. I would like to support the work of Warwickshire

County Council, which has helped Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council in looking at

a holistic view of where and how biodiversity offsetting could be done well. For

example, there is a heavily contaminated river that flows out of East Birmingham, the

River Tame, and it is not impossible to think how something really significant could be

achieved for the wider community in terms of improving the natural environment at that

location which runs beside the tracks going into Birmingham, not necessarily to plant a

few trees beside the line and feel that the job has been done. Really good quality

biodiversity offsetting is underpinned by sound scientific evidence. I think that working

together with authorities like Warwickshire, a really good job could be done.

82. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we have all gained a great deal this morning

from both you and Mr Mould. Can I just go back to the question of the individual of

whom we did not need to hear the details?

22

83. MRS SPELMAN: Yes.

84. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think it might be best if they or you write to the

promoters with a copy to the Chairman. So that it is for the promoters to respond and

then if there is an issue it can come back to us.

85. MRS SPELMAN: Yes. I am very happy to follow that course of action. I

sincerely hope that that might give comfort to an elderly couple who have had a very

bad experience. I appreciate the offer of the Committee to proceed in that way.

86. CHAIR: Mrs Spelman, the letter that is on the screen at the moment from

Mr Higgins about properties in Middle Bickenhill, what was your response to that

letter? Did that give you the assurances and satisfaction that you were after?

87. MRS SPELMAN: First of all it has come very late in the day in the sense that

from March 2010 these folks living in Middle Bickenhill have not been able to sell, but,

of course, the publication of the Environmental Statement was the thing that revealed to

them that their hopes of just holding out in the homes that they had lived in for a long

time was going to be extremely difficult if they were going to survive any sort of quality

of life surrounded by construction works. So, I think it is good that HS2 finally sent

people to interview the residents of Middle Bickenhill directly. As the Committee will

realise, it is not until you are on the ground and looking around you and realising how

bad this could be that a full sense is gained.

88. I need to go back and speak individually to these residents and satisfy myself that

what is on offer, what is being promised, is good. I did pick up the point on Middle

Bickenhill that the safeguarding zone has been extended and that they can serve blight

notices, but I hope that the Select Committee picked up my point that constituents were

nervous about serving blight notices because they are not sure that these will succeed. It

is an exercise that is outside the experience of most people when undertaking property

transactions. People do not necessarily have the resources to hire legal help in

undertaking. Of course, as MPs we can provide some advice but I will ensure that

things are proceeding as well as we are led to believe that they are.

89. CHAIR: Mr Mould, any further comments?

23

90. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I just wanted to come back on the question of offsetting

to reassure not just Mrs Spelman but I hope everybody who is watching, because I know

that this has been something which the Committee has heard from a number of

petitioners. This project has approached the mitigation of the impacts of the scheme on

nature conservation, both temporary and permanent, on the basis that there is no one-

size-fits all. This is not a mathematical exercise. We are looking to ensure that as best

we can we provide the best mitigation for those effects that is available, within reason.

If that means that they are best mitigated locally because we want to maintain

connection for the bats which fly along a hedgerow, then we deal with that in that way.

If there is an opportunity for a mitigation for the loss of some woodland by having a

more dispersed provision of replacement planting in that particular locality, we do it that

way. It is not one-size-fits-all.

91. What I can say is that I have had a lot of experience of working on large projects

and of the way in which those projects deal with the impact of the project on ecology.

This project has taken more care and more effort on that aspect than any other project

that I have been involved in. Now, I have not been involved with every project that has

been dealt with over the past 20 years, far from it – there are a lot of people at the

planning Bar – but the people who are dealing with this on this project are dealing with

it in the most professional and sensitive way that I have experienced. That is why, if I

may say, you have issues between the nature conservation aspect of the project and

some of the concerns raised by farmers and landowners because obviously there is a

balance to be struck there. We have said that we are going to go forward as we develop

the detailed design – I have told Ms Staples that before you – and we shall continue to

try to get that balance as right as we possibly can. That is our commitment to this

Committee and that is our commitment to the petitioners.

92. CHAIR: Is the difficulty within the Bill that there is a certain amount of land that

is being taken and it is simply easier to put the offsets in the land taken rather than in a

field a mile away? Is that a constraint?

93. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Often that will be the case, yes, and it makes sense to

do that, of course. As I said to you at the beginning of my opening remarks, we want to

take as little land compulsorily as we reasonably can. So, there are a whole lot of

pressures that come into bear, but we are not shrinking from that. We are trying to

24

ensure that we draw that balance as best we can. Where we get assistance from

petitioners and the Committee we welcome it because it helps us to review what we are

doing and to see whether we can improve things over what we have proposed so far.

94. CHAIR: Mrs Spelman?

95. MRS SPELMAN: I am very grateful for the intervention. Perhaps in a sense

professionals in their area should really concentrate on their area of competence, but of

course in a way it is mathematical because it is the natural capital assessment for the

loss of species and habitat which is undertaken through the National Ecosystem

Assessment, which was established and published by the Government at the same time

as the Natural Environment White Paper. So, it is not a question of counting up the

number of trees and replacing them; it is a much more thorough analysis of the true loss

of natural capital for which the Government set up a natural capital committee, the

chairman of which Professor Dieter Helm, who I am sure could assist HS2 in achieving

a really sound scientifically based and ambitious plan for offsetting such that

generations to come will be able to point to the restoration of nature and say, ‘Well, of

course, that was achieved through this ground breaking example of biodiversity

offsetting’. So, I would urge the Committee to look at what the Government could put

at the disposal of HS2 in terms of achieving something really significant for nature, not

just in situation where the construction and ultimately the railway are located but in the

surrounding ecosystem which could benefit from significant improvement.

96. CHAIR: Was that your final comments?

97. MRS SPELMAN: It was.

98. CHAIR: As I said, you have covered a lot of ground and given great support to

your constituents. Thank you for your evidence and for your attendance today with your

HS2 caseworker, Abigail Sykes.

99. MRS SPELMAN: Thank you very much.

100. CHAIR: We are now on to Middleton but first we will take a short break.

Sitting suspended

On resuming—

25

101. Order, order. Welcome back to the HS2 Committee. We now hear from

Middleton Parish Council and Middleton HS2 Action Group.

Middleton Parish Council and Middleton HS2 Action Group

102. CHAIR: Welcome. Thank you for waiting. Are you happy for Mr Mould to give

an introduction?

103. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I am going to let Ms Colquhoun kick off, if that is all

right.

104. CHAIR: Who is going to kick off then?

105. MS COLQUHOUN: Thank you very much. Thank you, Committee, for inviting

us today. The way that we shall deal with this presentation is that I will give some brief

introductory submissions on where we are at the moment and make some principal

points that I want this Committee to pay specific attention to when they listen to Mr

Waddell. Mr Waddell is here on behalf of both the action group and the parish council

and has lived and breathed this proposal since 2010. Therefore, it would be wrong for

me to try to summarise what he is going to say. The three points I want to make are

firstly that the history of the Middleton area is incredibly important in terms of what it

has had to endure for a national infrastructure.

106. There is perhaps a plan that could come up. I think it is P2076. That shows

obviously where HS2 is going to go but clearly you can see marked the M6 toll and the

M42. This area has therefore had to endure both works from the M42 and the M6. To

say that it has had to take one for the team at least once if not twice is an underestimate

and it is now being asked to endure – I say this with no exaggeration at all – the most

significant construction works in HS2 terms outside of Euston. The response from

Middleton – this is my second point – has not been to say, ‘Outright objection’ but has

always been to say, ‘Could you just move the line further to the east?’ in addition to

other things, but that is the principal point that has been made since 2010, to move this

line to the east to avoid some of the more significant environmental impacts. The

question about vertical alignment as well has been raised and we have had that dealt

with in terms of assurance.

26

107. As we say, the proposal came forward in 2010. Very little seemed to come as a

result of that. There were a few changes in alignment and then it has gone back to being

the current alignment as it is. What happened, however, over the years was that we had

the introduction of what is known as the Y junction in addition to which there is the

Kingsbury railhead. These are two significant additional works that were not the subject

of the earlier public consultation. I know that this Committee has little patience for

complaints about public consultation but the importance of this process will become

very clear in a moment.

108. Once what has been called Option B by HS2, that horizontal move, that scheme,

was taken forward, the results of a sift analysis were given to Mr Waddell and his

colleagues. What that showed was that the principal issue against the action group’s

proposal was a matter of cost. At no point was it ever suggested that the action group’s

proposal was technically unfeasible or impossible.

109. I attended a meeting on 5 December. At that meeting we were told that which is

this is reflected in the letter of assurance at P2149(1) at the third paragraph – I will

come back to the first part of it – which informs the reader of the letter, Mr Waddell,

that at this meeting Mr Fisher confirmed that, ‘Shifting the alignment in line with your

proposal would have the effects of compromising the Y junction and the delta junction.’

This was the first time that the action group had ever been told that their proposal was

not possible in engineering terms. To say that that is extraordinary in terms of a

development of this size is to say the very least. They have proposed some kind of

alternative to that but that is discounted in terms of concerns about risks from objection

from English Heritage and also possible risks from objections to nearby residents.

These are not known yet.

110. That is, of course, a matter of deep concern because it is now impossible, given

where we are, for the action group or any of us to go back and say, ‘Well, why was the

Y junction inserted following a detailed proposal that had come forward by an action

group?’ and has in effect we know now, some four years later, rendered our option

unfeasible. The problem with this process is that if you are to accept that the Y junction

should be where it has always been – and that process was never fully worked out – that

means that all the sensible and reasonable efforts of this action group have been

rendered an utter waste of time. The only response, I am afraid, ultimately, and it is a

27

term I have seen used by other objectors, is that there needs to be a reset on these

proposals because of the way that the timing of the development has come forward. So,

it is an unfortunate position to be in today.

111. We had actually hoped, given the way that the response from the promoter to the

petition made no reference, again, to any engineering difficulties and it may be pointed

out that there was a concern – I’m looking at the third paragraph of P2149(1), there’s a

reference to a meeting in September and that, at that stage, there appeared to be concern,

well Mr Waddell can confirm this. All that was said, was there might be a slight

problem with the delta junction and the Y junction, but that they had hoped to resolve it.

112. And then, there came the response to the petition which made again, no reference

to any technical suggestion that this was going to – so, we are stuck, I’m afraid, we are

stuck, having given it’s all to try and promote this as a sensible option, to mitigate all

that they’ve had to endure and again, as I say, we’re in a very, very difficult position.

113. MR BELLINGHAM: Could we see a map – I got the P2076, I just got it back in

the bundle as well, it was on the screen. I’d quite like to see where the Y junction is, if

you could – could we just see it in the context, it would be quite helpful.

114. MS COLQUHOUN: I’m trying to find the best one. I’m using the HS2 exhibits,

I don’t know whether that’s – Mr Waddell can probably show you this.

115. MR WADDELL: Yes, that one –

116. MS COLQUHOUN: That’s 2077

117. MR WADDELL: Yes, it does.

118. MS COLQUHOUN: Which is on the next exhibit, 2077. You can see the

Kingsbury – the yellow marked Kingsbury railhead compound.

119. MR BELLINGHAM: I still don’t quite understand the argument why the

alignment of the Y junction is so critical in engineering terms, but maybe we’ll come

back to that in a moment.

120. MS COLQUHOUN: That would be silly of me to try to explain. The third point,

however, is really to – as a plea in legal terms, is that if there are going to be assurances

28

given, or that there are going to be promises made by HS2, that they should properly be

in the form of undertakings, because there is no way that a sensible person can rely on a

simple assurance. An undertaking at least, has some legal force and therefore, I ask that

this Committee take that into account.

121. The second point really is also a generic point about the mitigation requirements

and the means by which it is said that environmental mitigation and other mitigation

measures can be ensured. Currently, as I understand it, again, there is – it’s in the remit

of contractual arrangements between the nominated undertaker and the contractor. I

understand the point about the commissioner, but however, the person who is absent in

terms of enforcing any of these requirements, other people who are actually affected

themselves. My experiences within the Planning Act 2008 – I had the chance to sit with

the examining authority on the Thames Tideway Tunnel and we had to look at how

requirements were attached to that order with great, great care, to ensure that those

requirements actually had teeth, and at the moment, there does not seem to be sufficient

teeth for those who are being asked to rely upon them.

122. Those are my opening remarks, unless I can assist you further, I’m going to hand

over to Mr Waddell to do the presentation.

123. CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

124. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: By the way, before you do that, excuse me

interrupting, you showed us page 1 of a letter, and had some tantalising things on page

2, if we could possibly have a look at that? That was 21492.

125. MS COLQUHOUN: Yes. That sets out the number of difficulties in the first part,

and then it deals with the vertical alignment which we are welcoming.

126. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay, thank you.

127. MS COLQUHOUN: Thank you very much.

128. CHAIR: Mr Waddell?

129. MR WADDELL: Thank you. Perhaps we could have the first slide of my

presentation, although we might also have on hand the useful general map, P2076. Let’s

29

have that first, so we can see that it’s in its context. Okay. First of all, I just want to

briefly say that what we’re presenting to you today is very much the views of the

community; it’s not a few isolated individuals. We’ve had a number of public meetings

in Middleton, culminating in one when we said we were going to petition, we went one

by one, through the arguments for the petition that we were going to put forward to, and

there was a unanimous vote in favour of all of them. So this is the consensus views of

the community.

130. My presentation is in three parts, the first part some key big asks, one of which is,

the primary one, is with movement of the line. Then part two, seven detailed local

changes and I propose to go through those fairly quickly. And then looking at the wider

area, some quite big issues, I think, three big issues which we’d like to draw to your

attention. I’m going to through some of these slides fairly quickly; at times I need to

slow down, because things are a little bit complicated.

131. So, first of all, quickly about Middleton. You visited the area, you know what an

attractive countryside we live in, what I’d like to emphasise is demographically, like a

lot of villages, we are a slightly ageing population but we’re very keen on active outdoor

pursuits, so we’ve got a health and education and welfare group, we’ve got a big cycling

club, and so on, and the biggest resource for those groups is the fact that we have lots of

pleasant country lanes, lightly trafficked at the moment, which we can enjoy. We also,

within the village, have some important facilities. We’ve got four equestrian centres

within the village, we’ve got a children’s educational farm where everybody comes,

from the heartlands of Birmingham, brings the kids on coaches and so on, to look at

that. So, I’ve been in the village for 30 years and gradually, the leisure side of activities

all around us has increased.

132. Also, most importantly, within two miles of the village, on the A4091, the

Tamworth Road, towards Tamworth, we have Drayton Manor Park, which, as many of

you will know, is the biggest fairground theme park serving the West Midlands

conurbation. So, there’s a catchment area of about five million people there, and this is

their main leisure outlet and when you get an August bank holiday weekend, or any nice

weekend in summer, you will get at least two mile traffic jams which come right the

way past Middleton on the A4091 with people trying to get into Drayton Manor Park.

30

133. That’s two miles to the north. One and a half miles to the south, we have the

massive Belfry golfing complex, which has recently been acquired by a new firm, had

many, many millions of pounds put into its refurbishment, so you have got hotels,

conference centres, health spas and all the rest of it, but of course, the main feature, it

has massive golf courses which are championship standard, it’s held the Ryder Cup in

the past, as you may know, and hopes to do so in the future. So, when we have a big

sporting event there, naturally people come from all over the country to do it.

134. We have good road communications, because part of that accessibility means that

this is very popular area for leisure. Just a couple of other things, I don’t know whether

you can see it, but on the opposite of where the rail line is drawn on the map, on the

right hand side, we have Middleton Hall which is an RSPB – and lakes, which has

recently been restored, it’s an attractive building with a craft centre and a designated

bird reserve with 46 different water fowl. Now, if you go to the right again, and here

we’re going into territory – sorry, if we go to the east that it would be, that’s right. This

is territory which is surprisingly outside of the Environmental Statement; it’s quite

tightly drawn the boundaries of the Environmental Statement. This, in fact, is

Middleton Lakes, it’s an RSPB nature reserve, many, many lakes, it’s basically an old

sand and gravel workings that have become naturalised. They are now very, very

attractive, and very, very attractive for wild fowl, and we get twitchers from all over the

region, if not all over the country, particularly when there’s a particularly rare species

spotted. But, although there is a claim with the Environmental Statement, I read it very

closely that they have taken this into account, if you go through the lists of survey sites,

it isn’t included, surprising.

135. Okay. Now, if we can come directly south, bear with me, and slightly further to

the east again, across here, and down again, right, and to the right a little bit, Kingsbury

Water Park. Now, this is a massive area; I’ve got a few slides about it, but it’s a

massive resource for the area, it’s owned by Warwickshire County Council. Over

350,000 visitors a year. It’s a virtually free resource. There’s a modest parking charge.

There’s 110 acres, I believe it is, lakes, wildlife, a miniature railway, a visitor centre, we

have yachting, we have water skiing and hydrofoils and things like that. It’s a huge and

very, very important resource, particularly as we are surrounded by largely urban area.

So that’s extremely valid, and I want to say a lot of important things about that, towards

31

the end of my presentation.

136. So that very, very briefly, is the sort of outline of the area that we’re dealing with

here. If I can go on now; perhaps we could skip the first few slides and it’s actually the

fifth slide of my presentation? It’s headed, ‘Our area suffers biggest construction

operations’. Thank you.

137. So down into this idyllic setting, with all these leisure facilities, not used just by

local people but regionally and nationally, we have set down some of the biggest

engineering works anywhere along the line. We would submit to you that north of

Euston, the impact of what’s happening around Middleton, Curdworth, Kingsbury and

Lea Marston is the most dramatic, so we’ve got not only the delta junction itself, at

Water Orton with the tracks into Birmingham, we’ve got what we call the Y junction, or

the Leeds spur junction alongside the M42, we’ve now got the Kingsbury railhead,

we’ve got a big viaduct over the M42 and to cap it all, we’re not just suffering the

depredations of Phase 1, if things go to plan, we’re also going to suffer the depredations

of Phase 2 as well. Because we happen, such is our misfortune to be on the junction of

both.

138. So, construction problems and so on, the difficulties are going to be multiplied

obviously, over a much longer period.

139. Can we have the next slide? Next slide? Okay. Now getting to the nitty-gritty.

What are the problems with the present horizontal alignment? The environmental loss

of habitat, job losses noise and so on, I will explain those in a moment. Next slide

please.

140. This is my crude diagram, I apologise for that. The black line is the A4091. It is a

diagram, we’ve got some more detailed plans later, but just to give you a feel for things,

the red line is roughly the current alignment of HS2, and the green line is our proposed

revision to the east. Now, the critical points here to note are in the south, we have North

Wood, an area of ancient woodland, which presently is bisected by HS2. Next up, we

have Middleton House Farm and business complex with around 50-60 jobs in total,

which is bisected and demolished by HS2. Then, coming in closer to the village, we

have, as we shall see shortly, at Bodymoor Heath Lane, a really – there’s no other word

for it, awfully designed junction which is incredibly intrusive and will actually lead a lot

32

of through traffic to encourage it to use our village. And then, the line, as you see, the

red line is coming quite close into our village. We then have a really problematic

junction here where the proposal is, where it says, ‘A4091 bridge over HS2’, literally,

that bridge is going to be 1000 metres long, if you count embankments as well, and

there is a diversion of the A4091 major road, to actually bring it nearer to our

community and nearer to the small hamlet, which you see there, marked as Hunts Green.

141. If we move further north still, we have a viaduct which runs very close to a

number of equestrian facilities in the Middleton village itself, the main village, so lots of

noise there and affecting properties in nearby Crowberry Lane. At the top of that loop,

there’s a re-alignment of Church Lane; if you see Middleton village there, and the

connection to the A4091 is called Church Lane, the bridge over HS2, the red line there,

is actually designed to come very close to the village itself; we’ve got some more

detailed maps of that further on.

142. So, that, just to give you a broad grasp is the location of the problem areas, if you

like, with the present route. So if we could have the next slide.

143. I just want to look at these in just a little more detail. North Wood, seven acres of

ancient woodland. Can we have the next slide? I’m going to whizz through these if I

can. It’s severely damaged, as you see – sorry about my crude black line there, but the

black line is North Wood. There is a little square to the left of it, that’s a moated manor

house site. If you look at the site itself, there’s not much to see, there’s just grassland,

but you can see the ancient lines of the moat, there’s no actual ruins of a manor or

anything like that. English Heritage do feel it should be conserved, but didn’t want to

have an archaeological digs, felt it should be left as it is. It is of some value but

certainly, visually and so on, it’s not so valuable. But North Wood, we argue, is very

valuable and if you see the construction works and the proximity of most of North

Wood, the line itself caused bisection of North Wood as you can see. Personally, as a

planner, I worry about collateral damage in construction. If you are having major

construction work so close to an area of ancient woodland like this, I suspect the

damage is going to be above and beyond the actual red lines there. Next slide please.

144. Okay. Now then, there is no published ecological survey of North Wood. If you

read the Environmental Statement, it says that they are unable to do this because of

33

access. Well, I’ve talked to the landowners and they have stipulated periods, to avoid

crop damage where an ecological survey could be done and it hasn’t been done, or if it

has been done, we haven’t had an opportunity to see it, because it is not in the

Environmental Statement.

145. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It hasn’t been done because we haven’t been given

access.

146. MR WADDELL: I have the statement from the farmer who has quoted dates

when between crops when he has said access is available, he has rung the people up and

said, ‘Why haven’t you turned up?’ and they’ve said, ‘Oh, we’re not doing any further

surveys for the moment.’

147. So how you can devastate an area of ancient woodland without a proper ecological

survey, I don’t know.

148. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I stop you for a second? You aren’t responsible

for what a farmer may have said, but there aren’t any crops in an ancient woodland.

149. MR WADDELL: No, I think it’s the area between – and they were going to

survey a wide area around, so it’s access to it, basically.

150. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Oh, I see.

151. MR WADDELL: And as we know, ancient woodland is irreplaceable, and I think

the government guidance is, with large infrastructure projects, avoid ancient woodlands,

if at all possible. Next slide? We can probably skip a couple here actually. Skip one

slide, if you could, sorry. It’s just a final slide on North Wood there.

152. So the next problem that we have here is Middleton House Farm. This is a long

established farm business, there’s a residential bungalow, and there’s a bed and

breakfast which serves the Belfry and other attractions in the area. As I say, there’s, if

you count full time and part time jobs, it comes to about 50 or 60 jobs…

153. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That takes us to slide 16 which gives us that

summery.

154. MR WADDELL: It does indeed. Can we just move on, next slide please? Oh

34

yes, okay. There were a couple of other slides, individual slides, but maybe we can just

skip that. Leave it at that for the moment.

155. Now, these are available local jobs. You may say businesses can be relocated.

I’ve spent a lot of my time in economic development and I’ve looked at research on

relocation of small businesses. Typically, on a relocation, you will lose between 20 and

25% of jobs. Elderly owners want to take the money and extinguish the business, key

workers find other location too far to travel and so on, and some businesses just can’t

stand the disruption.

156. The other point is, we are all for sustainable communities here. We want local

jobs, and we don’t want people travelling into the centre of Birmingham to work, we

like to have jobs locally and we want to retain them locally. The bed and breakfast

business is important as well. And if we could perhaps just flick back one slide and just

have a look at that. It’s a characterful house, it’s well known, it’s very well used.

157. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mr Waddell, we’re with you all the way, but you’re

going to send us to sleep unless we get onto the things which are actually what you want

to happen, if you don’t mind me saying so.

158. MR WADDELL: Right. If we move the other way then, onto the slide called,

‘Diversion of Bodymoor Heath Lane’. This is important because it’s a consequence of

the present proposals. Can we have the next slide please?

159. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, just to contradict myself, if we just have one

quick look at number 18, just to show us the coming over the top, and then we can move

on, perhaps.

160. MR WADDELL: Is this the right one? Are you happy with this?

161. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes.

162. MR WADDELL: Okay. Even HS2 engineers admit this is a bit of an abortion.

You have coming down from the north, Bodymoor Heath Lane. With the present

proposals it has to leap over HS2 railway line, then it has to leap over the A4091 main

Tamworth Road, and then it sort of swings in, to what is effectively, a country lane,

which is Brick Kiln Lane, here. And then there’s traffic; I shall come onto the wider

35

traffic issue later on, but this is a very significant traffic route, it’s the main feeder to

Kingsbury Water Park, for example.

163. Here it is, we have this eyesore of a large embankment, it’s actually very high,

wasteful of land, what’s going to happen to that sort of quarter circle of land trapped

between there, and most importantly, and I’ll explain this in more detail later on, it is

actually going to divert through traffic through the hamlet of Hunts Green and the

village. Those of you who were on the coach tour, went through Hunts Green, and if

you remember, at the junction there, your coach had to reverse back about three times,

backwards and forwards, to get round the corner, that’s the state of the lanes that we’re

talking about.

164. Now, when I come onto talk about our proposal, our proposal obviates that design

completely and enables a simple T-junction with the main road. Next slide please.

165. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve done that.

166. MR WADDELL: Okay, okay. The Dunton Hall slides. Just to make the

comment that the railway is coming in extremely close to the two communities of Hunts

Green and Middleton; it’s not a very good slide, I beg your pardon here, but, to the north

of Hunts Green, which is on the right, we have this huge 1000 metre viaduct, and

embankments, which is the diversion of the A4091 over the railway. Next slide please.

167. Lastly, and this is further south, we have Dunton Hall, which I think you’ve heard

about, it’s a grade II listed building and under the present proposals, will be situated on

the edge of a huge retaining wall which is part of the Leeds Birmingham multilevel

junction. Literally, this building will be at least 12 – actually, about 20 metres, will be a

huge drop in the retaining wall, 20 metres down to the tracks on the Y junction. And as

you’re probably aware, the guidance on listed buildings is very much that the setting and

the preservation of the setting is as important as the building itself. Next slide please.

168. In the Environmental Statement, it calls it a ‘High adverse impact and major

adverse effect’. Next slide please.

169. This is just so you can see it. This is the drawing of Dunton Hall, right on the

edge of a major cutting in the Y junction.

36

170. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How far is that from the house?

171. MR WADDELL: It’s literally on the boundary of the house itself, you can almost

see the house itself on the plan there. It’s virtually butting up to the house itself. I’ll

come on to talk about that when we come on to our alignment. Our alternative

alignment allows, at the very least, and this is according to HS2’s information, a decent

delta planting to screen that cutting from Dunton Hall. Next slide please.

172. I want to talk about our alternative now. Okay. This is us, at the Department of

Transport in March 2011. Our proposal involves moving the line to a maximum, and I

stress maximum, of 200 metres eastwards. Now, if you do that, and we’re about

avoiding North Wood, we’re about avoiding the problems which we’ve been talking

about, then, because this is a high speed railway, it does affect a wider area, no doubt

about that. Next slide please.

173. This is where I’m going to slow down a bit because it’s quite important. I want to

trace the chronology of this.

174. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: In summary, the Y junction came in after you’d

made your proposals?

175. MR WADDELL: Long after, long after. Sorry.

176. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay. Too much chronology again will be

dangerous.

177. MR WADDELL: If you bear with me, because I think this is important because

it bears on the credibility of what’s being said by HS2 Ltd. Right. In October 2010, we

wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport saying we needed to move the route and we

needed to save these important assets of North Wood and Middleton House Farm in

particular. So we sat back and we thought something positive might happen. Well, the

route was revised, and in December 2010, what happened, it hadn’t been moved at all,

it’d actually be raised in height in our area. The Secretary of State for Transport had the

meeting with us, having said, ‘Oh, I think it looks a bit high in the Middleton area, I

think our engineers should look at lowering it’. So, ‘Well, we’re not being listened to’,

we decided so in March 2011, we prepared an extensive and detailed report which we

37

made as technically robust as possible, we went down to the DfT with our MP and we

presented the proposals. And we had a letter back. And it said…

178. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I just interrupt, who’s your MP?

179. MR WADDELL: Dan Byles.

180. MR BELLINGHAM: It is Dan Byles. I thought it was, yes.

181. MR WADDELL: And we had a letter back, which encouraged us. ‘Your

proposals to change the horizontal alignment appeared feasible’. That was very

encouraging. But, however, in January 2012, the route was changed again, and once

again, our alternative had been ignored, largely. North Wood was still devastated,

Middleton House Farm was; there was a small movement away from the village, which

we welcomed at the time. But the key points of our demands had not been met.

182. Then, we started having the first community forums, our alternative was being

considered again. There are the dates looked at, still being looked at. Next slide please.

183. We kept pushing, ‘Well, have you looked at it, our alternative? Is it viable, this is

our main demand here’. We can skip this slide, this is just an extract from the letter to

the Secretary of State for Transport confirming those changes that need to be made.

Okay, we’re now going into 2013. The plans for the Y were published, but the junction

was shown in outline only.

184. What we should have said, perhaps, is that overlapping this process is that from

February 2011 to July 2011, was the official formal consultation. Now at that time, we

were informed there was no decision on the Y. The Y junction location had not been

announced, we were given no opportunity to comment on it. It’s only after that official,

and quite extensive consultation with road shows and all the rest of it, that a major

intrusive engineering work in our area was imposed. We didn’t have the opportunity, or

the time to raise community awareness and mobilise people, because it didn’t exist,

officially at that time.

185. So, now we’re getting to the business of this sift analysis, and I’m assuming you

are broadly aware of the sift process within HS2. In February 2013, it was confirmed to

us, and it’s in writing, in the bilateral meeting – we were obviously worried about the

38

sift proposal; it was going to be an internal process within HS2, how would our

proposals fair? We were keen to ensure that – we did ask to be represented at the

meeting which that ask was declined, but we were keen, naturally, to ensure that the

proper inputs to the process were there and asked to have a sight of those, before it went

before the internal committee at HS2 Ltd. In practice, we were denied that. It was a fait

accompli.

186. We were told in April 2013, that it was to be recommended in the sift process, to

be rejected by HS2 Ltd on engineering costs grounds alone. Due to tight budgetary

constraints. I asked at the time, ‘What costs have you put on seven acres of ancient

woodland? What costs have you put on all these jobs?’ ‘Oh, we haven’t costed them’.

187. So, next month, I wrote a letter of process to the CEO of HS2 Ltd, and these are

all on file, I’m trying to get through this fairly quickly. But then our proposal seemed

to get some sort of new life, because we were told within the draft ES that our proposal

is still under consideration. And then in an email in May/June, from the DfT, ‘The

team working on your proposals, we will have a proper response with them by the end

of June’. June came and went, nothing.

188. Okay, so in August, a letter of complaint to the CEO of HS2 Ltd, complaining

about the lack of response. Still no response. Then, we had plumped on us, in addition

to the Y junction, this massive railhead at Kingsbury Road. Way outside the period of

official consultation, never announced at the beginning of the programme, and this was

some sort of afterthought, but an afterthought of mega environmental proportions.

Sorry, I’m angry about this, but I don’t make any excuses for that.

189. In September, the ES rejected our proposals, but on cost grounds alone. And then

finally, after many times of asking, in February 2014, we were provided details of the

sift analysis and maps of the options. That’s really the only handle we’ve ever been

able to get on the internal thinking of HS2 and why they rejected our option as opposed

to the other options. Next slide please.

190. We can maybe skip a couple – these are just confirming the things I’ve been

saying really. Extracts of minutes and so on; I think we can skip these. We can almost

go to – there’s a slide, ‘Middleton PC alternative being considered’. It’s about three

slides on.

39

191. MS COLQUHOUN: Is it 32? 606.

192. MR WADDELL: This is it, yes, okay. So the latest we have is an email from

Caitlin Pickavance of HS2 Ltd, dated 10 November – the other day, ‘Regarding the

Middleton horizontal alignment report. Our sending it to you is delayed at the moment

as we are looking into further options’. Now, bear in mind, we wrote that initial letter

to the Secretary of State in October 2010, we presented our detailed proposals in March

2011, and here we are, just one month ago, and they’re still looking at it. One can only

imagine what’s been going on.

193. Let me just, now quickly take you through the option itself. Next slide please.

I’m sorry about the quality of these maps; I’ve asked for better quality, these are HS2’s

maps. Actually, they’re not quite as bad, I must admit, as I thought they were.

194. So, this is the north section, can you see Middleton village, just to the left centre

there? This is our Option B, designed, as it’s interpreted and designed by HS2 Ltd.

Now, we just have one concern with this. It’s very close to the community option, but

we never had an opportunity to criticise it before it went into the sift process and my

one reservation – as you can see, virtually in the middle, and above the line, there is a

yellow building, can you see that? That’s it, bring it down, if you bring the cursor down

to the right. That’s it. That is Aston Villa’s Academy building where they do all sorts

of physiotherapy and it’s quite – not an insubstantial building. In a sense, HS2 went too

far, they took it too far east. We were very careful to give a decent gap between our

line and that building. That’s our only and main reservation about the horizontal

alignment here.

195. As you see, it’s moved out to avoid – North Wood is on the right here, and the

moated manor house site, which you can see on the right, and then just to the left of

that, Middleton House Farm, so we’ve had to move it out a maximum of 200 metres to

avoid those, and then it sort of feathers in on the left hand side of that map, to Drayton

Bassett village, which is a very scattered community and yes, it will be very slightly

nearer one or two properties in Drayton Basset, but our feeling is that’s perhaps not too

significant. We’ve shared all these proposals with our neighbours, obviously. Can we

have the next one please?

196. MR BELLINGHAM: On the Aston Villa training ground, your new alignment is

40

going to – it’ll just touch the bottom left hand corner of that pitch, will it, on the training

ground?

197. MR WADDELL: No, our new alignment is shown as to the red line on that.

198. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.

199. MR WADDELL: The existing alignment goes – those are actually the youth

pitches. Youth pitches, which are open, and our new alignment takes rather more of the

– the red alignment takes rather more of the youth pitches, than the existing alignment.

We have made the point many times, that there is land to the north of the academy

building there, which is poor farmland, available for sale, it could easily be used for the

relocation of those pitches. So next slide please.

200. This is just the mid section that – next slide please. As I say, if you take the line

out 200 metres, then naturally, because of the speeds here, on a high speed line, one

can’t have tight curves, as you’re fully aware, so it does affect a wider section of the

line. This is where it actually takes the line a little bit further, so it comes across – the

blue line is the Fazeley canal, the grey line to the right of that is the M42 motorway,

bridges over there, and then it comes back into the original alignment down here and

actually, in doing so, takes, as I say, the huge cutting, the Y junction cutting, away from

Dunton Hall, thus improving the setting of the listed building. Next slide please.

201. So you can see it’s feathering in there, so our alignment is the red line, so the

difference between that and the black line which is the Option A, which is the preferred

alignment, is actually very, very small indeed. Next slide.

202. Our alignment also improves what happens to the treatment of the roads. You’ve

seen this slide before, it’s the abortion – excuse my language, at Bodymoor Heath

Road. We have it in writing from HS2 that if our Option B alignment was adopted, we

would actually be able to come – we’ve got room, you see, what’s happening here, it

has to bridge the A4091 road because there isn’t actually room between the railway,

going over the railway, and to come down at a safe gradient to form the junction with

the A4091. Now, we have it in writing from HS2 that with our alignment, the HS2

bridge is moved back and we have sufficient room to have a normal T junction with the

A4091 road which is going to be better for all sorts of reasons, not least limiting heavy

41

traffic on our local roads. Next slide please.

203. I’m just going to spend a little bit on the sift analysis because it’s so important,

this is the only thing we’ve been able to – oh, sorry, just a quick other thing here.

Obviously, the Church Lane over bridge – this is the current proposal, and the A4091

gigantic 1000 metre viaduct, can all be moved just that little bit further away from the

village with our alignment, and thus we can mitigate them more effectively. Next slide.

204. I’m just going to spend a little time on the sift; this is quite important. So we had

the sift analysis, there were 42 evaluation criteria, Option B was judged no better or no

worse than the present proposal on 28 of those criteria, was better on 13, and worse on

only one; cost. Next slide please.

205. I won’t bore you by going through all of these; let’s have the next slide please. In

fact, we can probably skip the next one.

206. What we want to be convinced of perhaps is how believable is the cost estimates

which we’ve been provided with. If you look here; these are HS2’s figures, obviously.

It’s the engineering costs and it’s the viaduct costs which are the huge differential here.

I think the indirect costs are things like contractors on costs and fees, and so on, so if

you get a differential on the other costs, that gets multiplied by a certain percentage;

that’s my understanding, I may be wrong. So we wanted to particularly look at the

viaduct situation. Now, I should emphasise here that we’ve never disagreed that there

would be a higher cost to our option. We’ve got a flood plain, we’re going slightly

further into the flood plain, you will need more engineering works, but it’s nothing like

the scale –

207. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: By the scale, what’s the length of line we’re

concerned with here?

208. MR WADDELL: The length?

209. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes. From where you leave –

210. MR WADDELL: I haven’t got the actual figure, the yardage in my head. So we

need to look more closely at the viaduct costs. So if you go to the next slide please.

We got this information late in the day, bear in mind, but when we started looking at the

42

actual costs, I think HS2 must agree broadly with these figures, obviously we can’t

generalise but these were sourced, partly from HS2 and partly from Staffordshire

County Council. As a rough rule of thumb, including on costs, you’re talking about £27

million to £29 million per kilometre for two track viaducts. Obviously, viaducts vary

and so on, but it’s very rule of thumb. And then conversely, for embankment, where

you might replace the environment with embankment, it’s of that order. So, very

crudely, one could say it’s about twice the cost. Next slide please.

211. MS COLQUHOUN: Just to assist, I’m told that the proposal, our Option B,

affects about 8 to 9 kilometres length of the existing proposal, and the Option B is about

the same length.

212. MR WADDELL: Now, just a couple of examples here, the green is the flood

plain, these are the latest 100-year flood modelling levels, which I believe are the ones

HS2 are most concentrating on, so worst in 100 years. If you look at the two little

marks – sorry about my crude graphics, but on the dotted line, which represents our

alternatives, between the two little cross marks, that is shown as a full 600 metre

viaduct and costed in as such on our Option B. Now, Option A, has rigidly followed

the flood plain, non flood plain areas, in other words, wherever you find an Option B,

there is any significant length which is not a flood plain, it is shown as embankment,

not viaduct. Our point is that there are significant areas of flood plain, which ours is

crossed, which are actually still shown as viaduct.

213. I’ll just give one more example, which I think is on the next slide. This is

particularly important here, this is at the lower end of the line, I’ve shown roughly

between A and B there, our alignment, this is a multi track area, it’s close to the delta

junction and our line is feathering into theirs at this point. Now, between A and B, with

our option, they have shown and costed in a 1200 metre viaduct. With their option, as

you can see, the embankments are shown and they’ve used embankments which intrude

upon – this is actually Curdworth sewage works – and of course, thereby, they have

reduced the length of the viaduct to approximately 550 metres in comparison with ours.

214. Now, in talking about costs and property costs, they have said, ‘Your costs take

more from – we’ll come onto this in detail in a moment, but they’ve said, ‘Your costs

take more from major landowners’. E.g. – and the only example the give is Curdworth

43

sewage works. Well we would point out here, is you can’t have it both ways. This is a

viaduct. Underneath a viaduct, one has columns, and here it is eight to nine metres

high, and that is protected land.

215. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’re pointing, but we aren’t seeing your finger.

216. MR WADDELL: Oh, sorry. You see where these embankments are here?

217. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes, okay.

218. MR WADDELL: In the centre of the slide really, yes? Now all that, that is

shown as viaduct on our option, but it’s shown as embankments on their option. Hence

the difference in costs, and the sewage works is over this land, where the arrow is, and

to the north, basically. So, if this was to be viaduct, we actually, we would argue,

contrary to what they’re arguing, that we’re actually using less protected land, because

land beneath a viaduct, as we know, can be productive. Next slide.

219. Just to say, alongside that, because we can shorten that huge viaduct on the

A4091, because we can get rid of the abortion on Bodymoor Heath Lane, we believe

that we can save quite a lot of money on ancillary road realignments and so on, which

we don’t think has been taken into account in HS2’s costings. Next slide please.

220. Just a quick look now at property costs. We asked for a more detailed breakdown

of these but we’re told they are commercially sensitive and we couldn’t have anything

better than this. But on the left, you see, in terms of bricks and mortar, there’re all your

demolitions, for Option A, and there’re all your demolitions for Option B. And one of

those, Dunton Stables, is described in the ES, you can see the little notes in italics there,

‘It will result in a significant temporary isolation effect, during the works, the stables

will be almost entirely surrounded by construction engineering operations’. We

understand that those stables have actually been acquired by HS2 at this particular point

in time.

221. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So it’s the same cost? Roughly?

222. MR WADDELL: Yes.

223. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Of course, the property costs don’t just relate to

44

demolition. It’s just that this is the only information we have been given which we can

criticise. Yes? We’ve asked for more detailed information.

224. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And we all understand that if you go through an

ancient woodland at £600 an acre, that’s rather cheaper than going through prime

agricultural land at £10,000 an acre.

225. MR WADDELL: Well, it depends on how you value the quality.

226. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yeah, I know, but in terms of costs – payments.

227. MR WADDELL: So, despite all this, they get their costs at £27 million as

opposed to ours at £36 million. And as I say, if you read the ES, the only comment it

says, ‘We’re taking more land from major landowners’. Well, if it’s a farm, you know,

and you’re moving the line, you’re releasing as much land as you’re taking, if you get

my meaning, and the only example they gave is Curdworth sewage works, and in fact,

our viaduct would actually preserve more productive land than their option. Next slide

please.

228. Just coming to the end of this now. And I can speed up a little bit. So, in

summary, our option saves North Wood, saves Middleton Hall Farm complex and all

those valuable local jobs, and significantly reduces the adverse impacts on our

communities. And makes a much more simple job of your road realignments, and last,

but not least, improves the setting of a historic grade II, Dunton Hall building, and it’s

better than theirs on 13 of their evaluation criteria. Next slide please.

229. I’m going to try and be very brief here. Maybe we can – can we skip the next

slide and just go to the benefits slide? No, the next one please. I think you’re aware of

this. All the advantages of lowering the line, all the environmental opportunities that

there are, often they can be cost savings as well. Bird strike risk is something I’m going

to come on to in a moment, and I think it’s been a major emission actually, from the

Environmental Statement. So can we have the next slide?

230. What we’re asking for on the vertical line – and what I should have said at the

beginning is that all our asks are discrete, they’re separate, if the horizontal is removed,

or not acceded to then we’d still like the vertical – Langley Brook viaduct, we’ve had

45

some dialogue with HS2 on this. We’ve made more progress to be honest, in the last

two weeks than we’ve made in the last two years, and we have been offered something

on this. But we’d like a little bit more, you won’t be surprised. And then, also

Bodymoor – the M42 viaduct is a given, obviously it’s a high speed railway, we can’t

go up and down like a switchback, we accept that, but this is a particularly prominent –

it’s right in front of the Belfry Golf Course and so on, it’s a particularly prominent area,

and we would like it lowered as far as possible. Next slide please.

231. You had a session with Stuart Potts – you may recall it – from Drayton Bassett,

our neighbour, who is an engineer. He has kindly done this drawing for us, which we

submit in evidence, which shows the critical Langley Brook point. He’s done all the

flood level calculations. It could actually potentially be reduced in level by 1.7 metres,

and that would make a very significant difference to our village. Next slide, please.

232. I won’t go into this a lot, but the Environmental Statement talks a lot about the

impact of noise on the bird population, but I haven’t found anything about collisions

with high-speed trains and risk of deaths and electrocution on the overhead wires. Of

course, the problem with the live wires is that, unlike normal power lines, you can’t put

up these markers to stop birds flying into them, because of the pantograph. These are

really important issues and I raise them because we’re surrounded by lakes, waterfowl,

nature and bird reserves. These are actually the larger, less manoeuvrable waterfowl

which, if you read the literature, are the ones that are actually most vulnerable to strikes

on overhead power lines. Next slide, please.

233. This is Council of Europe stuff. I think it’s based on research in Germany, but

there is serious danger, not just to the birds themselves, but trains are stopped fairly

frequently, according to this research, by collisions with birds and overhead wires.

We’ve got this massive bird population of large waterfowl very close to the line. Next

slide.

234. We can maybe skip this next one and go on to sensitive area. Okay, just to

emphasise here, in terms of the vertical alignment, it is a sensitive area, both for the

sorts of facilities that border it. We obviously want to improve the outlook from the

Belfry resort, from Kingsbury Water Park, from the community as much as possible.

46

Our minimum request is a maximum railway line at Langley Brook and, most

importantly, and others have said this, an upward deviation of up to 3 metres. Three

meters would devastate our area to be honest with you. We strongly argue that that

should be disapplied in respect of our area.

235. MS COLQUHOUN: As you’re dealing with this, Mr Waddell, do you want to

deal with the proposal that’s set out in the assurance letter?

236. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Could you also just point out exactly where Langley

Brook is, please?

237. MR WADDELL: Yes, it’s very close to the village.

238. MS COLQUHOUN: 2076 is the overall…

239. MR WADDELL: Yes, 2076.

240. MS COLQUHOUN: That’s the overall plan.

241. MR WADDELL: As you see where it says Middleton, then that’s Church Lane,

which connects Middleton going eastwards there. There’s a red mark, can you see on

the line itself? That is Langley Brook.

242. MS COLQUHOUN: That’s just near the sewage works.

243. MR WADDELL: It is indeed. We do have three equestrian facilities immediately

on this edge of the village.

244. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thank you.

245. MR WADDELL: HS2 particularly recently has been helpful on Langley Brook

Viaduct, and I do acknowledge that they are trying to do what they can. They have

offered to shorten the length of it and they’ve offered to reduce it by three quarters of a

metre, which we do appreciate, but we would like them to look seriously at the drawing

47

that we supplied to see if it can’t be lowered more than that. Can I perhaps return to my

presentation?

246. The third and last… Request for a green tunnel? A third big ask is – it’s now that

you find you need the previous slides, as is always the case, but you may recall from the

previous slide that the railway… There are 42 properties on the north side of Church

Lane in the main village of Middleton. The railway will run reasonably close to those,

between us and Drayton Bassett, so we are keen to reduce the impact on them as far as

possible. Now, in dialogue with HS2 Limited, they have offered to… Actually, we’ve

got a map. Three slides on there is a map.

247. MS COLQUHOUN: Is it 60?

248. MR WADDELL: Now, the context of this green tunnel basically is – it’s not

shown on this; I’m sorry. HS2 has got a map of this obviously, but they’re proposing to

put quite significant – what do they call them? – false embankments either side of the

line to help mitigate the problem with noise and visual intrusion to the properties on the

–

249. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Creating a false cutting.

250. MR WADDELL: A false cutting, yes. It’s 7 metres high. What we’ve basically

said, if you look at the slide before, there is still, according to the Environmental

Statement, very significant visual intrusion problems. You can still see the overhead

lines. It is still a scar on the landscape. We’ve said, ‘Surely it’s a fairly limited cost.

You can roof the thing over so we can’t see the overhead lines. There is a footpath

going across there. We can improve the visibility for there, but improve the visibility

from Church Lane overbridge. Please can you have a look at that?’ Next slide, please.

I think we’ve skipped two, but maybe that’s not too serious.

251. I have quoted in my presentation the noise levels and the quotes on visual

intrusion in the previous two slides, so let’s take those as read; you have them in front of

you. Okay, we believe we’ve got landscape/townscape for screening. Sorry, this is

HS2’s analysis on the green tunnel. We’re better than the present scheme in terms of

48

screening, better in preserving cultural heritage, better on noise impacts, better on

community integrity. The implication is that the additional cost is marginal.

252. If we look at the next slide, there were some disbenefits. It’s only a 400-metre

tunnel. It’s pretty short, but they still want their M&E and goodness knows what within

the tunnel for safety and other reasons. Well, fair enough. They think it will take longer

to construct this green tunnel. Well, we’ve taken a poll of local people and they would

be happy to put up with a bit longer construction period if we could have the benefits of

this. They mentioned increased waste material. The cost, £252 million compared with

£235 million, I would submit is not a huge difference in cost for quite a significant

benefit to 42 or more properties on the north side of Church Lane in Middleton, and

that’s the main village itself. Next slide.

253. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s about £800,000 a home, just as arithmetic.

254. MR WADDELL: People are using the footpaths. It’s all our leisure services, you

know?

255. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s just to give you a sense of the number.

256. MR WADDELL: Okay, so just a quick summary of our strategic request, so next

slide, please. Moving to part 2 and, if I can go even more quickly, I think I need to buy

the slide operators a drink at some point, because they’re working so hard.

257. MR MEARNS: Just for the record, you doubled the amount. It’s only £400,000

per home. It’s a £7 million difference and there are 42 homes, just for the record.

Terribly sorry.

258. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’re absolutely right. I stand corrected. Thank

you very much.

259. MR WADDELL: Just the rest of our detailed answer, and I will try to go through

these very quickly, if you don’t do any of the above, we’d like these implemented

please. Next slide.

49

260. Okay, there’s a construction compound, which is shown in the little orange area

there, very close to the village. Actually, in the letter of assurance, HS2 has now agreed

to move that to the north – to the east, I do beg your pardon.

261. MR MEARNS: We discussed that at length last week and the rationale was that

that actually takes it closer to the main road and not crossing the site.

262. CHAIR: So it’s good.

263. MR MEARNS: Yes, so it’s good.

264. MR WADDELL: Here we are. Yes, okay, side of compound access road. Next

slide, please.

265. Page 68 is the junction with the A4091 on Church Lane. This is a serious ask.

The construction compound will be in Church Lane. The Tamworth Road is a busy

road and, as you see there, it’s a dual-carriageway road. With construction traffic, we’re

expected to get 12,200 combined two-way vehicle trips, so it is a very busy road. In

addition, with the construction compound being in Church Lane, we’re going to have, I

think it is, around 80 HGV movements, I think it’s a day. Sorry, peak month HGV

movements, Church Lane, 144 movements. That’s projected with the scheme. It’s

effectively a doubling of the present movements. The present movements are shown as

68 movements a day. Okay?

266. That’s partly because our lanes are so narrow and a lot of these HGVs can’t

actually get much farther down into Middleton, if you know the village. This is a very,

very dangerous junction and, if you’re going to get HGVs coming out of Church Lane in

front of you and turning right, they are going to block the carriageway, which you can

see coming up, whilst they’re waiting to join the other carriageway. Actually, HS2

Limited in their evidence has given a very good drawing of this, which I only saw the

other day, which actually shows the sweep tracks of the HGVs. From that, it’s very,

very apparent that they will, in fact, block the junction. This probably is compounded.

The next slide, please.

50

267. As you’re coming northwards along the A4091 – that’s exactly the slide – it’s a

dual carriageway. There is a 50-mile limit, but it’s rarely abided by. Here you’re

coming up to that junction we’ve just seen. You’ll see it’s the brow of a hill and you’re

on a curve, so you could be swinging at rapid speed around that curve and, all of a

sudden, straight in front of you, an HGV – very, very dangerous. It’s already a

dangerous junction.

268. MS COLQUHOUN: P2100.

269. MR WADDELL: We’re asking that, before construction work starts, we would

like that junction remodelled to make it safe. It doesn’t fall on the local ratepayers; it

falls on HS2 Limited. The cost of that falls on HS2 Limited. This only came the other

day. I haven’t seen this drawing before and it does seem to us to be quite a sensible

solution, but we would like it implemented before construction starts and we would like

the costs met.

270. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can I just make clear? That is showing you the swept

paths that can be achieved within the existing highway limits.

271. MR WADDELL: No.

272. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s what it’s intended to show.

273. MR WADDELL: If you look, there’s a red hatched area in the central reservation.

It’s clearly the intention to get rid of that, to modify it, so that that swept path –

274. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That is within the limits of the existing highway. I can

short-circuit this for the petitioner by saying that we accept that this junction will require

very careful management. It will probably require signalisation and that is something

that we would be looking at in very close consultation with the local highway authority.

They have powers, as you know, under the Bill, to ensure that road works and the

operation of junctions during the construction of the railway take proper account of

needs of local highway safety, capacity and other relevant considerations.

51

275. MR WADDELL: Can we move on then? The next slide is Crowberry

Lane/Church Lane junction.

276. MS COLQUHOUN: 72.

277. MR WADDELL: This is in the heart of the village itself. Can you see? It’s not a

very good copy, but what’s intended, if you look at the plan on the left, is that Church

Lane, where it already has a very tight bend at its junction with Crowberry Lane, which

is on the right, that bend will actually be tightened, because there’s a realignment of

Church Lane proposed to actually get it up and over the HS2 railway line. An already

hazardous bend, and the parish council spent a lot of time debating what it can do about

this, is actually going to be made worse. Can we have the next slide? I think it will give

you a good impression of how dangerous it is. We get a lot of parked vehicles around

here, which doesn’t help.

278. Okay, so you’re in the car; you’re on the left-hand side of the road. You can see

Crowberry Lane junction is just beyond that car which is parked, literally just the other

side of it. You can almost see the sign. That’s a road junction there, so you’re coming

down and then you will find oncoming traffic trying to get around parked cars and so

on. The visibility, you see, is very, very limited. Furthermore, if the traffic is coming

down the slope from the Church Lane overbridge, it’s going to be travelling perhaps at

quite a strong speed. Now, there is this vegetation. Alright, you could clear that and

perhaps improve visibility a little bit, but the problem is that the land actually rises on

the left-hand side of this photograph quite significantly, so it would need quite a lot of

modification.

279. If you adopt our horizontal alignment of course and move Church Lane back, we

can get rid of this problem, because Church Lane would be on its existing alignment.

Okay, thank you.

280. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Because I don’t want to take time on detailed things

when I can deal with them quickly now, one of the things that will change the detailed

arrangements here is the lowering of the height of the Church Lane overbridge. It will

52

enable us to pull back the tie-in to the east, even on our proposed alignment, which

should help to alleviate the concern that has just been raised.

281. MR WADDELL: We do accept that, Chair.

282. CHAIR: Good. Thank you.

283. MR WADDELL: Can we just skip a few slides. I think we talked about Langley

Brook Viaduct, in the past, so we can always skip, let’s say, one, two, three slides. Yes,

I’ve done a graphic around the Viaduct on this slide here.

284. MS COLQUHOUN: That’s 79.

285. MR WADDELL: There is a very attractive stretch of open country here. I’ve

tried to model here the height of the railway and of course the height of the overhead

wires, which will be 7.5 metres above the height of the railway, so it’s quite a scar

across the landscape, but I’ve made the point that we do really want that lowered as

much as possible. Next slide. Maybe we can skip a few slides here. Let’s go to the

A4091 diversion and overbridge, next slide.

286. I mean, it’s difficult to grasp this because the ground levels are not shown on this,

but basically this is quite close to the village. The main village is in the bottom

left-hand corner but, in the bottom right-hand corner, you have the hamlet of Hunts

Green, which I think has got about 10 or 12 dwellings. What’s happening here, of

course, is that the A4091 is being diverted south of its existing alignment, which you

can see on the plan, quite a way, quite a lot closer to our communities. It’s being thrown

up in the air, so we have all this heavy traffic being thrown up in the air above HS2, so

we’re going to get a lot of additional traffic noise and all the rest of it.

287. The ES is not at all clear about what mitigation they’re proposing for the road, as

opposed to the railway. There are some embankments around here. HS2 has provided

some sections, but I’ve studied them closely and the Viaduct itself is still projecting

about 5 metres above the height of the proposed embankments. Thank you. Let’s move

on to the next one. We’re basically looking for better mitigation here.

53

288. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is this moving the road?

289. MR WADDELL: No, we accept the road. If you accept our alignment

horizontally, the road will move farther away but, if you don’t move the word, then we

would want this mitigation. That is just the section. You can see the scale of it here.

As I say, 1,000 metres if you include the embankments. Okay, next slide, please.

290. Okay, yes, this is just the quote about the overbridge from the Environmental

Statement. By year 50 and beyond to year 60 – how many of us are going to be around

then, I wonder – the A4091 overbridge will still be visible, which is a major intrusion.

If we can’t have Option B, let’s have proper mitigation please for the overbridge and the

environmental problems that it’s causing. Next slide, please. We can skip on very

quickly here.

291. This is a footpath diversion. It’s a footpath that actually links Hunts Green with

Aston Villa and Middleton Hall. Apparently it’s low usage according to the

Environmental Statement. I’m stunned at that, because this is a beautiful circular walk,

which takes in Middleton Hall and one can then return to the village. You can see this is

an offer by HS2 before we had it diverted along that horrible abortion of a road

diversion, so people would be walking along carriageways.

292. They have shown here, if you can see the red dotted line, a diversion that is a

clumsy one. The present line goes right across where the railway line is, but it shows a

great big dogleg, then across the existing bridge and then all the way back, which is

going to be a bit of a miserable experience for walkers. They argue – we don’t contest

this – that it would require quite a complicated footbridge, because of the levels, to

actually make it a more direct route, but we would ask that to be looked at, because

really this is spoiling what is presently quite a nice walk. Let’s move on at that point.

Okay, next slide.

293. Okay, yes, this is the overbridge. We desperately want something done with this.

I’ve talked about it before. I won’t repeat myself by talking about the horizontal

alignment and how it would greatly resolve this problem, but it is wasteful of land and it

54

is bringing traffic in. Can we skip this one and probably the next two slides? Well, the

next one slide I think we can skip. It is a narrow lane, Brick Kiln Lane. It’s

introducing, alright there would be improvements to visibility, but visibility destroys the

corrective natural vegetation around these parts. You know? Next slide, please. Let’s

skip the next two slides.

294. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: 92 is the one where you can tell us what you want.

295. MR WADDELL: Yes, we’re not road engineers. We don’t know what the

answer to this is, except to yet again harp on about our option B. Please, it’s a plea:

can’t we get a more elegant solution that is less wasteful of land, less wasteful of

money, less intrusive. Most importantly, and I’ll explain this in a bit more detail when I

look at the traffic in the wider area, in the next section, deter large amounts of traffic

from entering Hunts Green and Middleton, because this is encouraging through traffic

going to Lichfield in the north. It will come straight through our village. Next slide,

please. Right, I’m coming to an end, you’ll be glad to know.

296. These are important issues. I’m not sure that most of them have been highlighted

before. We’ve made the point that we’re hugely affected by both phases. We made the

point again that we have this major construction in our area. Next slide, please.

297. Okay, so I want to talk about traffic congestion and the implication on our rural

roads. I want to talk about the major damage to Kingsbury Water Park if Phase One

remains unaltered, and the major environmental impact to Kingsbury Railhead. Next

slide, please.

298. I’m going to deal with traffic first. This is the Environmental Statement and the

numbers are coming up. Right, 1,750 additional two-way HGV trips in this general

area. I’m talking of Curdworth to Middleton, the CFA20 area, during the peak time.

That rises to virtually 3,000 trips when car when LGV trips are included. The

Kingsbury Railhead alone will generate 1,170 extra HGV movements. Now then, this is

in the Environmental Statement. We hear that there is going to be a tunnel under the

A38 at Lichfield. Where is the spoil from that tunnel going to go? Is it going to be

carted away via the Railhead? If it is, what is this going to do to these traffic figures? I

55

don’t know the answer to that, but the question needs to be asked, because it could be a

lot worse than this possibly.

299. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It’s an interesting rhetorical question but, of course, in

order to promote the additional provision, we will have to review the traffic assessment,

insofar as it’s affected, and that will be brought forward into the public domain for

consultation, once that’s been done.

300. MR WADDELL: According to the environmental assessment, we already have

existing junctions close to capacity, particularly the M42 junction 9 and the

A446/A4091 Belfry island. We feel, having looked at the detail – not all of it, by any

means – there are serious flaws in the traffic data contained in the Environmental

Statement. We feel that there are great dangers that through traffic will take diversions

down rural lanes, towns and villages, and these again have not been taken into account

in the Environmental Statement. Next slide, please.

301. We did our own little survey. This is the Belfry junction, and it just looks at the

southbound traffic on the A4091. The relevant table in the Environmental Statement

shows the maximum queue at this junction, in peak hours, of one vehicle. We have

somebody who commutes regularly on this route, and there you can see the times and

the numbers. At one time, there was a half-a-mile queue when he simply couldn’t count

the number of cars. The smallest queue is 11 vehicles and the biggest, aside from that

half-mile queue, was 35 vehicles. We really don’t think that this figure is credible, and

that’s just one figure, one junction.

302. We’ve talked about Bodymoor Heath Lane. There are no baseline figures and no

projection figures for that line, which we’ve talked about, in the Environmental

Statement, presumably because it’s not designated as a construction route at the

moment. I’m going to show you at the moment that it is an important rat run for all

sorts of through traffic in our area. Next slide, please.

303. I’m a town planner – I’m not a road engineer – but I’ve been exposed to road

engineers and traffic models. It seems to me that the traffic projections in the

Environmental Statement are based on a somewhat simplistic model. They’re based on

56

baseline calculations. They’re multiplied by a factor of growth and then, on top of that,

we have the additional traffic generated by HS2 Limited, in terms of evaluating junction

capacity and so on.

304. What we don’t have is that, given the implicit acceptance that there is going to be

very significant congestion in an area, is where will that through traffic divert itself it to.

In the days of satellite navigation, it ain’t that difficult to find an alternative route. That

hasn’t been modelled. Even in my days of town planning, these computer models

existed. You did have models of the general road network and it was possible to model

the effects of congestion on small and rural roads, but that doesn’t seem to have been

done within the traffic work on the Environmental Statement. Next slide, please.

305. The junction capacity modelling that has been done in the Environmental

Statement does give three junctions, in our immediate locality, which are giving to

operate over their practical capacity. Next slide, please.

306. Now, I used to work in the centre of Birmingham and spent many years

commuting to the centre of Birmingham, back to Middleton. I used to come along the

M6, which is one the left there, and then I would take the route along the M42. I would

hit the two red circles, which are basically Dunton island and the Belfry roundabout,

which I’ve just been talking about – the poor accuracy of the traffic figures by the

Belfry resort there.

307. Very often, we did have significant problems. Whenever I knew there was going

to be a significant problem, I wouldn’t come off the M6 as shown on the M42 junction,

so the first one there; I would continue round to the bottom of the slide, and I would

follow the line that I’ve plotted in white there, through the centre of Coleshill and the

back routes, around Bodymoor Heath Lane.

308. This brings me to the point I was making earlier. It actually takes you over that

new overbridge, the abortion of an overbridge over Bodymoor Heath Lane. Bearing in

mind all the traffic coming from Birmingham, coming from the Coventry area, from

Lichfield, Derby, or to the right or Tamworth in the northeast, that traffic will take that

57

white route there, which will bring you out on Bodymoor Heath Lane on diversion,

Brick Kiln Lane and, if you want to go to Derby and Lichfield, what are you going to

do? You’re going to come through Middleton village, aren’t you? They do at the

moment, but the problems will be compounded. Being as we’re talking about

Phase One and Phase Two, Kingsbury Railhead I think is going to be non-temporary in

many ways, but a permanent feature. It could be a 20-year problem, and really not

sufficient consideration has been given to these sorts of traffic issues. Next slide,

please.

309. We would argue that a proper study is done of the wider traffic network, and,

most importantly, that recommended improvements to our junctions are designed and

implemented before we have this impending gridlock. I don’t believe that’s an

exaggeration. Given the scale of the works in our area I really think traffic is going to

come to a halt, so these improvements must be implemented. I would argue, as a

planner, if there’s a developer with a massive Section 106 agreement then the developer

would pay for all these necessary infrastructure improvements before they were allowed

to carry ahead with their scheme. Thank you.

310. Next slide, please. We’re coming to the end. I just want to say something about

Kingsbury Water Park. I’ve described the area, but we believe that the future of

Kingsbury Water Park would be severely prejudiced if the present Phase One proposals

are allowed to proceed. Next slide, please. We have made this point in our response to

the Environmental Statement. This is an area with wildlife and RSPB reserves and a

huge resource for the local area.

311. Next slide, please. Perhaps we can skip a couple. I’ve just got a few overhead

pictures of Kingsbury Water Park. Yes, that’s fine. Yes, that’s looking north. That’s

the M42. The important thing here is that the M42, as you see on the left, is in a

cutting. Further, we’ve got a buffer. There’re some industrial buildings that you can

see immediately to the right of Kingsbury Water Park. It’s also naturalised and we’ve

got a tree barrier. So the M42, although it bisects the Water Park at the moment, is well

screened and it runs under Bodymoor Heath Road.

312. I’m going to talk about Phase Two. The reason I’m going to talk about Phase

58

Two is that what we do in Phase One affects what happens in Phase Two very, very

much. We’re designing a high speed rail line. What happens at point A has great

implications for point B, which might be several miles up the line. I have a drawing of

this further on, but to the right of those industrial buildings is the heart of Kingsbury

Water Park. It’s the visitor centre, the educational centre, the miniature railway runs to

the north of that, and we have the various lakes on the right and so on. The footpath

link to Kingsbury village itself is – you can see Kingsbury village in the distance.

313. The railway, as you will see in a moment, actually comes right the way through,

just to the left of that visitor centre. However, the important thing is, as it’s shown and

as the levels of Phase One imply, it’s not going to go as the M42 does in a cutting under

the Bodymoor Heath Lane, it’s actually going to go up, over Bodymoor Heath Lane in a

large bridge, and it’s going to be going through the Water Park on a viaduct and

embankments.

314. Next slide, please. This is just a plan of the Water Park and gives you an idea of

the activities there. Next slide, please. This is the Kingsbury railhead. It’s the spur line

here. I think the existing construction works are about 250 metres south of Kingsbury

Water Park. The Environmental Statement once again has been very tightly drawn and

does not take into account Kingsbury Water Park. There is something that I’ve been

supplied with in evidence called the information pack, which purports to be an

Environmental Statement for Kingsbury Water Park. If you look at it closely, it does

not extend as far as Kingsbury Water Park itself.

315. There’s the visitor centre, and there is a projection of the line in terms of Phase

Two. What you do here severely prejudices the mitigation for the Water Park. Indulge

me for a moment and imagine that you are the Select Committee for Phase Two of HS2,

and I’m coming in front of you and I say, ‘We want the line much lower under

Kingsbury Water Park, something like the level of the M42, so we can limit the amount

of damage which it’s doing’. You’ll say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Waddell, you’re about three

years too late. The levels have already been agreed for Phase One, the contractors are

on site, there’s nothing you can do, it is heavily constrained’. One can’t draw a neat

line between Phase One and Phase Two for the high speed rail project. We have made

the point time and time again that we want Kingsbury Water Park and the option to be

59

included within the Environmental Statement.

316. Next slide, please. Yes, just to say here you see by the visitor centre the overhead

line poles and the viaduct. The viaduct will be 8 m high. It’s 11 m high across the

Water Park in other places, and the overhead line poles on top of that gives you about

15 to 18 m height, above an area which is populated by, amongst others, not just

350,000 visitors, but all sorts of wildfowl of a particular type who are going to be

colliding with these overhead wires, we feel.

317. Okay, next slide please. The plea we’re making, I won’t labour the point, but we

are making decisions or about to make decisions which are going to severely prejudice

what we can do in Phase Two. It’s not a very good drawing, but this is actually the

Phase Two consultation drawing. It shows how recently the railhead was announced,

because the Phase Two consultation started in January 2013 and the only part of Phase

Two not shown in any detail was actually the railhead and the Y junction, ironically.

You see it following the M42 and going right through the heart of the Water Park.

318. Okay, next slide please. Okay, that’s just the levels. Let’s move on. You can

look at that but that’s an extract from the Phase Two consultation, which verifies the

levels I gave earlier.

319. I’m not a lawyer, but is the Environmental Statement legally compliant? The

directive says, ‘An outline of the main alternatives studied by the developer and an

indication of the main reasons for this choice, taking into account the environmental

effects’. Well, the alternatives for Kingsbury Water Park don’t seem to be being

considered.

320. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Not part of the scheme. It exists already.

321. MR WADDELL: The scheme will severely prejudice and limit what can be done

to mitigate the effects on a very, very valuable resource. Next slide. Coming to an end

and I’ll be really brief now. Okay, so those are our demands really. We would like an

immediate environmental assessment to be undertaken on the water park. That

assessment should include the relative impact of an option to route the railway through

60

the Water Park at a level roughly equivalent to that of the existing M42. That should be

consulted upon and the options considered in the light of those outcomes. That’s what

we would ask.

322. Next slide please. Okay –

323. CHAIR: We’ve heard quite a lot about the Kingsbury railhead.

324. MR WADDELL: Okay, can I –

325. CHAIR: Can we jump to 116?

326. MR WADDELL: Perhaps I can sum it up in a sentence or two.

327. CHAIR: Yes.

328. MR WADDELL: It’s been very late to the game. I know you’ve heard a lot

about it. We don’t think that the broader options have been properly explored. We

were given two options, which have been appraised in more or less the same location:

Hams Hall and the Kingsbury Road. It’s never been open to proper public scrutiny, and

it’s a huge industrial development, 24/7, which is going to go on for 20 years, as far as

we can see. Really there has been nothing like the opportunity to look at this in detail

and really judge whether this is, A, in the right and proper location and, B, has been

properly mitigated. If we can’t have that then we would certainly say let’s go for the

less damaging option. Alright, it’s a bit more costly, but everybody acknowledges that

it’s less environmentally damaging and it’s less damaging to the communities.

329. That’s virtually the end of my presentation. I would just briefly like to sum up, if

I may, with the final two slides. Our big ask is the horizontal alignments. We want the

vertical elements looked at, particularly around Langley Brook. We want the Church

Lane construction compound moved, but I think we’ve got that conceded. We must

improve that dangerous junction at Church Lane, 04091, and similarly the dangerous

bend at Crowberry Lane. We want better mitigation on the A49 over bridge. We want

to redesign that awful Bodymoor Heath Lane bridge. If we can get a better diversion of

61

footpath 217, that’s better.

330. The next slide: really importantly, we cannot emphasise too much our concerns

about traffic and traffic chaos in our area. We would like this to be looked at

thoroughly and properly. We would like highway and junction improvements to be

implemented prior to the start of construction. We would like a proper environmental

assessment done of the options and their impact on Kingsbury Water Park, and a proper

examination of the alternatives for Kingsbury railhead location. I appreciate your

patience, gentlemen. I think I’ve come to the end.

331. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould.

332. MR MOULD QC (DfT): A lot of the highway issues are matters of detail, which

clearly will be worked through with the local authorities and consulted with. Moving

the line: what I’d like to do on that is just ask Mr Smart briefly to come into the witness

chair, if I may, if that’s convenient to do that now?

333. Whilst he’s doing that, a sentence on each of these. Independent traffic

assessment, as you say, in fact you’ll find in the pack at P2165, in particular numbers 2

and 3, for the record, the assurances that we’ve given to the local highway authority,

Warwickshire County Council. They focus on the A446, which is the key pinch point

that their highway engineers have alighted on, which broadly corresponds to those

slides you were showing earlier. In relation to environmental assessment, alternatives

to the railhead are dealt with in the Environmental Statement, and an explanation is

given as to why the railhead at Kingsbury was selected. That’s set out in the document.

334. Mr Smart, now you’re there, can we just focus briefly, please, on the horizontal

alignment point. Can we put up, please, P2088? We’ve broken the route into two

sections. The bottom half of the page is the southerly stage and the upper part of the

page is the northern section. Is that right?

335. MR SMART: That’s right.

336. MR MOULD QC (DfT): You can see we’ve shown some but not all of the

62

alternative alignments that have been considered and appraised by the project. Just on

the key, if we can see, the black line is the Bill scheme, the centre line of the Bill

scheme. Do you see that?

337. MR SMART: Yes.

338. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Option B in the blue, that’s the alternative that has been

put forward by the petitioners and the others are variations on a theme, which have been

considered by the project, haven’t they?

339. MR SMART: That’s correct.

340. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can we just make clear, by way of context, public

consultation on a preferred route in February 2011, the petitioners put forward a

proposal to move the preferred route to the east as part of that consultation. Although

that wasn’t accepted in the January 2012 Command Paper the published route did shift

the alignment eastwards from Middleton by about 50 or 60 metres.

341. MR SMART: That’s correct, yes.

342. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That enabled some lowering in the line of the railway as

well, some improvement in vertical alignment.

343. MR SMART: Yes.

344. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The Leeds spur was first published for consultation in

May 2013, as part of the design refinement consultation, yes?

345. MR SMART: Yes.

346. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The location of the railhead was finally published in the

summer of last year, in advance of the Bill being introduced into Parliament.

347. MR SMART: Correct.

63

348. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The Environmental Statement, and the reference is

paragraph 26.28 in CFA20, sets out the reasons why option B, having been appraised at

the request of the local community, was not considered to be preferable to the Bill

scheme route to the east of Middleton. That’s right, isn’t it?

349. MR SMART: That’s right.

350. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Since that time, as has been said, it was a question – the

issue was a significantly increased cost with what was seen as little significant overall

environmental benefit. That summarises the position?

351. MR SMART: That summarises it.

352. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Since then, because the petitioners, no criticism,

weren’t satisfied with that explanation, they continued to press for that, to opt for option

B as their preferred solution to the alignment of the railway past their village. We

continued to do detailed work to consider the impacts of that alignment. That led us

ultimately, during the summer of this year, to consider the extent to which it might

create operational problems with regard to the operation of the Delta Junction to the

south.

353. MR SMART: That’s correct.

354. MR MOULD QC (DfT): If we then turn to, please, p2086, you can just explain to

the Committee, please, the operational issue that Ms Colquhoun kindly showed the

Committee explained, in the letter that was sent to the petitioners a few days ago, and

which was explained by the project’s engineer at a meeting that Mr Waddell attended in

the earlier part of December. What are we looking at on the screen?

355. MR SMART: This is the schematic of Delta Junction. Delta Junction, as the

Committee is probably aware, is absolutely vital to the operation of the railways. It’s

the main distribution point from going north and into Birmingham, and indeed for

Birmingham interchange to the south. This is a schematic, and what you can see on

64

there is the Leeds connection coming down, which is on the top, if the cursor can follow

me.

356. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can we just get the cursor to find Leeds spur?

357. MR SMART: On the top.

358. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Up. There we are, yes.

359. MR SMART: Up, always up to London. That’s the main Leeds to London route,

and also from Manchester we also have –

360. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Main line up.

361. MR SMART: – the main line up.

362. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

363. MR SMART: In this whole area, where you can see there are the main six lines,

is where we have our critical S&C to move operationally the frames into the various

positions that we need them to go to different destinations.

364. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: S&C?

365. MR SMART: Sorry, that is switches and crossings, points, and in this case –

366. MS COLQUHOUN: Sorry, I’m having difficulty hearing you. Say that again.

367. MR SMART: That is points. That is –

368. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Signals and crossings.

369. MR SMART: That is the ability to move a train from one line to another.

65

370. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can we just move? Can we go back up to the Leeds

spur, please? Leeds spur. Can we move down? Can we move rightwards, that is to say

southwards, and keep going until we get to the first of those points and crossings. Yes.

371. MR SMART: Yes. That’s where we would go across down into London. That’s

Leeds to London and there’re also points, switches and crossings in that area for the

Manchester trains to get into Birmingham interchange. You can see X on there, the X

factor. High speed turnouts, switches and crossings, they need to have a certain

geometry and they’re big beasts. We are at 260 km an hour in there, so these are 250,

230, 250, depending on actually physical geometry, long –

372. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Metres?

373. MR SMART: Metres. You also need, to maintain them, a run-off of about

another 100 m either way, otherwise you can’t maintain the line and level under

operation of the trains. So we have a certain length to fit these, I’ll call them turnouts,

in, and it needs to be flat and it needs to be not a curve. That is a critical point for us to

make the railway work, not just from an engineering point of view but operationally,

otherwise we won’t get trains crossing over at the right times to meet the timetable. If

we now move to –

374. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Just before you do, just go down to the bottom left hand

corner please.

375. MR SMART: Right, yes. That gives you the length that we would need, the

minimum distance that we would require to fit the turnouts and switches and crossings

in to that space, if we were to change the alignment to the option B. The suitable length

we require is the 918m, and we only have the 624 of the petitioners’ proposal.

Basically, we are constrained by the area that we can fit in the crossings.

376. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Okay.

377. MR SMART: If we move over to p2087, you can see on there the length that we

have. We can’t fit the turnouts into the arrangement of Delta Junction that would result

66

from the option B, call it, petitioners’ proposal. This is a very difficult area

operationally anyway. It is a difficult area to configure the railway crossings on, and

certainly we haven’t got any room to constrain it anymore. The Committee will be

aware of petitions from both Coleshill and Water Orton parish councils, in which they

asked us to look at this. We have squeezed this entire Delta Junction down within the

constraints of what we require and the existing infrastructure to the minimum here, and

we can’t do any more.

378. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’re 100m, roughly, short on the minimum, and

you’re 400m short on the desirable.

379. MR SMART: That has actually been done, sir, on the length to fit the S&C in.

To maintain it to the acceptable standard and to allow for run-off it would actually be

more, so the only way we’d be able to do that would be to put in much lower turnouts.

That would affect the whole operational effectiveness of this junction, and we wouldn’t

achieve the journey time speeds either.

380. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Just to go back to p2086, just in relation to the question

posed on the table, the minimum dimension, X, required for track turnout is 753,

suitable length of track in petitioners’ proposal 624, so that’s where the 100 m comes

from. I understand that the concern is that in order to go below the minimum you’re

beginning significantly to affect the operational efficiency of the railway.

381. MR SMART: Yes. That’s correct.

382. MS COLQUHOUN: May I ask a question?

383. CHAIR: Yes. Have you finished, Mr Mould?

384. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Not quite.

385. CHAIR: Okay.

386. MR MOULD QC (DfT): So that’s the point. Then we go onto 2088, please. No,

67

2089 and 2090. 2089 is the one. Faced with that, and with that constraint in mind, we

have gone as far as we can to accommodate the petitioners’ proposal to move the line

eastwards, and that’s what’s shown on these plans, isn’t it?

387. MR SMART: That’s correct.

388. MR MOULD QC (DfT): What we’ve done here is we’ve shown the key

constraints, environmental, property and others, that any line through this area has to

face up to, yes?

389. MR SMART: That’s right.

390. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m not going to read them out again because the

Committee’s heard about them, but they’re shown in the boxes shown on that plan.

Obviously the lower half of the page is the southern section and the northern upper

section. If you leave aside the operational constraint you’ve mentioned to the

Committee a moment ago, and you focus on this, what’s the position? Is there a clear

winner in relation to our proposal or our doing the best we can with the petitioners’

proposal alternative, or is it basically swings and roundabouts in terms of impact?

391. MR SMART: It is swings and roundabouts, because, I think, without going

through it all, you can see on this exhibit that we do push the railway closer to

properties at Drayton Lane, we go through more flood plain and also on the bottom half

of the screen you can see that we are affecting the scheduled ancient monument more

and there the Heritage are concerned about it setting. So it is definitely a swings and

roundabouts and though there might be benefits to Middleton there are disbenefits to

other parts of the community alongside the rail.

392. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Just to give one example, if you look at the top section

we’ve got a box, ‘Properties along Drayton Lane’, and I think I’m right in saying there

are maybe six or seven separate properties there. Moving the route close eastwards,

what effect are we expecting to have on that?

393. MR SMART: We’d have to look at the noise. There would be the visual effects,

68

which would all have to be looked at in the same way as we’ve had to balance it on

other parts of the route. There are benefits to Middleton, because it is slightly further

away. Of course those properties are actually quite close to the line, compared to where

Middleton are to our existing proposals, so the situation there would be obviously

significantly worse than Middleton are experiencing.

394. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Right, thank you very much.

395. CHAIR: Okay. Ms Colquhoun?

396. MS COLQUHOUN: Thank you. Mr Smart, forgive me, but you described the

constraints shown in your 2087 and 2086 as being critical and significant. Is that

correct?

397. MR SMART: That’s right.

398. MS COLQUHOUN: So can you give any explanation as to why those significant

and critical constraints were not highlighted until 5 December?

399. MR SMART: Yes. It’s quite easy to draw a line on a map and thread it through,

missing key things, but you have to get a railway alignment that works. Clearly we did

a lot of work to get the civil engineering alignment to work. That in itself isn’t an easy

thing, because there’s limitations on vertical and horizontal, and of course you’ve got to

set that in the context of existing infrastructure and the surrounding properties. So

when you have a civil engineering alignment that works, which is what we stated in the

September meeting, we still have, at that time, not had a chance to assess how we fit

the, if you like, railway part of the infrastructure on top of the civil engineering. In fact,

in terms of the operational characteristics of the railway and where trains, and where the

timetabled destination of trains goes, that still carries on.

400. The railway is a system; you can’t vary one bit without having an effect on a lot

of things. That includes the rolling stock and the timetable. At that time we were still

assessing how we would make the railway work, from an operational point of view, by

siting the turnouts within that railway and having the distances that we needed.

69

However, because of other significant issues with that, in terms of where the option B

would push the railway, in terms of both Coleshill Sewage Works and more significant

impact on Aston Villa amongst other things, we reported to the petitioners the state at

that time. That was it was not necessarily the best route from a cost perspective, but we

hadn’t, at that time, been able to assess the actual effects and whether we could

configure the S&C in the way we would need.

401. MS COLQUHOUN: I have to say I don’t understand that answer at all, given

your description of being critical. Why would you ignore something as critical as how

this junction is supposed to work?

402. MR SMART: We didn’t ignore it. You have to try and site the S&C, then run

train simulation modelling and then work out that you aren’t fouling trains in terms of

certain timetables. What I’m saying is it’s not a simple fact, and at the time we hadn’t

fully assessed that, but what we had assessed is what the alignment would do in terms

of the environmental and civil engineering impacts.

403. MS COLQUHOUN: I shall be making submissions on this point.

404. CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Right, I think final comments. Any further

questions?

405. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think Mr Smart’s finished, thank you. I’ve just got

one or two other things to mention, if I may, very briefly. First of all, can we bring up

LB01253? This is from the Environmental Statement. I just wanted to show the

Committee this photomontage from the Environmental Statement in relation to the

vertical alignment point, in particular the green tunnel. If you look at the key at the

bottom of the page, you’ll see that this is a summer photomontage, which is looking

broadly eastwards at the point at which the green tunnel is proposed.

406. If you look at the bottom part of the picture, you can make out the train in the

distance amongst the tree line, just on the horizon. That bears out the assessment in the

Environmental Statement that with the planting and the landscape mitigation that is

proposed, and the distance – this is from just beyond the eastern side of the village of

70

Middleton – that although you will be able to see the train, and obviously to that degree

it will be a new and no doubt unwelcome intrusion into the landscape, you can see the

order of impact that we are predicting in the Environmental Statement.

407. In relation to vertical alignment more generally, the letter which you have at

p2149, and in particular 2149 2 and 3, sets out in some detail the work we have been

able to do, which the petitioners have very kindly acknowledged. We don’t, at the

moment, think we can go significantly lower, because of the constraints of the flood

plain for Langley Brook and because that is an area of important ecological value, and

we have to make sure that we don’t impinge too far on the landscape. So that’s as far as

we think we can go, subject, of course, to detailed design work that will take effect in

any event.

408. In relation to the other matters, I simply draw your attention to the fact that we

have given a number of assurances to Warwickshire County Council and to North

Warwickshire Borough Council. The letters are in the pack and they deal specifically

with traffic problems. They also deal with the control of traffic on Bodymoor Heath

Lane, about which I think you heard something yesterday as well.

409. CHAIR: Okay. Ms Colquhoun?

410. MR WADDELL: Could I briefly come back?

411. CHAIR: Well, Ms Colquhoun is allowed to come back.

412. MS COLQUHOUN: Mr Waddell makes the point that – I can’t find the slide

immediately – the Environmental Statement itself recognises that the impact is highly

413. To summarise our position, you will not be surprised that I have not changed my

position on behalf of the Action Group following Mr Smart’s evidence that this is

something that’s highly critical as to the technical feasibility of the option that’s being

proposed. We have not seen these pictures until today. We were not told until 5

December that this scheme was not technically feasible, and that the thing that made it

unfeasible in engineering terms was something that was brought in following the public

71

consultation. This is not a fair position to leave the Action Group in, and as a

consequence we say that unless this mitigation can actually be achieved then this

process will be flawed.

414. You’ve heard from Mr Waddell. He has, as I say, lived and breathed this, and

he’s given a very thorough presentation about some of the many other issues and

questions that we have before this Committee, and I’d simply ask you to take them into

account and listen to Middleton. It’s suffered enough.

415. CHAIR: Okay. Thank you very much indeed. We’re now going to adjourn and

we will start again at two o’clock. Order, order. Thank you.