high speed rail committee - uk parliament...public session minutes of oral evidence taken before...

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Wednesday, 18 November 2015 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr David Crausby (Chair)

Mr Henry Bellingham

Sir Peter Bottomley

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Mr Mark Hendrick

_____________

IN ATTENDANCE

Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport

Mr Neil Cameron QC, representing the Ernest Cook Trust

WITNESSES

Mr John Henderson

Mr Brian Thompson

Mr Roger Waller

Mr Saeed Yasin Hosseini

Mrs Marion Clayton

Mrs Wendy Gray

Mr Timothy Lee

Mrs Catherine Harris

_____________

IN PUBLIC SESSION

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INDEX

Subject Page

John Henderson et al.

Introduction from Mr Mould 3

Submissions by Mr Henderson 4

Response from Mr Mould 10

Ronald Drackford


Submissions by Mr Thompson 17


John Henry, Victoria Walker, Vanessa Havard


Submissions by Mr Waller 23


Further Submissions by Mr Waller 29


Arezo Jounus


Submissions by Mr Hosseini 33


The Lionel Abel-Smith Trust


Submissions by Mrs Clayton and Mrs Gray 38


The Dunsmore Village Hall Association

Submissions by Mr Lee 50


Closing submissions by Mr Waller 59

Peter and Catherine Harris


Submissions by Mrs Harris 61


The Ernest Cook Trust

Statement from Mr Mould 71

Submissions by Mr Cameron 72

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(At 09.30)

1. CHAIR: Well good morning and welcome to the HS2 Committee today. We’re

going to begin with petitions 1233 and 581. We’ve reverted back to the practice of

asking HS2 to give us a brief introduction so that hopefully we can concentrate on the

relevant issues. So, Mr Mould, could you give us a short introduction?

John Henderson et al.

2. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you, we’ll put up a plan showing

Mr Henderson’s property which is Old Fox, Dunsmore, and you can see the property

marked in the usual way with the red dot, and the line as it runs to the south of

Wendover is shown on the right-hand side of the plan. If we then put up a plan showing

the location of Rose Cottage which is the King’s residence. There you are, it is a much

larger scale, but you see the village of Dunsmore and the property shown and the line.

If I then just put up P10525, this is a plan from a petitioner who you are hearing from

later but who also lives in Dunsmore, Ms Havard of Springfield. This is just to give you

a sense of the railway and its features. So if we move from south to north, we have the

railway coming from the Wendover viaduct through embankment – through the false

cuttings up to Rocky Lane, and then the railway crossing over the A413 and the existing

railway line on the Small Dean viaduct and then passing northwards through cutting and

then towards the Wendover green tunnel which, as you know, is the subject of further

changes under forthcoming AP5. If we go to the – you see there’s a cross-section

shown, 1A-1B on this plan – I’ll just show you that cross-section which is P10526? So

we have a representative property in Dunsmore – Springfield, Dunsmore – on the left

hand side of the image and you can see that the distance from that property to the line is

1,665 metres –

3. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which is a little over a mile in –

4. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, exactly. Then you can see that the lie of the land is

such that Dunsmore is in a rather elevated position and so – and the land descends as it

passes eastwards towards the line of HS2, and you can see that at this point the railway

is in cutting, which is the result of the earthworks that I showed you on the previous

plan. As you can see, provision of noise barriers on each side of the line at this point, as

it passes northwards approaching the A413 and the existing line, and Wendover.

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5. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Henderson?

6. MR HENDERSON: Good morning. As you know, I’m here as a petitioner and

also for my daughter and son in law, on their petition.

7. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And their name is…?

8. MR HENDERSON: Suzie and John King. In response to our petitions, we

received back in August I think, the promoter’s response document, about 130 pages.

Then on Friday I got a further 580-odd pages of exhibits to go through, and incidentally,

a list of witnesses including two professors, which is quite intimidating. Now, I spent a

lot of time reviewing all of this and preparing a very detailed rebuttal of a number of

points, plus some questions and answers but when I came to review it, it occupied far

too long, so I have hastily re-written it in summary form which I hope will help.

9. I’m going to start with property values.

10. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can you tell us what the issue is? If you can tell us

what the last part of your presentation is, rather that it coming as a surprise at the end!

11. MR HENDERSON: I don’t want to do that obviously. Okay, I’m going to touch

on property values; the AONB, in terms of the impact of HS2 on it, which I know

you’ve heard a lot about, but I’m concerned not from where I live but from the point of

view of the AONB itself; I want to touch on daughter and son in law, our grandchildren,

one of whom is defined as autistic, one of whom is possibly autistic.

12. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think on the AONB, I think it needs to be

something preferably new, and something directly linked to what the committee might

decide to do, but we can’t make major change.

13. MR HENDERSON: It is.

14. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you’re saying you don’t want the railway line to

go through the AONB, that’s not within our powers.

15. MR HENDERSON: I understand that.

16. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So be brief on the things we can’t do anything

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about.

17. MR HENDERSON: I will be brief, and I want to talk about the work camps and

the loading on the roads that go with that. I know you’ve heard a lot on that too but I

have a suggestion for you.

18. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: As they affect someone a mile away?

19. MR HENDERSON: As they affect our lives in trying to get to our town of

Wendover and school runs and so on, because the impact for us is going to be quite

dramatic, and I’ll tell you why in a moment.

20. But I’m going to start with property value because although we’re a mile away

from the railway line, in 2008 we had our house valued for the purposes of what’s

known as a lifetime mortgage. We didn’t proceed with that, but subsequently in 2013,

we made the decision to proceed. Now in 2008, we were given a valuation of £1.75

million; and I know there’s been a recession since then and property prices have been

coming back but in 2013 the best value we could get was £1.375 million, and we were

given a clear indication by the surveyors, the uncertainty of HS2 and its impact is such

that we can’t value your property higher than that. Now there’s no way we can prove

that; there’s no way that we can get that value back until the railway has been installed,

as I understand it, in 2027, at which point I will be 82. Now, that’s an impact that is not

just for me; it’s for everybody in the area. The current arrangements for compensation

do not cover anything like that; the Need to Sell conceivably would help but proving it

is always difficult.

21. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Have you applied under Need to Sell?

22. MR HENDERSON: No, not that; we’re not at that stage yet, but in the next two

or three years. My wife is diabetic, her health is not the greatest thing in the world –

23. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We do not need too much detail, but if you’ve

applied and been refused, we might be interested in hearing. If you’ve not applied,

move on please?

24. MR HENDERSON: I will certainly do that. Can I have slide A1620(2) please?

That is a summary showing five extracts from the promoter’s response document in

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which they refer to the commitment to protect the AONB. It all looks very good and

solid. I won’t read them out, you can see them yourselves; at different pages, I’ve given

you the page references where they appear. On the surface of it, as I say at the bottom,

it is a commitment to protect the AONB.

25. So, moving onto the next slide (3), actually what we get in our part of the AONB

is this. Two 500-metre viaducts, one 14 metres high, one 18 metres high. Over 1.5km

of embankment. And I’ve put up to 18 metres high – I’ve re-looked at that and it should

be 14 metres. On top of all of that, you’ve got the catenaries with the cables. You

know, the viaducts will only have a sound barrier of 1.4 metres. The trains are 4.5

metres. The amount of noise as you come off the sound-deadened embankments onto

the viaducts will be quite dramatic if you’re close to it. That’s an area of the AONB that

we use, our friends use, and our daughter and son in law use. I think it’s unacceptable; I

think the committee – I hope the committee is going to reconsider this need for these

viaducts. There is – it seems to me it should be unacceptable to damage a national

resource in this way, and posterity is going to wonder how we could be so short-sighted.

These two viaducts seem to be a sort of obsessions with HS2. They want to make their

mark on the landscape. I think it’s unfortunate.

26. Moving on, slide (15) please? My slides are out of order because I re-wrote the

presentation. That’s an HS1 picture. HS2 say, ‘Well the steels won’t be so high, they

won’t be so visible’. But they are visible and they are going to be visible for a large part

of the landscape, and they do nothing aesthetically, at all.

27. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A mile away?

28. MR HENDERSON: But it’s out landscape, it’s our local area.

29. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No I understand that, I was just helping answer a

question.

30. MR HENDERSON: Okay, on page 11 of the response document, HS2 refers to

the tranquillity of the AONB, and states the sole exception is the localised area between

Wendover Dean and Wendover. We’re talking about a distance of about 3.5km

depending upon where you decide to finish the green tunnel at Wendover. It also says at

paragraph 25, ‘This exception will not affect the tranquillity of the AONB as a whole’.

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I beg to differ. The sound corridor is going to be approximately 4km wide, and 3.5km

long. In support of that statement, can I have (4) please? This is a Freedom of

Information letter – I’m sorry the print’s so small, I hope it will come up better – but the

bit in red down there is confirmation for Mr Waller in Dunsmore that at 1.7km from the

track, he can expect to hear the trains at quiet times.

31. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It actually says, ‘The sound of the train may be

audible’.

32. MR HENDERSON: Yes. ‘May be audible’, I accept that. But I think it will be

having stood on the hilltops at night and listened. Now, at peak periods, 18 trains an

hour on Phase II, and I admit by the time that starts I’ll be about 135 years old, and it’s

academic interest to me. But we’re talking about bespoiling the AONB, and if you’ve

got 36 trains an hour, you’re looking at 22 minutes of noise spread across the value on

the footprint I’m talking about. I think the two slides which we don’t need to look at

covering the noise spread under LAeq is very moderate. LAmax is what we should be

talking about, and I actually think it’s a distortion of the facts that - HS2 should produce

noise impacts using LAmax across the valley, because that’s what matters to people.

It’s the peak sounds coming and going, the variations. I talked, I think, in my last

presentation some weeks ago about the impact about discharging a shotgun outside

somebody’s house at intervals. It may not affect LAeq much, but it certainly affects

LAmax.

33. So what I’m asking for, and I accept we’re not going to get a long tunnel under

any circumstances, but if HS2 was to re-route under the A413 and the Chiltern railway –

34. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: This is your page (8)?

35. MR HENDERSON: Yes, it is. Slide (8), that’s it. The advantages are dramatic.

It would put HS2 in cutting across the remaining part of the AONB. You wouldn’t need

to build the two viaducts. You have to realign where it exits the tunnel at South Heath,

marginally, to get the heights right, but since HS2 apparently has no problem with

1-in-40 gradients, I don’t see an issue in it. It just solves so many problems. It would

reduce visual impact, reduce noise, reduce construction impact for us because you won’t

be building these two viaducts. It solves the problem for St Mary’s Church and the

school at Wendover. It eases the traffic problems on London Road because of the

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reduced impact. So that’s my first major request.

36. Now, can I have slide (12) please? I know it’s not within the committee’s brief,

strictly, the commercial case –

37. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Please don’t take us through this –

38. MR HENDERSON: Well –

39. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s not within our power; it’s going beyond what

we can do and you shouldn’t be saying it; it’s inappropriate.

40. MR HENDERSON: Alright.

41. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Your point on page (9) is a fair one.

42. MR HENDERSON: I will come onto that in a moment. Before that, I want to

come to the community fund which HS2 refer to, and an attempted buy-off is perhaps

the kindest word for it, and £30 million seems a very small amount given the

devastation all the way up and down the line. But to be pragmatic for Dunsmore,

broadband, high speed broadband would be a solution and can we ask that the

community fund be modified to allow applications for broadband as an eligible project,

because at the moment as I read the terms of it, it doesn’t include that.

43. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So there are two questions, one is whether having

the railway can be an opportunity of getting broadband early to communities which

presently don’t have it?

44. MR HENDERSON: Yes.

45. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And subsidiary to that is can an application be made

for broadband be made under the community fund?

46. MR HENDERSON: Yes, please. I’m going to talk about the problems we have –

can I have slide (13), if it’s clear enough to see. You can see Dunsmore down there in

the middle and our route to Wendover is either – is that picking up – down Dunsmore

Lane to the A413 and up the A413 to the roundabout there. Of course, we’re going to

have the camps each side of the roundabout. If that road is congested and blocked, our

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other route is all the way around those scrubs, down past Coombe Hill and along the

Ellesborough Road, which is also funnily enough, an HS2 construction road. From

Dunsmore, Wendover is our town. Our surgery, our shops, our station, our restaurants,

petrol and so on. So it is important to us that that is available in one form or another.

The biggest way of making that available would be for HS2 to provide what I believe is

called an occupation bridge across the A413 between –

47. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can you put a finger where it might go?

48. MR HENDERSON: If we go to the camp picture – unfortunate choice of phrase –

where’s the camp layouts? They are CT05037 I think?

49. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Say it again?

50. MR HENDERSON: CT05037, is that the one, construction camp?

51. MR MOULD QC (DfT): If you go to P1055(4) it might be – you might be able to

see it.

52. MR HENDERSON: Yes, that’s it. So that’s the Grove Farm main construction

centre, where amongst other things, there’s going to be accommodation for up to 450

people. Now that camp feeds the Small Dean satellite launch camp viaduct, it also feeds

Rocky Lane. The amount of traffic going up and down between these is obviously

going to be considerable, plus materials coming in and out. What I’d like to ask for is

what I call an occupation bridge, between the Grove Farm main compound and the

Small Dean viaduct launch compound which would then give direct access to the trace

without all the traffic having to clog the roundabout at Wendover. Occupation bridges

are not expensive things; the army will put them up if you ask them nicely! And it

would take a lot of traffic off the road on a daily basis and make a huge difference to us

in Wendover.

53. Lastly – no, not lastly, second to last. Touch on our daughter’s specific concerns,

and that is traffic because our eldest granddaughter is autistic; she struggles with school,

and simply arriving late at school can cause complete meltdown with problems that

follow from that. We therefore very much would like to see confirmation from HS2

which we don’t have at the moment in my humble opinion, that ordinary runs – Suzie

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has to go from Dunsmore and Missenden, sometimes three, sometimes four times a day,

because with three daughters coming out of school at different times, it is multiple trips,

it is important that she’s there at school on time. At the moment with the trace going up

from the Missenden roundabout, the new road and all the stuff going up and down, it’s

going to become very unpredictable. I come back to this question of the occupation

bridge. It’s a difficult one, because we know we have to live with this. But it puts

major problems in our lives. The granddaughter is 12, as I say, she is just about coping

with school; it’s not going to take much to change that. That’s a personal issue.

54. Okay, in summary, please put this railway under the A413 and the Chiltern

railway, get rid of the viaducts. Please give us a construction bridge across the A413

between Grove Farm. Include high speed broadband funding in the eligible projects.

And lastly, I remain concerned that the construction is going to be more or less self-

regulating. I would really like to see an independent statutory body with the power to

fine and halt processes when they get out of hand. And I think that’s all I have to say on

this; I will leave you with a poem, which is (16). The only reason for putting it there is

that my granddaughter said that’s how she feels about it; it’s unsolicited, it’s not a great

poem but it makes the point from her point of view, how she sees things. The last line

says, ‘tunnel’. The poem says it all; the railway is of zero benefit to us in Bucks, as you

well know. Put it in a tunnel under the A413, it will make such a difference to all of us

in this part of the world, and I believe it’s technically feasible. Thank you very much.

55. CHAIR: Thank you Mr Henderson. Mr Mould?

56. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, thank you. I will try not to go over old ground that

you’ve heard already many times, but firstly traffic. The A413, we are predicting that in

that section immediately to the south of Wendover and north of Rocky Lane and the

dedicated haul road, the daily two-way flow of HGVs will increase from 600 without

the scheme, to 1,200 with the scheme, within an overall flow of 16,000 vehicles on that

road on a daily basis. So that gives you a sense of the degree of change. The overall

change is going to be measured in percentage points, but there will clearly be a doubling

of HGVs during the course of the main construction works there.

57. The context for that in relation to the local support for a tunnel is that constructing

a tunnel will not do away with HGVs on that road; there will need to construct an

11

intervention gap, broadly speaking in the same location as the Wendover viaduct which,

as you’ve been told, is a structure that is likely to be up to a kilometre in length, and

there will also be a large construction site between Wendover and Stoke Mandeville

which will need to be served by construction traffic, for which the main artery will be

the A413. So I’m afraid that as we’ve made clear repeatedly, that if the scheme were to

substitute a tunnel for the surface features that the petitioner has spoken to, that would

not remove the tunnel and it would not remove the visibility of the railway because in

place of the viaducts and the embankments, those who live in Dunsmore would be

looking down upon a kilometre long intervention gap. That is the context for that.

58. In terms of noise, can we put up P10527? This is in Ms Havard’s – I’m back to

Springfield in Dunsmore. This is just to show you the LOAEL contour extends as far as

the pale yellow to the western side of the railway shown on this plan. You can also see

that the study area here, the airborne sound study area here, the airborne sound study

area which is the line going across the page, is drawn out quite far from the railway.

That’s an example of the point we’ve made which is that the study area responds to

topography. As the land is rising to the west here, the study area was drawn out further

from the railway to reflect that topographical feature.

59. In terms of the proposal for an occupation bridge, in the light of the traffic

numbers that I have reminded you of and in the light of the arrangements in the Bill for

controlling traffic routing, and the preparation of traffic management plans under the

Code of Construction Practice, the project does not consider that the provision of an

occupation bridge is justified in this location. I don’t have a cost for it, because this is a

particular point that I think has been raised very lately by this petitioner, but from

previous evidence you will know that, unfortunately, the cost of structures of that kind is

not cheap. They come at, often, quite a considerable cost; and if we’re bridging over a

main – an existing road and taking a route onto the A413, I dare say that that would be a

much more challenging undertaking than has been suggested. Certainly we do not

accept that that is something that can be justified given the traffic numbers and the

arrangements for management of traffic that I have mentioned.

60. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is the traffic turning right across – oncoming traffic

on the A413?

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61. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Traffic is coming out of the Rocky Lane work site, out

of the dedicated haul road to the south, serving the tunnel – the northern portal of the

extended tunnel – and it is turning right, going to go north towards the road head at

Nash Lee Road. So there will be vehicles turning across southbound traffic at those

points. But of course the southbound traffic will have priority.

62. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And do you know if it’s light controlled?

63. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It’s not at the moment because Rocky Lane is a very

minor road, but one of the obvious interventions that one can anticipate being seriously

considered given the volume of traffic that is going to be coming into and out of Rocky

Lane and the haul road is that temporary signals might be considered for that point, and

that is something that would fall within the scope of the negotiations and controls that

the highway authority will be considering.

64. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So the promoters will have anticipated – this

committee will be interested in the discussions with the highway authority that neither

safety risks are increased nor that unnecessary congestion is caused.

65. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And those are at the forefront of our considerations and

they will be at the forefront of discussions with the highway authority, as is reflected in

the Code of Construction Practice which identifies those factors.

66. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The effect of what the petitioner’s trying to achieve

I think we can support; the particular method is not for us to judge. But the points have

been fairly made by the petitioner?

67. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, and clearly we’re all familiar with prolonged

construction works which affect the local highway network and we all know that the use

of temporary signals is a tried and trusted means of controlling those effects and I would

certainly have thought that reasonable people would accept that that kind of intervention

is a far more cost-effective way of approaching these matters than moving straight to

solutions such as putting in bridges and so forth, which have no permanent utility and

which, indeed, would be considered undesirably in any permanent sense because they

would be an additional man made feature in the natural environment. So this would

simply be a temporary expedient and therefore it enforces the point that one should be

13

looking to use less extreme measures and that is precisely what the Bill powers and the

Code of Construction Practice are designed to achieve.

68. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So it’s open to a petitioner to engage with county

councillors about the traffic arrangements because the County Council is going to be the

one who will be negotiating with the scheme?

69. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, indeed sir.

70. The question of the work site, I just want to correct a point. I think it was

suggested that the compound at Small Dean viaduct would provide accommodation for

up to 450 people.

71. MR HENDERSON: Grove Farm.

72. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Grove Farm, well that’s the same compound, it was the

main compound?

73. MR HENDERSON: It was the main compound.

74. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. In paragraph 2.3.20 of Community Forum Area

Report 10 in Volume 2 of the Environmental Statement, the figure given there is

accommodation for between 170-240 people for an estimated period of 45 months. So

that’s that petition.

75. So far as the community fund and broadband is concerned, the committee has

already heard that there is a provision in the Bill which enables broadband to be rolled

out as part of the project. We’ve given evidence I think already that that is of course a

matter which depends on commercial arrangements with providers and so far as

provision of broadband connections to Dunsmore under the community fund, that’s not

ruled out in the sense that the community fund doesn’t say – the information paper

doesn’t say, ‘This is a list of matters that are eligible for consideration for funding under

the community fund and nothing else’. But I think it would be wrong to say that that is

the kind of provision, broadband connections for a village, about a mile away is at the

forefront of what might be envisaged as being strong candidates for funding under that

initiative. If the community of Dunsmore wished to make a bid, then that bid would be

considered. I think it’s fair to say that – I also should remind the committee but more

14

particularly just to inform the petitioner that arrangements for the detailed handling of

the community fund as I’ve said are being formulated, a Chair is to be appointed, and

matters will become – formulated in more detail during the course of the next six

months.

76. MR CLIFTON-BROWN: As a question of information, are HS2 running a high

capacity fibre cable along the route to which communities can connect into if they get

the right funding?

77. MR MOULD QC (DfT): My understanding is that that is not part of the scheme.

What is provided for is the housing through which such a cable can be run. That’s my

understanding of the position? Yes, I’m getting nods. So whether that passive

provision is actively used is not a matter that has been resolved as we speak today.

78. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That might be an issue we want to take up on a

whole line basis. If you’re going to say to us, ‘It’s not really worthwhile to use the

conduit’, we can then ask questions. If they say, ‘They are engaged with the major

providers’, then that would also be interesting. It’s crazy to lose an opportunity if it’s

going to be sensible.

79. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The Bill provides the – makes passive provision or

provides the ducting. There are – I think you were told some time ago that commercial

consideration of how that might be taken up commercially is something that is either

happening or it is intended to happen during the course of the progress of the Bill. But,

obviously it has been put there for a purpose. If you would like me to see where we are

with that, I will take that point away and report back to you in an appropriate manner.

80. MR HENDRICK: Can I ask if the ducting is being used for signalling cables or

other purposes or would it be exclusively for fibre in the longer term?

81. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m told exclusively for fibre.

82. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think they don’t have line-side signalling.

83. MR HENDRICK: Well, in that case it to me would make sense to actually put the

cable in with the ducting rather than make it two separate jobs.

15

84. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I suspect what is happening here – and I say I suspect

because I will need just to check where we are – where the government is on this. My

understanding is that, as I say, the government is keen to tap into the commercial

opportunities in relation to the provision of the electronic hardware –

85. MR HENDRICK: I understand that, we discussed it before. But my

understanding of passive provision was that the spine of the broadband would go up the

line and then the commercial considerations were about tapping off to various villages

along the way where the wish to take advantage of that spine being there. From what

you’re saying now, it’s just the ducting that’s going in and not necessarily the fibre.

86. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Let me just see if anyone can help me on that. I am

going to go and just check the position on that.

87. MR HENDRICK: Yes, because passive provision to me – to my mind means

there’s a spine there that nobody’s necessarily tapped onto. Once you tap onto it, it can

become active.

88. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Okay, well let me come back to you on that. I don’t

think there’s anything else, unless there’s any other questions arising?

89. CHAIR: Mr Henderson?

90. MR HENDERSON: Yes a couple of points. The statement about the tunnel and

the intervention gap. I’m not asking for a tunnel, I’m asking for an underpass to extend

the green tunnel until you pass under the A413 and then you’re in cutting, climbing up

past Hartley Farm.

91. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s what we understood you were saying.

92. MR HENDERSON: Okay, because Mr Mould talked about an intervention gap;

it’s not an intervention gap because it’s only a very short piece of green tunnel and a

piece under the A413.

93. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think you heard earlier this week about the cost

implications of that.

94. MR HENDERSON: Well, you’ve got to save the cost of those two viaducts –

16

95. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think the system is that you reserve your remarks

until the end of what Mr Mould is saying –

96. MR HENDERSON: I thought he had finished, I’m sorry -

97. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I had, but I just wanted to correct the point –

98. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry –

99. MR MOULD QC (DfT): There was some magic bullet here –

100. MR HENDERSON: It’s not a magic bullet but if the railway is climbing out of a

cutting at the A413 junction where it crosses, it will be at ground level to the rest of our

section of the AONB or below ground level. It’s a significant difference in terms of

both visual intrusion because you’ve got no viaduct; and in terms of sound intrusion

because it will be in cutting for a lot of it. That’s my point.

101. The other point I want to come back on, Mr Mould talks about traffic lights for

safety at junction at Rocky Lane. The implication of delay for traffic if you were there

this morning as I was at seven o’clock, you’ll see the road is solid, moving at about

30mph towards London. Put a set of traffic lights there and the congestion will go for

many miles and it will last for many years. It’s just unacceptable when it can be

resolved and as I said earlier, the army would put an occupation bridge up for you and

take it down for you at the far end, I’m sure. They like that sort of thing.

102. I have no other points to make. I thank you all for listening.

103. CHAIR: Thank you for your evidence, Mr Henderson. You delivered it very

much to the point, and that is what we appreciate, so thank you very much. I’m going to

move on to petition 102, Ronald Drackford, represented by Brian Thompson.

Ronald Drackford

104. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Mr Drackford lives at 3 Witchell in Wendover and

you’ll see that property which is marked with the red dot is within the town and to the

east of the line which at this point is in green tunnel. We’ve also shown with the blue

dot the petitioner’s previous property which he sold I think about three years ago and he

then moved to his current premises, which is where he remains today. I think it’s

17

unnecessary for me to open at any length as to the details of the scheme through here,

because the committee has heard a great deal about that over the course of recent weeks.

So, there it is.

105. CHAIR: Mr Thompson?

106. MR THOMPSON: Thank you, good morning. My name is Brian Thompson, I’m

representing Ron Drackford who sends his apologies he can’t be here because he’s ill.

If I could have slide A1606(2) please? The scope of this presentation is purely related

to one issue, nothing to do with tunnels or anything like that. It’s relating to the fact that

Mr Drackford wanted to move because he was ill; he put his house on the market, he

didn’t succeed. He applied for the EHS scheme and was turned down and eventually he

sold at a vast discount. So he feels he’s owed compensation. It’s that story I want to

take you through to the question at the end which is, can he have some compensation

please?

107. He used to live at Dunsmore Edge which is on the London Road and Dunsmore

Lane. He suffers from COPD, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – it’s

basically a lung disease which is progressive, it slowly gets worse, and he has difficulty

walking and stairs are a real challenge. Because of that, in 2007 he decided to sell his

house on the London Road and move into Wendover to be nearer facilities to be able to

use a mobility scooter and actually still have a reasonable quality of life. At the start of

the process, he got two estimates from local estate agents, one for £725,000, one for

£685,000. He started marketing it seriously at £685,000.

108. If I could have the next slide please? On this slide on the left you see a timeline.

It’s split into two. On the left hand side is the wider economy events that were

impacting and on the right are the activities that Mr Drackford was doing to sell his

property. If you look at it, you might conclude that Ron is an unlucky fellow because he

put his house on the market just as the economy was tipping into recession. Just as the

economy was coming out and we had the green shoots of recovery, HS2 came along and

blighted his property. He applied for, in 2010, to the EHS scheme and got rejected in

December. He reapplied and got rejected in March. In April he substantially reduced

the price to £500,000 – or offers over £500,000, and eventually sold it in December.

109. Next slide please?

18

110. MR BELLINGHAM: Can you just go back one moment? Thank you.

111. MR THOMPSON: Okay, next slide please? I think you’ve already heard from

London Road as to what blight they suffer so I won’t go into that and bore you again. I

will just draw your attention to the statement at the bottom right hand corner of the slide

which came from the estate agent which was an interim marketing report and I’ll say,

‘Having spoken to many potential buyers over the months I notice a distinct reluctance

to buy or even view any property at any price range within sight or sound of the

proposed HS2 rail link’. So basically, what we’re saying is, his property was blighted

and he still wanted to move.

112. Next slide please? I will just repeat at the top the statement made by the Right

Honourable Phillip Hammond, because this is one of those things that sticks in people’s

minds, which is he said, ‘Where there is a project that is in the national interest that

imposes a significant financial loss on individuals, it is right and proper that they should

be compensated fairly for that loss’. So that kind of sets the scene.

113. I would say that the petitioner was failed by the exceptional hardship scheme.

Colloquially known as the exceptionally hard to get scheme, it caused some difficulty.

He applied twice, and he got turned down, one on a technicality which he could have

fixed by discounting the price and just stuck with it. The key one was criteria five

which was asking, ‘Why do you really need to move?’ There he was saying he needed

to move because of his illness and the fact his quality of life was deteriorating. They

came back and said, basically, ‘Well you can live on the ground floor so you don’t need

to move’. I mean, it assumes he’s got a gardener, a chauffeur and he doesn’t mind being

housebound. As you can see, if you look at the statistics, the acceptance rate for EHS

was only 29% which means the vast number of people who felt they had a good claim

were rejected.

114. If I could have the next slide please? At the start of this year, I wrote to HS2,

basically saying that the petitioner would be prepared to withdraw his petition if he got

satisfaction on this point. They came back and referred us to the case of Mr Norman

which was heard by the committee on 4 February 2015, where Mr Mould opposed that

they couldn’t pay compensation because they should not be underwriting the market

place. I don’t disagree with that but I think there’s ways of extracting what the market

19

movement is from what the blight movement is.

115. Equally, you have asked HS2 to re-examine the case for discretionary

compensation for homeowners who have sold their property. HS2 have come back in

their response to you to say that they don’t think they need to change anything; they will

look at it on an exceptional basis on a case-by-case basis. I would ask the question: how

many have they looked at as exceptional cases and what actually is the process for

getting them to look at those exceptional cases because it’s not clear to me.

116. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Make an application.

117. MR THOMPSON: To what?

118. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The Secretary of State.

119. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think Mr Mould, in his gentle way, is saying, the

way to start the process is to write to the Secretary of State saying, ‘Here are our

exceptional cases, reasons for being considered’, and then the Secretary of State will try

to work out a way of considering the exception. You can’t expect necessarily to have a

standard process for what are exceptional conditions.

120. MR THOMPSON: What I will say is the petitioner had already written to the

Secretary of State prior to February asking for a resolution and the Secretary of State

said he didn’t know what he could do. A copy of that letter is included in the evidence.

121. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Indeed. I think what Mr Mould is saying, even

more gently – or inferring that he has – if that exchange was before these remarks on

screen at the moment that in effect is a prompt to the petitioner to write again to the

Secretary of State whether directly or through his Member of Parliament, saying, ‘These

are the reasons why we think the exceptional circumstances have not been fully

considered and will you please have them considered?’ I think the committee will be

interested in how the Secretary of State responds. The difference between this case and

many others, as you say, there is evidence that the petitioner was trying to sell the home

for the reasons of health before the property crash and before HS2. So it’s not triggered

by the HS2 proposals, it does take account of the fact that property values dropped after

the first attempt to sell the home, and what you have put on his behalf to us is that

20

without taking the £685,000 – which may have been the asking price – in effect, that’s

been dropped down by 10%, which may be a reasonable sort of margin. And the

suggestion is that £130,000 might be the loss which the claim he can go and live in the

ground floor for quite a long time isn’t an appropriate decision to have been made and

whether there are exceptional reasons to say something might be done to try and put the

petitioner back in the part of the position they would’ve been in if they’d either been

able to wait until the Need to Sell scheme had come along, or the people invigilating the

exceptional hardship scheme had said, ‘It is no longer reasonable to expect someone to

live on the ground floor in a property where they aren’t using most of the property and

they aren’t using the garden and so on’.

122. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Might I just say – very kindly, and absolutely clear – I

think the Secretary of State might add that he would be very interested to know the price

that was paid for the property that the petitioner now lives in in Wendover, and an

understanding of whether that property was bought at a price was itself reduced as a

result of blight, and consider the prospects for that property appreciating in value in the

light of the greater certainty that will emerge over the next two or three months and

following, in the light of changes that are being made to the scheme so as to extend the

mitigation on that.

123. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I suggest that we’ve got nearly as far as we

might in front of the committee and there might be a corridor conversation where the

promoters can suggest the sorts of things which might be sensible to include in an

application, not to necessarily to help to get a particular result, but it would help to have

proper consideration of all the issues. I think Mr Mould has made a fair point about

properties in Wendover going up and down –

124. MR THOMPSON: I think that’s true, but equally isn’t it a red herring because he

could’ve well have moved to somewhere else off the line and he would still have the

same issue –

125. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That might come across as looking for a problem for

every solution. I think have the conversation is what I suggest; and we’ll be interested

in knowing what the conclusion is.

126. MR THOMPSON: Okay, fine. If I can just go on to my next slide, which I’ll

21

very quickly run through. This was attempting to show how you could isolate –

127. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We understand that. That again can go to the

Secretary of State. We aren’t going to make a decision on this, so that is I think part of

what can go into the Secretary of State.

128. MR THOMPSON: Okay.

129. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think you’ve done very well. It is not intended to

sound like criticism of other people: sometimes the people most closely affected by the

line put a case which is easier to grasp than some who are some way away.

130. CHAIR: Okay, Mr Thompson. Mr Mould?

131. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you, no, I was going to say to Mr Thompson that

we are certainly happy to speak to him outside.

132. CHAIR: Okay, thank you Mr Thompson.

133. MR BELLINGHAM: Can I find 1606(6) which, in the bundle under Ronald

Drackford, I got 1605 – I’m trying to find 1606 –

134. CHAIR: It’s on the other side of there.

135. MR BELLINGHAM: Got it.

136. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It’s the thermometer.

137. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.

138. CHAIR: That takes us to petition 77? Roger Waller, and we’re also going to take

that together with petition 615? Mr Mould?

Victoria Walker, John Henry and Vanessa Havard

139. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, we’ll put up P10528 please? Now, Mr and Mrs

Walker who live at Rocketer in Rocky Lane, Wendover. If we just go to P10529, you’ll

see that their property which is shown by the red line, the larger red line, and includes a

substantial dwelling house and also some other buildings and cottages which are shown

22

with the inset red, but this all forms part of their wider property holdings.

140. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’re down near Kings Ash?

141. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That’s right. You can see Chesham Lane is marked

there, running around the southern side of the property. The railway line is running to

the west; the project has included a small area of their land as shown with the green

hatching within the Bill limit’s that’s to enable road works to Rocky Lane itself, and I’ll

just show you P10531? You can see that the Bill limits are shown in shaded pink and

they do click into the western extremity of the petitioner’s property and you can see the

road works shown with the hard black line being pointed out to you now.

142. If you then turn to the next page, P1052 –

143. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Does that change the line of the road or is it linked

to the –

144. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m sorry, can you just go back to the – that is a change

to the road alignment. It’s to allow Rocky Lane to be taken across the railway line,

across HS2 as you can see. So that’s the extent of the proposed roadworks to

accommodate Rocky Lane.

145. Then if we turn to the next page, we get the final position following completion of

construction, and you can see that obviously by this time, the boundary will have been –

of the petitioner’s property – will have been slightly adjusted to allow the realigned

Rocky Lane to follow along its – just beyond the western edge of the boundary here.

The features of the railway and its operational state are those that I showed you when

we had Mr Henderson from Dunsmore but obviously this property is closer to the line

and is on the eastern side rather than the western side. But as you can see, we have the

railway in false cutting then it comes onto the Small Dean – the approach to the Small

Dean viaduct where it’s on embankment and there are noise barriers on either side of the

railway at this point. That I think is the position so far as introducing the petitioner is

concerned.

146. CHAIR: Mr Mould, we’re also dealing with petitioner 615 at the same time,

Vanessa Havard?

23

147. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot, of course you said that. If we

go back to page P10520, you’ll remember that this is the lady who lives in Springfield in

Dunsmore and that was the property that I showed you in order to – as a representative

property for the visual and aural impacts of the line on Dunsmore petitioners when we

heard from Mr Henderson earlier, so unless you’d like me to show you those slides

again, that hopefully is clear in your minds. Thank you.

148. CHAIR: Okay. Mr Waller?

149. MR WALLER: Yes, we submitted some slides on Friday to attach to this petition

but I gather they vanished into the ether despite having had a receipt for them?

150. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We’ve got them.

151. MR WALLER: Is it possible for me to have a copy of them?

152. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, one second –

153. MR WALLER: Lovely. Can we have the next slide please? As Mr Mould has

pointed out, this is the main house here, and these are the cottages associated with the

estate. Could I have the next slide please? This is the view of Rocketer main house

taken, curiously, from Ms Havard’s house. So you can see straight across the valley

here. And the road that you can see down here in the bottom left running up is Rocky

Lane, going up to Chesham Lane around here.

154. Could we have the next slide please? Thank you. This is the view from Rocketer

main house, looking across to Ms Havard’s house on the other side of the valley, which

you can see. As you can see from the location of Rocketer, the house and the estate will

be degraded severely because of the visual and noise impacts from HS2. Mr and Mrs

Walker have lived at Rocketer for 20 years, having purchased the estate from the

executors of the late Lady Barley. The estate consists of the main house, three cottages

and 100 acres of land, which is woodland and pasture. The main house is situated some

540 metres from the proposed line and the HS2 line at this point will be situation on an

embankment some 10 metres high with, presumably, additional earthworks for the false

cutting on top. Mr and Mrs Walker are both in their 70s. Mr Walker has had a knee

replacement and has breathing problems, requiring the use of an inhaler. Mrs Walker

24

has had a hip replacement. They have six children. Two are currently located in the far

east, two are due to move to America, one is probably next year moving to New

Zealand, leaving one remaining in Bath in the UK. In the light of this, Mr and Mrs

Walker had planned to sell the Rocketer estate and downsize; the house has become too

large and the upkeep too onerous with their increasing age. This house was bought with

a view to contributing to their retirement planning.

155. In 2010, after the HS2 announcement, they tried to sell. They had a lot of interest

in the main house, at over £3 million, but everyone withdrew when they heard about the

HS2 proposal. They feel now that they have been trapped for nearly six years because

of this project. In August 2013, the main house and land, minus the cottages was valued

by Knight Frank. The unblighted value was then £3.25 million. As the estate was

blighted by the HS2 proposal, they had a trial market of offers over £2 million. There

were no takers. In further discussions with Knight Frank, the house’s currently blighted

value is about £1.5 million maximum, and the agent contends that once construction

starts, it will be totally unsellable. This is a typical example of higher-end properties

suffering financially more severely than moderately valued houses, looking at the

figures involved.

156. Mr and Mrs Walker took the decision to sell the three cottages before they became

unsellable during construction. They were resigned to the fact that they would sell at a

blighted value, as they were rented, they were not covered by the Need to Sell scheme

or any other scheme. Two of the cottages have been sold and hopefully the third soon,

but at a big loss on their current, unblighted values.

157. Mr and Mrs Walker’s initial retirement plan was to sell Rocketer and buy a

smaller property in Wendover. This would’ve meant they would have easy access to

services, shops and health provisions. This, however, is no longer an option either

financially or with HS2 or the effects of the local environment, including HS2’s floated

draft AP provisions, the draft of which appears to have been widely circulated around

Wendover despite all of the petitions not having yet been heard. The AP5 suggests

sound barriers and Mr and Mrs Walker contend they are a severe additional

unacceptable degradation to the visual environment and they would now no longer

consider living in Wendover.

25

158. In addition to friends, shopping etc. in Wendover, they also used to go to Great

Missenden and Amersham. Rocky Lane and the A413 is the only route that they tend to

use. Under the original ES plan, the Rocky Lane junction with the A413 was seriously

compromised and as we’ve heard from Mr Mould, under AP4 the traffic situation for

Rocky Lane and the A413 has become even worse. Mr and Mrs Walker had hoped that

HS2 in refining their plans would’ve headed in the direction of improvement rather than

deterioration. The Rocky Lane-A413 junction, the A413 heading south, and the

congestion to be created by the proposed haul road with the Missenden link road

roundabout, aggravated no doubt by the increased need for road cleaning will inevitably

create a pinch point leading to severe congestion.

159. Mr and Mrs Walker love the Chiltern AONB and in particular the Misbourne

Valley and Wendover. It is where they chose to have their children grow up. They had

never planned to leave the area, as it’s home to the family. As I said, the intention was

to downsize to Wendover and release proceeds to support their children. This plan has

now been dashed by the proposed railway. They are faced with taking an enormous

financial loss in the value of their house and land, having already suffered a financial

loss on the cottages. Even if they were able to sell, it has seriously affected what house

they could actually then purchase. Mr and Mrs Walker have several friends who have

applied for the Need to Sell scheme and have been turned down. As a result they are

extremely cynical about this process.

160. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Have they applied?

161. MR WALLER: They haven’t applied yet. They are concerned that they may well

die before the operational phase, thus leaving their children with the additional stress of

an executor’s application for the Need to Sell or the responsibility of an unsellable

house that will be a burden for them to ensure its upkeep and security.

162. The Select Committee have already heard a presentation from Dr Phillippa

Morton regarding the social costs of isolation in the hilltop villages and in remote

locations such as Rocketer and you will well-remember her comments about reductions

in community nursing visits adding to the sense of isolation. In their assumptions, Mr

and Mrs Walker also appreciate there’s an even worse situation should one of them die

during the construction phase, leaving the other alone at Rocketer unable to sell and

26

isolated, effectively a prisoner of this scheme.

163. Mr and Mrs Walker ask for any form of tunnel throughout the AONB. They are

aware that you have heard of various proposals and various counter-arguments put

forward by HS2. They request from you any form of tunnel. Failing this, they want

HS2 to buy their house and land at its unblighted value so that they can get back to their

lives and stop worrying about HS2 the whole of the time. There is no doubt that their

health is now being affected and they see it only getting worse as they move towards

their 80s. They also request that the Need to Sell scheme be more readily accessible and

the Select Committee ensure that HS2 properly evaluate the true cost of this project to

the country to include health, tourism, business, property losses, landscape values and

assessed risks such as hydro-geology costs around Wendover. I conclude this with a

quote from Mr Walker, who said, ‘So, pretty hopeless all round. We have clear

evidence of causing this loss but so far no help from HS2 in helping us to get on with

our lives.’ Thank you.

164. CHAIR: Mr Mould?

165. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The focus of the presentation is, I think, on

compensation arrangements. The property is – there is some land take from this

property as I’ve pointed out. There have been attempts by the Walkers to deploy the

statutory blight regime; those attempts have been met with counter-notices. One of the

issues that arose in relation to the blight notice regime was deployed was that the land is

– at that time, was held in a series of freehold ownerships which complicated the

position. But the blight regime remains in principle a solution that is available to the

Walkers if it is deployed in a careful and effective way because part of their land is

presently required for the railway.

166. Then there is the Need to Sell policy which is the Secretary of State’s

discretionary arrangement to accommodate those who are blighted by the uncertain

prospect of the scheme who are unable to sell their properties other than at a blighted

value and who can demonstrate a compelling reason to sell their property which they are

unable to realise other than with the intervention of the Secretary of State.

167. Then there is a possible relevance of section 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act

1965. If the Walkers can demonstrate that the impact of the works on Rocky Lane are

27

such as directly to obstruct and to impede their access to their property in a way that is

distinct and more extreme than the impact of obstruction of that highway on the general

public using that highway. Then, looking forward, and perhaps of less immediate

relevance to them, a year after the coming into operation of the railway, Part 1 of the

Land Compensation Act provides a remedy for those whose property is – those

owner-occupiers of residential properties whose property is diminished in value as a

result of noise from the railway line.

168. I draw attention to those matters not because I wish to be taken to suggest that any

of them necessarily will provide a remedy here but they are all matters which if – let me

put it this way, if I was in the Walker’s position I would wish to seek comprehensive

legal and property advice from professional advisors in order to see what would be the

best strategy for me to pursue in order to secure a remedy to my needs. I don’t know

whether they have done that, but those are the statutory and discretionary arrangements

that are at least in principle worthy of consideration in order to address the concerns that

have been put forward on their behalf.

169. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: At the least, there’s the opportunity of the Need to

Sell application going in?

170. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes.

171. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Again, this may be an issue where a corridor

conversation would be helpful?

172. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, or simply a meeting or a letter, yes. I don’t know

if we heard anything about Ms Havard, but her position is essentially the same as that of

the petitioners that you heard from earlier.

173. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think, Mr Waller, that the issues have been aired.

It might make sense to have preliminary conversations in the corridor and then

secondly, ask for a meeting which might at least spell out in some detail what the

possibilities are. There isn’t necessarily a complete solution but there are possibly ways

forward.

174. MR WALLER: Also, I’m just wondering, as Mr Mould has suggested that

28

obviously the Walkers would need to take legal advice: this is above and beyond what

one would normally expect when one is selling one’s own house. One would have legal

advice in buying a new house and selling one’s own. But now, because of this railway,

they are being involved in additional costs to have to fight to sell their house. Do the

committee not think that is a little unfair, that because of this situation, because of this

scheme, they have to fund presumably vaguely comprehensive and expensive legal

advice in order to secure a right that the rest of us would normally take as a normal

business transaction?

175. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can I come in on that? Whether the Walkers choose to

take legal advice is entirely a matter for them. As, currently, things stand, the project

does require to acquire a portion of their land, albeit a small one as I’ve shown you on

the plans. It follows that in the event that the project is developed in accordance with

the powers that I have drawn to your attention, there will be a – there will in due course

be a statutory claim for land compensation. That claim would embrace two matters:

firstly, the market value of the land that is taken, and also consideration of the

diminution in value of the land that is retained that is the majority of the property by

virtue of the harm that results from the construction and the operation of the railway.

176. It will also embrace reasonable professional fees including legal advice and advice

from surveyors because that forms part of the heads of claim that is available under a

statutory compensation claim where land is taken wholly or in part compulsorily for

public works. The project has, as I know, taken a pragmatic view in the light of that fact

when it is negotiating with people who have land which is proposed to be taken for the

purposes of the railway and they take a pragmatic view in this way: that the project

listens receptively to suggestions that some contribution should be made to the cost of

professional fees. Each of those cases is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but that is –

I make those points to indicate that meeting on compensation that Sir Peter has

suggested that the petitioners may wish to have, can sensibly include consideration of

whether the project is willing to make a contribution now to costs that it will, if things

continue as per the Bill have to make in due course when the land is required and the

statutory compensation claim is formulated.

177. In a nutshell: it is often more cost-effective to do things early so as to save further

costs later, and that is something that the project has in mind.

29

178. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If I can give my view on it, it may be helpful. First

of all, there’s the opportunity of a Need to Sell application. The alternative is to say that

because the petitioner is in a situation where some of their land is affected, they do have

the opportunity of discussing whether they can get up to 90% of at least the agreed

diminution of value which otherwise they might have to have waited for until a year

after the project was started. I think having a discussion makes sense. If they go for the

second option, reasonable legal and surveyor fees to be paid.

179. MR WALLER: Could I, I’ve just been reminded, to show the situation’s actually

slightly worse than we thought. They had actually had a buyer for Rocketer at the

£3 million figure. Two days before they were due to exchange on that detail, HS2 was

announced. So that buyer, quite rightly, walked away, hence leading them to be in this

trap, but we will take on board what Mr Mould and Sir Peter have suggested and act on

that. Thank you.

180. CHAIR: Okay. So does that deal as well with Vanessa Havard. Are there

similar…?

181. MR WALLER: I will deal with that now. This is quite brief. Ms Havard has

asked me to present her petition as she’s unwell. You’ve heard from her husband back

in September I think it was, petition 613. Ms Havard had written a personal statement

as to the circumstances. However, she has become more depressed about this entire

situation, as it involves her family. She gave me a handwritten copy of her personal

statement, and then asked me to remove all personal data from it. So it is a little short; it

is a little disjointed. But I think you will get the feeling of what she’s wanting to say.

She is concerned that because of this open public forum, discussing details of her family

problems is not ideal.

182. Ms Havard says, ‘You heard a petition from my husband in September and he

reported how adversely our property would be affected by the proposed HS2 as we have

far-reaching views across the valley to where the route will run immediately on our

eye-line along with two satellite compounds.’ Mr Mould has shown you on the slide

and the house in fact – because of the view, was designed to run parallel with the A413

so they could get maximum view down the valley, which for years has been brilliant,

but with this current scheme, not such a great idea.

30

183. ‘I concur with all that he said, but will not repeat verbatim as you have heard

many times how much the inhabitants of Dunsmore value their tranquil way of life with

beautiful surroundings and have been suffering from property blight. What I do wish to

emphasise to the committee is the adverse effect this planning process has had on my

family life with the threat of more serious implications to come during the construction

period. Not only has the value of our home been seriously reduced, we have had to

contend with the likelihood that it will be virtually unsellable during the construction

period. My husband and I are very mindful of our financial obligation to provide for

their two daughters’, and this was raised in Mr Havard’s petition 613, ‘… and make

every provision for their future. At our ages and with the length of time our property

will be blighted for HS2 this is an area of great concern.’

184. When Mr Havard appeared, it was suggested that they apply for the Need to Sell

and they didn’t get in contact with HS2 and Ms Havard then says, ‘Representatives from

HS2 visited my husband and me at home following his petition. We were pleasantly

surprised and welcomed this opportunity to chat through our concerns and we had an

amiable and constructive discussion. We’ve also received printed information

subsequently for which we have been grateful. One of the topics raised during our

meeting was the impact HS2 will have on emergency services. We were told that the

South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust had not petitioned and so the

assumption we made – and from which we were not discouraged – was that the South

Central Ambulance service do not feel their service will be seriously disrupted despite

the inevitable congestion, road closures and increased numbers of workers in the area.

How disappointed, therefore, were we to learn from Mr Bob Duggan who is the lead

governor of the South Central Ambulance Service that it was not a case of the

ambulance trust deciding not to petition at all, but that as an indirectly government

funded organisation they were precluded from doing so. Frankly, I think it is a sad day

for us all, when reasonable concerned people are somewhat misled by HS2. This may

seem an insignificant point to you but when one has responsibility for someone’s health,

it is not insignificant in the least. This type of behaviour added to Mr Duggan’s concern

that the ambulance service have said they will be managing the route disruption and

transport difficulties all within their normal budget only adds to the stress we are

suffering due to this project. I can only hope that HS2 Limited assurances regarding the

possibility of power cuts that were mentioned to her husband during construction, can

31

also be believed.’

185. One of her daughters has serious respiratory problems, in addition to other issues,

and she believes that the clear air that they enjoy currently in Dunsmore has helped in

this respect and they have concerns over the dust pollution they would experience

during construction. ‘HS2 have said this won’t amount to any more than we experience

when farmers are ploughing and harvesting the fields surrounding us, but of course

these activities don’t go on, day in, day out for years.’ Also, she would like to add that

the fields around their house are actually pastures and not for crops.

186. Ms Havard has, with her daughter, ‘…a significant number of hospital

appointments in Oxford, Harefield in London. All of these things will be made more

difficult by increased congestion on the local roads. I am far from unique. Many carers

in the affected areas along the route will have these additional pressures added to their

daily routines, and sometimes it is not always safe or easy to leave the person you care

for while you slip out to collect essential supplies, especially if that journey time is

about to be increased. You referred my husband to the Need to Sell scheme, which we

will probably have little choice but to pursue. However, this is not the magical cure to

all our worries and will in the short-term add to them, especially as we go through the

stressful process of trying to sell our home, then obtaining sufficient documentary

evidence to be able to make an application with no guarantees of success, and if we are

not successful, coming to terms with the reality of living with this HS2 nightmare.’ All

this will exacerbate her husband’s severe eczema, which can make his life virtually

intolerable, upset both her daughters who are not always best placed to cope with any

form of instability, and she will be the one left holding everything together.

187. ‘In conclusion, the prospect of a long tunnel through the Chilterns would lessen

the overall effect on HS2, my family and enable us to continue to live in the home we

not only love, but which has been specially adapted for our needs. We could then stay

here for as long as we need.’ She also raises the point about the Need to Sell does not

cover the cost of moving and she also wonders about the cost of adapting another home.

So perhaps you could help Ms Havard with that as well, please? Thank you.

188. CHAIR: Thank you Mr Waller. Mr Mould?

189. MR MOULD QC (DfT): On the evidence that we have produced to the

32

committee which has not been gainsaid through any contrary evidence rather than

through expressions of fear and concern, there is no good reason to expect that the

adverse environmental effects that are the predicate for the statement that has just been

read out will actually occur through the construction of this railway. As I have

indicated, if one was to substitute a tunnel scheme for the proposed Bill scheme through

here, that tunnel scheme would involve construction impacts and would have a

permanent visual effect through the presence of the interventional gap, immediately to

the east of this lady’s property. So, whilst I do not seek to quarrel with the fact that she

has these concerns, I hope that she and others will hear the evidence given on behalf of

the project by Mr Smart, by Mr Miller and repeated by myself and Mr Strachan and

others in response to petitioners; and will take some reassurance from the fact that it is

evidence-based, and that nobody has come forward to say that evidence base is

significantly wrong or underestimates the construction effects of the railway. It really is

important that people begin to accept – albeit with caution, I understand that – but begin

to accept that we have sought through our own careful assessments and predictions to

give as accurate a picture as we can of what the construction implications of this railway

are going to be.

190. The point about the emergency services, two points on that. First of all, as we’ve

made clear in response to a number of petitions, under the Code of Construction Practice

and more generally, we are required to collaborate closely with the emergency services

to ensure that our construction works do not give rise to unacceptable delays and

compromise the emergency services fulfilling their functions in the area through which

the construction of the railway will take place. As to the notion that emergency services

have somehow felt constrained against voicing concerns that they have through

petitioners, I would only draw attention to the fact that there was a petition on behalf of

the fire service in Birmingham which, as I recall, was ultimately compromised without

them appearing before the committee, though if I’ve got that wrong, I’ll be corrected.

So that bears witness to the fact that where the emergency services have felt sufficiently

concerned to raise matters in petitions, they have done so.

191. CHAIR: Mr Waller?

192. MR WALLER: No, I think just really to emphasise that one of the underlying –

apart from this emergency service – that once again, is the traffic; that Dunsmore Lane,

33

if Ms Havard has to go left, she has to turn across the northbound traffic and if she’s

coming back from the other way, she also has to turn across what HS2 have admitted is

an increased traffic flow, thereby increasing the risks. Thank you.

193. CHAIR: Thank you for your evidence. I’m going to go now to petition 465,

Arezo Jounus? Mr Mould?

Arezo Jounus

194. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, Mr Jounus is the owner of a small plot of open

land just off the London Road, the location is shown on the plan in front of you. If we

go to P10515, you can see this in a larger scale? You can see the plot shown in red

outline and hatching. It’s just – part of it just falls within the Bill limits, you can see the

London Road to the west and the line of the railway to the east of the plot. If we go to

P10519 – I’m so sorry, P10518? You can see that the land is required in part for the

creation of a balancing pond and so the petitioner will, following notice to treat, notice

of entry upon him, he will become entitled to claim land compensation for the open

market value of the part that is taken and any diminution in value of the part that

remains.

195. CHAIR: Mr Jounus?

196. MR HOSSEINI: Yes, good morning. Unfortunately Ms Jounus couldn’t be here

today so she sends her sincere apologies. Basically she just sends a short statement.

She purchased this land some time in 2005 with an intention of building a family house.

There is an application form submitted in July 2015, and she is still waiting to hear back

from them. So the completion of registration was made in October 2012. Now, having

HS2 will have -

197. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Forgive me for interrupting. Not that it is

necessarily relevant to us, is there a reason for the years between 2005 and 2012?

198. MR HOSSEINI: Yes, because she was actually – she bought on instalment, so the

registration wasn’t made until she actually made. So basically, yes, basically the

intention was to build a family house and move there. So it took them a while to work

towards the plan that she had, but unfortunately now she’s actually forced to actually

34

sell this land and move on because the area will not be suitable for her, for the place that

she wanted.

199. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And when she bought the land was it likely that

there would be permission given to build a home there?

200. MR HOSSEINI: There is planning submission submitted and we are waiting to

hear back from them.

201. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So when she bought it in 2005, was there a prospect

that the council would approve the building of the home there?

202. MR HOSSEINI: Not entirely sure; I don’t – they haven’t had such a letter from

the council but they will be given that. But the intention was certainly to actually buy

the land and obviously build a family house. So, basically, they haven’t – I’m just going

to read through the short statement that she’s sent, and she has said a few points before.

I’m not sure if that is in these documents.

203. But she has said, ‘I, Arezo Jounus, would like to add four main points to my

petition. I bought this plot of land in order to apply for planning permission and build a

family house. The plan of HS2 will deprive me of my plans and possibly force me to

sell my land to them, and the only compensation I might receive is the fair market value

of the land which is not a fair reflection of my losses. I suffer as a result of HS2 plans.

I have attached for your consideration the pre-planning application that we made with

the council to build my family house.’ This is on A161(2) on the screen please? Yes,

so that’s that. Then, yes, basically she’s just requesting to – ‘I would like to request for

fair amount of compensation reflecting the real losses that I will suffer as a result of

these plans’. She would have – once the planning permission had been granted, she

would have gone ahead with the planning permission to build a house, starting in 2016,

but obviously she’s still waiting to hear back from the council that she hasn’t heard

anything back yet from them. So, yes.

204. CHAIR: Okay?

205. MR HOSSEINI: That’s it, yes.

206. CHAIR: Mr Mould?

35

207. MR MOULD QC (DfT): This letter doesn’t actually record the making of a

planning application but it’s a letter which responds to a request for pre-application

advice. So it’s not clear that the petitioner has actually made an application for planning

permission.

208. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What’s reasonably clear is that the planning

application has not been accepted because it – the land hasn’t yet got planning

permission.

209. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The land hasn’t got planning permission. It doesn’t

prevent the petitioner pursuing an application for planning permission. The land falls

partly within safeguarding, so on receipt of that application the council would be

required to refer the matter to the promotor, under the safeguarding arrangements.

Whether that would result in any objection to the grant of planning permission would be

a matter for those who are charged with that question. In the event that, as a result of

the scheme, the petitioner is unable to realise, either the hope or actually of residential

development here, or is unable to develop the land in accordance with the planning

permission granted for residential development. Her land compensation, following

compulsory acquisition of the land would be measured on the basis of the hope of

residential development. In other words, it would be the potential for the land for

residential development in those circumstances that would be the principal basis for her

compensation.

210. In the event that, as a result of this initiative, she is told that the land, whether or

not HS2 were to come forward, but the land is not suitable for residential development;

then plainly her compensation in the event that the land is taken for HS2, is more likely

to be measured on the basis that its existing value as open land. But those are matters

that will take their course under the general law, either the Town and Country Planning

Act, and in the event that the land is taken for the scheme, as it’s currently proposed

under the terms of the statutory arrangements for land compensation.

211. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I think aloud, Chairman, please? We don’t

know whether or not when she bought the land it had a hope value element in the price,

none of us here know that.

212. MR MOULD: No.

36

213. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Somebody may know, but we don’t, whether or not

it could be anticipated, from 2005, whether a planning application could be successful

under reasonable conditions. We do know that if she applies now that the council has to

consult with HS2, who can clearly say ‘you can’t grant this because our scheme is

incompatible with having a house there.’ What we don’t know is whether the promotors

can say to the council, ‘Please don’t say yes because it will cost us more in

compensation, even though we accept a house could be built’?

214. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, they can’t do that.

215. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: They can’t do that?

216. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, that would be unlawful.

217. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay well that’s helpful. It seems to me that if the

petitioner and the council can establish whether or not a sensible application could have

been approved, it might then leave the petitioner with two choices, one is to make the

application and see how it goes with the council. The second is potentially to get

together with the promotors and if they decide that planning permission is likely to be

given, in ordinary circumstances, whether you have to go through all the steps. Or

whether it’s possible to come to a conclusion with the promotors as to whether, in effect,

the hope value, or the likely expectation raising the value of the land, because an

application would be acceptable, can resolve things. So, there are ways forward, but I

suspect it starts with the council are willing to say whether or not they would grant

permission and then the council and the petitioner can discuss things.

218. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Let me see if I can add a little further to that. Assume

that an application for planning permission is made for a new dwelling, and assume that

the council’s position that, but for HS2, they would grant permission for that dwelling.

As you’ve seen from the plan, the physical thing that is proposed under the HS2 Bill,

that would prejudice the grant of planning permission for that dwelling, would be the

presence of a balancing pond.

219. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: On part of the land?

220. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Indeed, sir. The question, it would then be relevant for

37

the promotors of HS2 to ask themselves the question whether there was a way of

altering the detail of that provision so as to enable the planning permission to be

granted, for a house to be built, and the flood management needs of the railway

nevertheless to be accommodated. And that would be a question that would be relevant

and sensible to ask. Because if it were possible to do that, and allow this lady to build

her house, and yet the railway had to be properly controlled as to flood then, on the face

of it, everybody wins.

221. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Then the new subsidiary issue, in time, which is

whether a Part 1 application can be made when the road has been built, as to the effect

on a house that wasn’t there when the proposal came forward.

222. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And whose value therefore would reflect those factors,

yes. But that may be less of a concern.

223. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think it’s complicated, there’s a way forward, but

the uncertainties are beyond us.

224. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The first thing to do, if – it’s not for me to give advice to

people, and I seem to find myself always doing it, but the first thing to do, if one follows

your logic, is to make an application for planning permission.

225. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think you put the case well for her.

226. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Jounus. That takes us to Petition 1089, The Lionel

Abel-Smith Trust, Mr Mould?

The Lionel Abel-Smith Trust

227. MR MOULD QC (DfT): First is the owner of commercial properties in the town

of Wendover; we’ve shown those on the screen in front of you. If we go to page 10596,

you will see the matter is at a little more local scale. And you can see that the properties

are shown here, they are on either side of Pound Street. You then, if you move to the

west, you have the A413 and the existing railway line, and then, beyond that, the

construction of the cut and cover tunnel to accommodate HS2 as it passes to the west of

the town of Wendover and obviously following completion of the construction the

railway running in tunnel through that, along that alignment which is on the screen in

38

front of you.

228. CHAIR: Over to you.

229. MRS CLAYTON: Thank you. My name is Marion Clayton; I am the chairman of

the Lionel Abel-Smith Trust.

230. MRS GRAY: I am Wendy Gray; I am one of the Trustees.

231. MRS CLAYTON: If we may, I would like to start with the first minute and 20

seconds of a short video that we’ve submitted.

232. CHAIR: Okay.

233. MR BELLINGHAM: Will we recognise him?

234. MRS CLAYTON: You may well recognise the charming gentleman who appeared

yesterday. Can we stop it there please? We will be coming to that a little later. So, if I

may just give you a very brief background and I will try not to repeat what Mr Mogford

has said. If we could move on to slide one. The Lionel Abel-Smith Trust, I have to

correct Mr Mogford there, there are actually 13 residential properties, and three retail

properties. The rental income, when all of the properties are fully occupied, is around

£175,000 a year, and that rental income is used to maintain these properties and also, as

Mr Mogford mentioned, to award grants within the parish of Wendover.

235. The next slide please. Sorry, can we move onto the next one again, number three;

we just wanted to give you a very brief example of the sort of help that we’ve been able

to offer over the last 38 years. Going clockwise from top left, this is a luncheon club for

elderly people. Wendover Music, who you also heard from yesterday, the church in

Wendover, the church building, which was refurbished to give community use. You

also heard from the church yesterday, bottom right hand corner is our village hall, our

memorial hall; we make contributions to school libraries, to enable the purchase of

books and materials, and the swimming pool, which is now run as a community venture

rather than by the school.

236. If we could move to the next slide please, we also offer a considerable amount of

help for those with disabilities, both children and adults in terms of specialist equipment

39

and facilities, medical treatment not available in this country. We encourage young

talent in music, in sport, in drama and we encourage initiative in young people, through

expeditions to helping disadvantaged countries, and enormous help to families in

considerable need. Wendover may appear to be a very wealthy area, but there are

families in considerable need in pockets in Wendover.

237. The next slide please. The funds come, as I said, from the residential and retail

properties. But I would just point out the comment at the bottom of this slide; they are

all Grade II 17th or 15th Century cottages. And as Trustees of the Lionel Abel-Smith

Trust, we have a responsibility, both to the community, but also to the Charities

Commission, to maintain these properties in good order and to secure the income from

them.

238. MRS GRAY: Just to quote HS2’s sustainability policy on environmental change,

‘It is to seek to avoid significant adverse effects on communities, business and the

natural historic and built environment’. We have some photographs and a map here that

show the properties in Pound Street, which is just at the very top of the High Street in

Wendover. If you look to the very bottom left hand corner of this map, you can just see

the HS2 line there, thank you for pointing to it.

239. MRS CLAYTON: Can I just point out, when you made your visit to Wendover,

in the summer; you actually walked from the station, down Pound Street, into the centre

of the village, so you walked past these cottages.

240. MRS GRAY: Under the majority of the surveys that have been done by HS2

Limited, regarding noise, vibration etc. Pound Street lies just outside the limits.

However, we believe that these properties are highly significant to the community of

Wendover, and of course, as listed properties they are important as natural national

heritage, so we think it’s very important that we protect them. Could we move forward

to then next slide please?

241. We are concerned that these listed properties remain at risk whatever the

construction and traffic routes may have been proposed as. We still consider that there

may be exceptional circumstances when traffic is routed down these roads. And

because there will be displacement of traffic from other routes, we consider that there

may be a considerable increase in the traffic that runs directly outside the doors of these

40

properties.

242. As you can see from these photographs, as listed buildings, their walls are made –

they are not always made of the same type of material. Some are brick, some are stone,

and different types of plaster, different types of construction materials that were made

many years ago, using local materials. And they can move, to a degree, dependent on

the ambient moisture. And that sometimes can help cracks from appearing and so on

and so forth. But we are very concerned that as fragile buildings, they could be affected

by traffic movements, by vibrations, along Pound Street.

243. MR HENDRICK: Are the properties maintained?

244. MRS GRAY: They are properly maintained; these photographs are taken because

this particular property would not have been able to go into for a period of time because

of obviously we had tenancies, some tenancies last a long time. This particular

property, in gaining listed building consent to do alterations and work on them,

sometimes that can take a long time. Unfortunately, in this instance, it took – I won’t go

into how long it took, but this is something that we would require – we will come onto

that in the mitigation points. But it takes a long time to get listed building consent to

make sure that you can go in and you can maintain these properties. We are currently in

this property, which is why we’ve been able to take these photographs recently, to show

this particular wall. Other properties in Pound Street we have been able to go into and

maintain that they are kept up in a high standard of maintenance.

245. MR HENDRICK: Obviously it’s going to be a long time until the line would be

built, and the railway be put in use, but there is the point is that obviously, if they are not

well maintained, then they will be that much more vulnerable to the sort of impacts that

you’re talking about.

246. MRS GRAY: Yes, maintenance is highly important to us and that is why part of

the income from the properties obviously has to go into maintenance of the properties,

quite a considerable sum. This actually is one, very small cottage, which has, over a

number of years, I would suggest long before the Trust was involved in its ownership. I

think that it’s fair to say that repairs have been bodged. A lot of people have had a

quick go at trying to put things right, and what they are now doing is taking down all

that inferior repair, and we are making a really thorough job to make sure it is up to

41

scratch.

247. MRS CLAYTON: There is some very significant work going on here in terms of

strengthening the building and making sure that hopefully, it will last another 400 years.

248. MRS GRAY: But the concern, however, is that these buildings, in those days,

nothing was built on foundations and therefore obviously there is an effect on walls,

there’s been research into vibrations that suggest that there isn’t always a huge effect on

properties. However, the road surface, the evenness of the road service, the evenness of

things like manhole covers can make a significant difference if there was heavy traffic

going over it. But our concern is with – I think we’ve done enough on the properties, if

we move onto the next slide.

249. Within those properties, we have tenants, and we have a duty of care to those

tenants. Obviously, they are concerned about all of the dust and dirt that we’ve heard

about sometimes; concerned about the potential changes in traffic because of the use of

the A413 by construction traffic, that there will be more traffic through Wendover. And

that if there were, as there often unfortunately are, closures of the A413 due to

accidents, there can be re-routing of traffic through Wendover. And unfortunately, it is

highly likely that that could happen more regularly if the road is being used by large

traffic vehicles.

250. If the tenants require relocation due to repair work, we are concerned that the

Trust will be losing income. And we are concerned that, at the moment, on the various

agreements that are put in place by HS2, they have agreed to relocate tenants, people

who live in properties, but there doesn’t appear to be a great deal of information on

reimbursement of costs to the owners of the properties. I think I am skipping ahead of

myself here, I do apologise gentlemen.

251. But all of this will significantly affect the Trust’s income and that is what our

concern is here, is that the effect on the buildings, and on the occupants of the buildings,

is going to affect the ability of Wendover Community Trust to serve the community.

252. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You don’t want to lose out by the buildings being

damaged; you don’t want to lose out by tenants not getting rental income.

42

253. MRS GRAY: Exactly, in fact that.

254. MRS CLAYTON: I think one of the concerns is that if we are subject to, or these

properties are subject to noise, dust, vibration, intrusion, traffic congestion, our tenants

may well decide to move out. Would we then be able to re-let these properties during

construction, I very much doubt it, it won’t be a pretty place to live, therefore, as Wendy

just said, the income to the Trust is compromised, which puts the whole Trust at risk. It

also means that there would be empty properties and, as I’m sure, you are aware,

properties of this age do not do well if they are left empty for any length of time, as we

found out from the one you just now.

255. MRS GRAY: We’ve got a little film now, concerning a number of our tenants, if

we could have that played please? Just to reiterate briefly, the other thing that we

haven’t mentioned is the effect on the businesses that we have that are our tenants, and

we have a duty of care to them as well. As was mentioned, there is likely to be a huge

change in the number of visitors to Wendover, and that is something that we are

concerned about.

256. MRS CLAYTON: I think what we need to ask from HS2, with the support of the

Committee is for some pretty strong, caste iron guarantees and assurances that our

properties, our tenants, both commercial and residential. And the Trust as a whole, will

be protected from any potential damage from HS2; particularly during the construction

phase, but I would also suggest during the operational phase. You’ve heard that these

buildings are fragile, no foundations, modern buildings can withstand the noise and the

disruption. These ancient building, 400 or 500 years old, are less able to withstand the

potential damage that could occur. So, we’re looking for caste iron guarantees that any

necessary repairs and mitigation will be carried out at the expense of HS2, at no cost to

the Trust, at no cost to our tenants, or to other local authorities.

257. I think what we need, and I think what I think would be of interest to HS2 Limited

themselves, would be an independent structural survey of these buildings before

construction ever starts, so that we have a base line against which to measure potentially

any damage during construction of during the operations. I think that’s a starting point,

any - then repairs that need to be done must be undertaken as HS2’s expense if it can be

established that damage is due to construction or to the operation of HS2.

43

258. And I think we will also be looking for assurance that the HS2 Committee would

compensate us for loss of rent if these properties are left vacant because of the

construction caused by HS2.

259. The solution I’m afraid, and you’ve heard it so many times before, is the T word,

it is a tunnel. If we were to have a properly bored tunnel, either the Chiltern’s long

tunnel, or the Wendover tunnel, right the way through underneath Wendover, it would

protect these properties and remove the need for all of this disruption in the middle of

the village. I think we would still be very wary of potential damage to the properties

and a survey, I think would also be very useful, even if you were to grant us a bored

tunnel.

260. So, I think we just need caste iron assurances from HS2, which I have to say we

haven’t yet seen, that these properties, which actually belong to the community of

Wendover, they don’t belong to individuals, they belong to the community of

Wendover. That these irreplaceable cottages will be protected.

261. MRS GRAY: Can we have the next slide? Just in conclusion there, the Lionel

Abel-Smith Trust exists because of the generosity of one man, of his decision to

bequeath these cottages to the community of Wendover. We would hope that the

decision makers for HS2 are careful not to leave the potentially lethal legacy behind

them, and we would ask them to consider these matters very carefully. Thank you.

262. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould?

263. MR MOULD QC (DfT): If I can just put up P10598, the short point is that we do

not predict any risk of damage to these buildings, either during construction or during

operation of this railway. I put this slide up just to remind you that the construction of

the green tunnel is going to be taking place beyond the existing railway line, beyond the

existing railway, and that’s some distance from these properties within the built up are

of the town.

264. The construction of the green tunnel will not involve any significant percussive

operations, other than the possibility of some piling being required in order to perform

the tunnel portals at each, at the southern and northern end of the tunnel. As you can see

the location of these properties is such that they are remote from the tunnel portal

44

locations, and indeed, given the changes that are proposed to the location of the southern

portal to be promoted under AP5, the distance between those works and their properties

will increase.

265. The works for most of the green are predominantly the excavation of the line of

the area for the tunnel, and the laying out of the tracing and the fitting out of the track,

and then the covering over of the tunnel, which are excavation works, and as I say, they

do not foresee any percussive activities.

266. That is – the reason why I say that we do not predict any risk of damage to these

properties, is borne out by a slide, which I can show you, P1060. The propensity of the

railway to create ground borne noise and vibration to surface properties, in sections that

are tunnelled, has been assessed and the purposes of the assessment, a study area for

residential non-sensitive and sensitive properties has been drawn. And that study area is

based upon the design criteria to which the project is committed, which is set out in

information paper E21 and which effectively provides a commitment to control the

incidents of any ground borne noise and vibration so that it does not extend beyond the

area that is studied.

267. And you can see, on this line, that the study area, the eastern limit of the study

area at this point of the railway, as it passes to the west of Wendover, is drawn where

the arrow is shown now. The eastern limit of the study area for sensitive properties is

drawn to the west of the petitioners’ properties. That effectively means that -

268. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And because that’s not a straight line, it’s not been

designed just to miss out on the Abel-Smith Trust.

269. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I don’t think that when it was drawn the Abel-Smith

Trust’s interest in those properties was really known to the – it is. But what it shows

you is that there is a tried and trusted technique for seeking to predict the propensity for

any impact to arise through ground borne noise and vibration for properties, including

properties of the kind that have been drawn to your attention today.

270. And the project is confident based, not only is based on the work, but also on the

fact that these are techniques that have been deployed with earlier schemes, such as

Crossrail, confident that those predictions are reliable. And it follows that whilst I am

45

not able to give you a guarantee, because that is not what life is like; one cannot give

caste iron guarantees. But, on the basis of the work that we have done and the

assessment that we have done, and the evidence that we are able to present to the

Committee, there is no – the risk of any damage occurring to these properties is in the

highest degree negligible. In the very, very unlikely event that such a risk were to

eventuate, and it were demonstrated that the construction operation of HS2 had caused

damage to any of these properties, then the promoter would be liable to repair that

damage to compensate for losses caused by that damage. And, because that is the effect

of the general law. But as I say, I want to emphasise, unless anyone misunderstands me,

that the risk of any such damage occurring, and any such compensation payment having

to be made is negligible, on the basis of work that we have done hitherto.

271. It is also true to say that the work we have done hitherto is not the only work that

we shall do in this respect. The project is committed to a continuing process of

assessment of the propensity of the construction and the operation of the railway to give

rise to ground borne noise and vibration. And to designing in, where necessary, special

track arrangements and so forth, in order to ensure that the design commitment that is

reflected in the study area that is in front of you is fulfilled.

272. We don’t expect to have to put in any special track or any special measures here

because we don’t believe that the risk is such as to give rise to one. But, in a nutshell

the emphasis, as reflected in those commitments, which are binding upon the nominated

undertaker in information paper E21, the emphasis is on prevention rather than cure.

And it follows from that that there is no need for public money to be spent upon surveys

of these properties because all the evidence suggests, indicated, shows, that there is no

appreciable risk of damage occurring from the construction operation of this railway.

273. MRS CLAYTON: At the risk of being contentious, if that is the case and the

promotor is as confident as Mr Mould is saying, would it not make sense, through you

Mr Chairman, for the promotor to commission a structural survey so that we have that

baseline and we can perhaps hopefully, at the end of the process, prove that there has

been no damage. That’s one point.

274. Another point is – there were three and I’ve forgotten the third one, but if I may

make the second one, we are talking about construction traffic; I remember what the

46

third one is now. There is work to be done on Ellesborough Road, as Mr Mould has

pointed out. Now, I was assured at the information event in Wendover just recently,

that all construction traffic would access Wendover via the A413. I don’t quite see how

construction traffic will reach Ellesborough Road from the A413, but perhaps there is

some other way of doing it that I’m not aware of.

275. And the third thing is a point that Mr Henderson made this morning, you heard Mr

Henderson refer to the additional traffic on the A413. The response was a number of

figures, which I presume were average traffic figures. And the suggestion was that there

would be little disruption on the A413. Now, that may be the case for part of the day,

but this is an exceptionally busy road, and I can well see that if drivers are held up

behind construction traffic, or any traffic for that matter, they will divert, via the route

that Mr Henderson describes. That route takes you to Bucks Cross, and the route from

Bucklands Cross into Wendover goes directly down Pound Street and into the High

Street. So, not only construction traffic, but additional volumes of traffic, I think, are

possible during the construction phase. And I am still very concerned that the integrity

of these buildings could be compromised. I think I would like stronger assurances that

they will be protected.

276. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I have given a clear presentation of the evidence-based

conclusions that we have. I have explained why it would not be good use of public

money. In those circumstances to undertake structural surveys of buildings where there

is no evidence that anything more than negligible risk arises. If I can put it this way,

Thames Water proposed to build a tunnel beneath my garden as part of their current

scheme. For that purpose, they will have to bore that tunnel beneath my garden. I have

seen the plans and I have seen the predictions. They are predicting nothing more than a

negligible risk of any subsidence or settlement damage occurring to my property as a

result of it.

277. I can see no reason why I should, why I myself, or ask Thames Water to go to the

expense of carrying out a survey. It is exactly the same point here. In these situations if

we were to undertake structural surveys of properties where we are not predicting any

appreciable risk, and where our policies are designed to prevent any such risk, any such

damage occurring. We would find that very substantial amounts of money will be being

spent on surveys for no purpose, and that is not a good way of spending public money,

47

in my submission.

278. As regards the traffic, I have made clear, repeatedly, we do not propose to route

HS2 construction traffic through Wendover and that point is being made repeatedly. I

am not going to go over the traffic evidence again because the Committee has heard it

on many occasions during the course of hearings, since the summer break.

279. MR HENDRICK: Could I ask the petitioners; how – even if they did the survey

as you requested, how would you segregate the traffic due to construction, from the

traffic, which might otherwise be going through the town, in terms of their contribution

to vibration or degradation of the buildings in question?

280. MRS CLAYTON: I think we could very easily do traffic counts before and after;

that’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. We have an indication of the volume of

traffic in Pound Street and the High Street already. We can firm up those figures.

281. MR HENDRICK: Well, you can measure obviously the volume of it, but what is

much more difficult is to attribute which vehicles, particularly let’s say, the HGV

vehicles, which vehicles are actually causing the vibration that might, or might not

damage your buildings.

282. MRS GRAY: I think one consideration to be had could be another one in actually

looking at the road surface outside those properties; and considering the responsibility

for improving the road surface and stability of manhole covers and drain covers.

283. MR HENDRICK: From my experience in local government for example, it’s not

just the surface, it’s actually what’s underneath. And you know, where we’ve had in

certain towns and cities in north west, drains that were built in Victorian times, there is

movement, there is things going on under there, which are not visible from the surface,

which may well contribute to the degradation of your buildings, which you couldn’t

necessarily attribute to any particular traffic, whether it’s for construction or otherwise.

284. MRS GRAY: We do appreciate this, but we also would like to point out that

given the amount of impact that this tunnel is going to have on Wendover. We sincerely

feel that, okay we have predictions, but HS2 does – it’s not unreasonable to ask that you

have a duty of care to give us assurances that these properties are not going to be

48

affected. And that if they are then you will undertake everything to reimburse us for any

costs that are incurred.

285. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I have said to you, through the Committee, that in the

event which on our assessments, is extremely unlikely indeed, in the event that our

works are shown to have caused damage to your properties, we will be responsible for

providing you with a remedy in terms of compensation for the damage which is caused;

putting that right, and any other losses that are – that flow directly as a result from that

damage. I have made that clear to you.

286. I would also make clear that we do not propose to route HS2 construction traffic

through the town streets of Wendover, we do not propose to route HS2 construction

traffic down South Street, we do not propose to route HS2 construction traffic down

Pound Street. We can gain access to Ellesborough Road via The Trace. That is

categorical, unqualified, that is our position. If we go to the county council, in two

years’ time and say, ‘Mr Mould said that we were not going route HS2 construction

traffic down Pound Street or South Street but actually we now want to route all our

construction traffic down those roads; the county council would say ‘You must be

joking. We’re not going to sanction that. We think that there is an alternative route and

that route is the A413, which is the strategic road network, which is appropriate for

this.’

287. MR HENDRICK: I think, Mr Mould, you’re giving two extremes, which are

probably likely. I think what you’re more likely to get occasionally road traffic going

up and down. What my point is that even if you were getting HGV vehicles going up

and down Pound Street, you’d still be in a position where you couldn’t differentiate

between vehicles that cause damage to the buildings and those that do not cause damage

to the buildings. For the reasons I’ve said about the surface and what’s underneath the

surface and the contribution to any potential damage to the buildings. So, even with

road traffic, you couldn’t prove, and that’s what Mr Mould is quite clear on, you

couldn’t prove it is contributable to the construction of HS2.

288. MRS CLAYTON: I have to accept that is a difficulty, but at the same time, these

properties are well maintained, they are in good condition at the moment and it would

seem very strange if there was significant damage.

49

289. MR HENDRICK: We’ve seen photographs of them looking in that condition.

290. MRS CLAYTON: That is one property; that is the last one to –

291. MR HENDRICK: Well, without a survey you’re not going to be able to prove

that in the future either.

292. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Could I complete that statement, the last thing that the

promotor of this project wants to do is to cause any damage to your properties.

293. MRS CLAYTON: I appreciate that Mr Mould, but you can, I hope, appreciate

also that as responsible Trustees, we need those assurances and perhaps we need an

exchange of letters to secure those assurances.

294. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That letter will say what I have said on the record today,

and you can take what I’ve said on the record today as -

295. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Being on the record.

296. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Being on the record and therefore – and also a public

statement of the promotor’s position on these matters. It’s not just mere puff.

297. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If this is included, then obviously we hear things

more than once, however, if more communities had more people like Lionel Abel-

Smith, and Trustees like you carrying on his bequest, our country would be better.

298. MRS CLAYTON: Thank you Mr Bottomley, that’s very – thank you. That’s it.

299. CHAIR: Have you any further questions, no? Well, thank you for your evidence.

Do we want to adjourn the Committee for five minutes.

Sitting suspended

On resuming—

300. CHAIR: I may want to call petitioner number 1223 the Dunsmore Village Hall

Association.

301. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And I put up on the screen in usual ordinance survey

map, which shows the location of the Dunsmore Village Hall and the route of the

50

railway to the east. You heard me describe briefly the relationship between Dunsmore

and the railway at the start of today’s proceedings, so I won’t repeat that introduction.

302. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Lee?

The Dunsmore Village Hall Association

303. MR LEE: Good morning, Mr Chairman and gentlemen, I’m Timothy Lee, I’m a

Fellow of the RICS and unfortunately, Mr Clifton-Brown isn’t here, but Sir Peter kindly

reminded him last time I was here, that I had the same educational training as him. I’ve

been – I was a housing market spokesman for about 15 years. I’ve been nearly 50 years

as a surveyor, and I was a partner in three major firms and before I set up my own

valuation practice in 2011, when I retired from those firms. I was part of the Dunsmore

Society presentation and I represented both my wife and I, and another villager in

September. I live at Dunsmore Park.

304. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can we - what’s the issue?

305. MR LEE: Well, unfortunately, it’s a pity that Mr Bellingham is away, because

when I was last here and describing our property, he asked for a photograph and so I

thought I would bring along two photographs, of our house, slide one, which

unfortunately was probably, he thought with an address of Dunsmore Park was rather

grand, and unfortunately it ticked all the boxes for us except one, which was period and

slide two shows the view from our garden, back to the house.

306. So, moving rapidly on, we’re here to talk about the Dunsmore Village Hall.

307. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Because?

308. MR LEE: Because I’m the Treasurer.

309. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Related to the scheme?

310. MR LEE: In relation to the scheme, I’m representing the Treasurer; I have Mr

Roger Moller here in place of Mrs Havard, who is the chairman who is unfortunately ill.

311. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I try one more time?

312. MR LEE: Yes.

51

313. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: What’s the issue in relation to the scheme?

314. MR LEE: We wish to talk about the effect on the village hall.

315. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Of the scheme?

316. MR LEE: Of the scheme. We want to –

317. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I hope this will be brief.

318. MR LEE: Yes, thank you Sir Peter – of the adverse effect of it of the cost benefit

of a tunnel, which is what our -

319. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I hope you won’t go into that.

320. MR LEE: Well, it is part and parcel of the whole thing. The need to sell policy,

the policy itself.

321. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: For the hall?

322. MR LEE: In respect of the hall and its members.

323. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are you trying to sell the hall?

324. MR LEE: No, we might have to. And then also about design, which Mr Waller

will talk about as well, and also about precedent.

325. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The design of the scheme?

326. MR LEE: The design of the scheme as it affects the village of Dunsmore.

327. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The detail of the design?

328. MR LEE: The detail of the design, yes.

329. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Because none of your slides actually lists those

things.

330. MR LEE: Well, can we just move on to slide three? There is the nameplate of the

village hall, and onto slide four and that’s the village hall, and can we have the view

from the rear terrace from the village hall. And if you look, and I’m not sure if there’s a

52

pointer here.

331. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Use your pen.

332. MR LEE: Yes, the white building over there is the building of Upper Wendover

Dean Farm, and just to the – up here is in fact where the viaduct will be. So it is very

visible, and if we go to slide six, this is the view from Springfield, which is, in fact, the

Chairman’s house, which is the house right next door to the village hall. I am going to

hand over to Mr Waller now, to talk about the village hall association itself.

333. MR WALLER: The village hall association was formed in 1990.

334. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We don’t need the history, you’ve got the

association.

335. MR WALLER: We have.

336. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How is it affected by the –

337. MR WALLER: Right, our membership is 51 upward for Dunsmore and quite a

few of the 27 houses in Small Dean and London Road. It became a charity in 1993;

you’ve got those details I presume. Can we have slide seven please? The income for

the hall, because it is for the benefit of the village, is by annual subscription. We have

lettings and hiring’s, we currently have a medical practitioner and two other classes, and

these provide about 77% of our annual income.

338. For the benefit of the village we hold regular events, theatre trips, dinner evenings,

suppers etc. etc. etc. And annually it commemorates Langford Lovell, we hold a

Langford Lovell lecture, including one held quite recently by one of our residents, Sir

Jackie Stewart. We have a close relationship with the non-denominational Dunsmore

church, and we also organise occasional cricket matches, outside MPs, between Upper

Dunsmore and Lower Dunsmore.

339. This is the trophy, this was actually found in a very light borehole dug in the

village. In your Select Committee statement of 25 September, you did ask us not to

cover items such as the AOL, amenity for locals and tourists, threats to tourism and the

Chiltern’s, traffic disruption, especially on the A413.

53

340. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just – this is the last of the exhibits you’ve shown us

in advance. How many pages have you got between you?

341. MR WALLER: I’m handing over to Mr Lee now.

342. MR LEE: Its very small, large type so that we can read it.

343. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But how many pages I asked?

344. MR LEE: There were 12 altogether.

345. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, can you read the last paragraph, so that we

know what the issues are that you’re trying to put to us?

346. MR LEE: Some of it is, as I said, the adverse effect of HS2 on the DVHA, I

paraphrase, and it’s members. And we were going to talk about the cost benefit,

because frankly we don’t think there is any cost benefit. When we -

347. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s going away from the petitioners’ -

348. MR LEE: No, it isn’t.

349. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Forgive me for putting this gently; the hall is how

far from the line?

350. MR LEE: It’s about a mile, but it overlooks the whole thing.

351. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we ought to try to establish a precedent, you

can be very helpful to both of us by saying that the distance should be inversely

proportionate to the amount of time you take in getting to the point you want us to

consider please.

352. MR LEE: Sir Peter, I know you are fed up with HS2, you probably are.

353. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, no.

354. MR LEE: You’ve been at it for 18 months. Can you imagine how we feel after

five and a half years and with many years to come, please allow us to put our petition?

355. CHAIR: We probably have another year maybe to do it, but what we want to do

54

as a Committee is make things better, and that’s why I think what Sir Peter wants to do

is really get to the point of the issues. I think what the Committee really appreciates

witnesses who come along and tell us very clearly what they want so that -

356. MR LEE: Well we want a tunnel Mr Chairman instead of -

357. CHAIR: Well we really, we very much understand that and we’ve heard that on

several occasions. We take that on board. You’ve seen what we’ve had to say as an

indication of our thinking on that, but we are listening to what people say about the

tunnel, and we hear it on a regular basis. So we will take it on board what it said.

358. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think a summary of what you’re putting to us

today is that you want a tunnel.

359. MR LEE: Yes.

360. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So, why don’t you say that and stop and we’ll ask

Mr Mould to respond to it, but we don’t need to have a long build up to it.

361. MR LEE: I’m not trying to have a long thing, I don’t really want to do a long

thing, we’d be much quicker if we just quickly got through the points that I’m trying to

cover.

362. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We don’t want you to read 12 pages to us.

363. MR HENDRICK: The problem is that unfortunately, the items you want to cover

have been repeated on more than one occasion. I think the specifics of the village hall

and how it’s affected will be quite sufficient. All the rest of it, to be perfectly honest -

364. MR LEE: Well, it is the members who are affected and very briefly, on the

adverse effects because of the likely changes in the membership profile, the adverse

effect on that profile, the adverse on that membership, it is now breaking up the

community, HS2 is. It bound people together to start with, but it’s now breaking them

up. And we have an enormous fear and likelihood of income being reduced due to the

HS2 disruption, the clients of the hall hire comes from far and wide. And there will be

probably less funds available for maintenance of the building, which may lead to

eventual closure. And that’s not good for the local community.

55

365. I was going to talk about cost benefit because basically, when we went to the

memorial hall last weekend, or the weekend before, I was specifically told there was no

cost benefit for the tunnel to be extended beyond where you very well extend it to South

Heath. But, from South Heath to Wendover, there was no cost benefit. Well, our

figures are different from HS2’s. We believe the cost benefit is £150 million compared

to what we think the real costs is, not what HS2’s cost is, of about £300 to £400 million,

but about £115 million based on -

366. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It might help you to know that when we were

listening to some arguments and points yesterday. I asked whether we should be

considering the cost of a tunnel worked across £300 million or £150 million, or £70

million. So, I think that much of what you’re saying is not new to us, so if that could

help you move along that would be helpful.

367. MR LEE: It should be – it’s based on the figures of the saving as to what you’ve

extended it by and not projected for.

368. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we’ve got an understanding.

369. MR LEE: Oh, right okay. Well we can get through a couple of pages of that. And

so, if the need to sell policy itself. And that is what’s concerning us is that you’re

slowly buying up various houses, both in Wendover, Dunsmore etc. most of our - some

of our members have been bought up so far, and they said it’s a pretty tortuous process.

It’s very invasive and it’s very difficult. And you know, you’ve got 172,000 houses

along this route, within 1 kilometre of the route, and just don’t know how many houses

HS2 Limited is going to buy, or have to buy.

370. But you know, you will recall Sir Peter that Mrs Thatcher came into Government

in 1979, saying to Government organisation statutory authorities, sell whatever you

don’t need for your specific purpose. And I’m saying to you that the need to sell policy

is causing the Government, and presumably the DFT by the time we’ve finished, to have

an enormous property portfolio by the time that HS2 is finished. And that’s not what

Governments are in business for, and I’m afraid I know from personal experience that -

371. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I’m am going to try not to intervene as often as I

wish to, the need to sell scheme was in part introduced because people like us said that

56

people were exceptionally hardly hit didn’t meet the exceptional hardships scheme

criteria. So, I think please don’t say any more about the need to sell scheme, the

Government buying more than they need to, they only buy if people ask them to, and

meet the criteria. So please move on.

372. MR LEE: It’s very difficult Sir Peter, because I am just going to give a personal

experience of this, having worked for Government departments and also from my family

experience of what happened at the Liphook Bypass in the sixties. And indeed, it was

referred to by Mr Mould, about costs, because my father won a case against the Ministry

of Transport in 1964, both in the Lands Tribunal and the Court of Appeal about costs

and in effect, a test case and a thousand other cases were sold at the same time.

373. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Toby.

374. MR LEE: Sorry.

375. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Toby.

376. MR LEE: No, it’s His Honour Judge Lee against the Ministry of Transport.

377. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well that’s precisely because of that case that the

principle that I said earlier, is beyond any dispute.

378. MR LEE: Exactly and I wanted to just draw your attention to that, because when

wife and I visited the property that had been bought by the Ministry of Transport, at full

price, not 10% to 15% below market price, they didn’t argue about the price.

379. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, Mr Lee, I don’t know when the Department

buys property below the market price. When they buy it they buy it at the market price,

so can you please stop the reminiscence, turn over as many pages as you can and bring

us to the point that you want the promoters to consider and respond to it.

380. MR LEE: Well, I’m going to hand over to Mr Waller on design.

381. MR WALLER: Basically, as you’ve seen, from all the slides we’ve done this

morning, visually we are very effected. Mr Mould will say it’s a mile away, we won’t

hear it, but we will definitely see it. And on 9 September both Mr Clifton-Brown and

Mr Hendrick questioned HS2 very closely about the quality of design of viaducts and

57

bridges. And in our opinion HS2 gave a less than satisfactory response, and we would

ask for the highest possible quality design if this is going to go ahead. And we were

also disturbed to see the type of goal post gantries that have been erected on the Great

Western mainline at Goring Gap in an AONB. And fear that we are going to be fobbed

off with a bog standard, cheapest, lowest common denominator couple of viaducts and

gantries, and that’s basically our concern, as we’ve got to spend our life looking at this

thing. That’s all I have to say on that.

382. MR LEE: And finally, precedent, I won’t go into a personal reminiscence about

this, but it was involving Mr Gummer, now Lord Deben, who wished there wasn’t any

precedent in planning and he told us that when he was Minister of Agriculture, before he

became Environment Minister. And if HS2 is built over ground this will set a terrible

precedent, in our view and Mr Clifton-Brown, who isn’t here, he’s got an area of

outstanding natural beauty, as indeed Mr Bellingham’s got a small piece. But I suspect

that Mr Clifton-Brown is more – could be affected if a major scheme like HS2 were to

go through his constituency. And would he be safe, would this precedent actually affect

other areas of -

383. CHAIR: He wouldn’t be on the Committee then, would he?

384. MR LEE: No, he wouldn’t, but the fact is that it would affect a really beautiful

part of the Cotswolds if a similar scheme like this, and this is the precedent, because

HS1 wasn’t a precedent as such, it followed motorways, it followed existing train lines.

This is the longest route through the Chilterns that they could have chosen, and it’s pity

they didn’t follow the route of the West Coast mainline or the A5 or the M1 which is in

fact, we believe, the far better route but that’s not for this Committee to deal with. Mr

Chairman, I got to the last page Sir Peter. The members of the DVHA pray that you and

your Committee will see the environmental and economic sense in recommending that

the HS2, through the rest of the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty should be

fully tunnelled and not built over ground so that we can return to a more normal, and

happier life. Thank you.

385. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Mould.

386. MR MOULD QC (DfT): A few points, first of all, the point that I made earlier,

which has been made many times before, that if one were to assume a full tunnel the

58

construction of that tunnel would involve significant HS2 construction traffic on the

A413; it would involve a significance presence of construction worksites immediately to

the north of Wendover; it would involve the creation of a large intervention box in the

area, broadly speaking, where the Wendover Viaduct is proposed to go.

387. Secondly, the Need to Sell scheme and the government’s policies are designed,

amongst other things, to encourage people to remain in their homes. That is the

underlying policy and a balance is struck between seeking to provide a remedy for those

who have a genuine, compelling reason to sell and maintaining community cohesion; in

other words, trying to avoid unnecessary and excessive manipulation through

government purchase of the local property market. It’s a difficult –

388. MR HENDRICK: Would it apply to a community hall?

389. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, but the point that was made, as I understood it, was

that those who patronise the community hall and subscribe to it, that the community is

under threat from the operation of the government’s policy. There is a difficult balance

to be struck in formulating policies of this kind between a policy that is insufficiently

responsive to genuine need and a policy that is too generous so it has the unintended

consequence of impeding community cohesion, which is one of its intended purposes.

So that balance is difficult. The Secretary of State believes he’s got it right. This

Committee is interested in that and, I believe, is intending to make a report shortly about

its views on that to supplement those that it set out in its initial report a few months ago.

But I want to emphasise that the policy is there, amongst other things, to try and

encourage people to remain rather than to encourage them to go.

390. And the third point relates to the visual impact of the railway. Of course the view

from Dunsmore to the east across the valley will change with the introduction of the

railway. The viaduct will be visible as indeed will, to a lesser degree, the smaller

viaduct as the railway is taken across the A413. Of course the design of those structures

is vital and that is a point that is not lost on the project by any means; and indeed we

have explained to you the policies and the commitments that we have in relation to

securing a good design in relation to these structures.

391. But perhaps I’ll close with this one thought: that we’ve also emphasised that in

relation to these key structures along the route we are committed to providing the local

59

community affected by those structures with the opportunity to engage in the design

process before the design that is submitted to the local authority for approval is actually

finalised. That is a commitment that is set out in Information Paper D1. It is a

commitment that will be the subject of more detailed publicity as the project progresses

the Parliamentary process and as the emphasis becomes further towards delivery once

powers have been granted. But the notion that the community should have a say in the

process of producing a design for these structures is one that is set out and is committed

to in our own stated policy.

392. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Lee?

393. MR WALLER: I’d just like to say I welcome Mr Mould’s third point about

design. If I may just very briefly go back to his first point. Whenever the tunnel is

mentioned there is obviously a collective sigh. However, Mr Mould’s standard answer

is ‘this is going to involve more lorries; to construct this tunnel we’re going to need

more lorries’. What I would say is if one constructs the tunnel it is a temporary feature.

The AONB is protected forever. The construction sites and everything else that HS2 do

–

394. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’re overlooking the intervention gap.

395. MR WALLER: The intervention gap, but one would hope that that could be

landscaped in some way. But if it is required, which clearly under current schemes it is,

I think you would find that the inhabitants from your current extended tunnel to the

north of Wendover would be more than happy to accept that if the rest of the area was

protected. But the things like the construction camps that HS2 say ‘this is a temporary

feature that you have 150 accommodation living here for 48 months’, it’s temporary. I

think you will find the inhabitants of Wendover and those south would regard an

increase in traffic on the A413 and an increase in inconvenience as a temporary measure

if the overwhelming ends –

396. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So essentially you’re saying to us, were the local

residents and the members of your hall association to have a free choice, they’d prefer to

have the intervention gap and the extra lorries?

397. MR WALLER: Yeah.

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398. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The issue, I suppose, for the promoters and possibly

for this Committee is whether it’s not a free choice but a cost-free choice.

399. MR WALLER: Yes.

400. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And that’s where I come back to the point I made

earlier to Mr Timothy Lee which is that the question is being put to us: were this to cost

£75 million or £150 million rather than £300 million would it make a difference? I

think that sums it up.

401. MR WALLER: Yeah, thank you.

402. MR LEE: I think that’s all we have to say. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

403. CHAIR: Thank you for your evidence.

Peter and Catherine Harris

404. CHAIR: That brings us to petition number 71 and number 72: Peter Harris and

Catherine Harris. Mr Mould?

405. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. Mr and Mrs Harris live at St Benedicts, Bacombe

Lane, Wendover. And we’ve shown the location of that property on the Ordinance

Survey sheet in front of you. If you turn to page 10586, you’ll get a more localised

view. You can see the petitioners’ premises and you can see the line of the railway to

the east. And this is the area within which the construction of the cut-and-cover tunnel

will take place, and then the railway running in the green tunnel from the south

following the schemes coming into operation.

406. The other point by way of introduction is that these petitioners made an

application under the Exceptional Hardship Scheme in relation to their previous

dwelling in Hickory Hill, South Street, Wendover in 2011 and they were accepted; and

they moved to this property having had their previous property acquired under the EHS

scheme.

407. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, is this map here… does it show the present

extension of the tunnel or is it pre?

61

408. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, I think this shows the position before the extension

that is proposed under AP5.

409. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, at some stage someone might kindly show us

what the –

410. MR BELLINGHAM: How far down does it go?

411. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It extends another 100 metres –

412. MR BELLINGHAM: So where Nash Lee Road –

413. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I don’t think… This is Bacombe Lane here.

414. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The scale at the bottom shows what 100 metres is.

415. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, it’s probably to about here, isn’t it? And then, if

you remember, we’ve got lineside noise barriers on the east and west.

416. MRS HARRIS: May I interrupt?

417. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, you can start –

418. MRS HARRIS: Sorry, it was about where the green tunnel is.

419. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Ah.

420. MRS HARRIS: I did go to the information event a couple of weeks ago hosted by

HS2 and, according to them, this is the new map that’s already been extended.

421. MR MOULD QC (DfT): No, I don’t think that’s right.

422. MRS HARRIS: It is what they said but, never mind, because they got it starting

just about where Bacombe Lane runs now.

423. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, I was thought I was correct on that. This map does

need to be read on the understanding that the tunnel portal moves another 100 metres to

the south which is, as members of the Committee have pointed out, on this scale is about

another inch.

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424. MRS HARRIS: Thank you.

425. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And then there would be lineside barriers on either side.

426. MR HENDRICK: We had one of your neighbours actually before the Committee.

427. MRS HARRIS: Only one?

428. MR HENDRICK: A couple of weeks back.

429. MRS HARRIS: Yeah.

430. MR HENDRICK: And the same point was made that it is another 100 metres.

431. MRS HARRIS: Oh, yes. It was next door in fact. Thank you. Have you

finished?

432. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I have.


434. CHAIR: Mrs Harris

435. MRS HARRIS: Thank you and thanks to all involved in the process of hearing

our petition. Our home, as you can see, is located, according to HS2, 230 metres from

the centre line of the track. I know Sir Peter Bottomley is going to say what’s my point

but actually it’s about the Need to Sell Scheme.

436. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, I’m not going to say that to you.

437. MRS HARRIS: Oh, right.

438. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The closer people are to the line, the easier it is to

know what the issue is.

439. MRS HARRIS: Thank you. But it is about the Need to Sell Scheme. Our

interpretation is that I think Mr Mould’s just hinted that we bought after the line was

announced and therefore may not qualify, partly because we’d already sold to HS2,

which is totally correct. We’ve tried to check our interpretation about the Need to Sell

Scheme and we completed after March 2010 so we don’t qualify. We’ve checked with

63

HS2 Limited, David Lidington’s office and Bucks County Council and they all

suggested here.

440. So the history is: 1 October 2008, we rented the house that we live in now to help

with severe and life threatening health issues of a member of our family. It’s a large

rambling house in over an acre of land surrounded by trees, cows in the fields at the

front and the back and a general rural tranquillity. The house move, after a couple of

months it was obvious it was aiding recovery so quite soon after that we tried to buy it

from the landlord. As part of the process we had a professional valuation done dated

20 May 2009 and it valued the house at £825,000 with vacant possession.

441. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: At? Sorry.

442. MRS HARRIS: Sorry, in May ’09 the value was £825,000 with vacant

possession.

443. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Fine.

444. MRS HARRIS: But it was in a poor state because it had been rented for about, we

think, 10 years. The house that we owned in Wendover that we had lived in, I think, for

14 years was put up for sale in late January or February 2010. So what I’m trying to

establish is that it was our intention to move and there were really severe life-threatening

health issues before the announcement in March.

445. We completed the purchase of St Benedicts in June 2010 for £900,000. The point

here is that we weren’t trying to ‘oh, HS2 is there so we’ll offer less’ and then try and

sell it later. It took a long time to buy because it had been owned by trust. We then

spent at least £250,000 on upgrades. It really was rented for 10 years.

446. Now, the Need to Sell Scheme requires us to show why we could not have known

about it, it being HS2’s initial preferred route. Now, I don’t know any legislation that

asks people to prove a negative. I’m sure there is some but we can’t prove we didn’t

know about it. I mean, yeah, there were four proposed routes announced in March 2010.

Were we aware? Yes, we were vaguely aware. But, frankly, I was absorbed with

keeping family members alive.

447. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You don’t need too much detail in public.

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448. MRS HARRIS: Okay.

449. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But we do understand that you had a pressing reason

to buy that home. And we also understand that at the time you completed it was one of

four possible routes.


451. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that…?

452. MRS HARRIS: Yes. That we’d got this house that we could live in and

everybody should stay alive. Great. End of. Nothing came up in the solicitor’s

searches for the purchase so we were only aware of it was hearsay and local gossip and

‘it’s not going to happen’ and ‘of course they’re not going to take this route’.

453. We did go to one of the HS2 road shows quite early on and explained when our

purchase had taken place; and we had to wait for somebody within HS2 at that road

show in Wendover to come and talk to us, so the inference was she knew what she was

talking about. She said we shouldn’t have a problem albeit I think with the EHS scheme

at the time for the new house – the second house I’m talking about that we live in now –

as long as we have evidence that there was nothing marking the land as for HS2 at the

Land Registry on the date on which we did the searches; and there wasn’t. We were

therefore able to plan our finances as we approached retirement. But now we’ve seen

the Need to Sell Scheme guide indicates that we’re not eligible because we bought and

did the searches after March 2010.

454. Now, in Bacombe Lane there were 14 houses. HS2 has already bought four of

them and at least three more are following the Need to Sell Scheme route –

455. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, do you want to sell?

456. MRS HARRIS: No.

457. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Do you want to know that you could be able to sell?

458. MRS HARRIS: We want to know that we will be eligible should we need to.

Because 2030 is a long time. One of us could have died and we need –

65

459. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well I think, if it’s not cutting you off, and I’m not

intending to, the issue is that if you were to apply to Need to Sell would you be excluded

because of the circumstances in which you bought the home?

460. MRS HARRIS: Thank you; that is my question really.

461. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is it possible to pass that across to the promoters and

say if there is a clear answer or not or what the ‘if’s are?

462. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, the clear answer under the stated terms of the

policy is, yes, these petitioners would be excluded because criterion 4 says, ‘Did you

buy or enter into a lease of your property prior to the announcement of the preferred

route of Phase 1 of HS2?’ And that date was 11 March 2010 and these petitioners

clearly bought after that date, having successfully secured a purchase by the government

under the Exceptional Hardship Scheme.

463. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: When was the Exceptional Hardship Scheme –

464. MR MOULD QC (DfT): That came into operation –

465. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, when was the application for that?

466. MR MOULD QC (DfT): In this case?

467. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes.

468. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It was…

469. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Perhaps Mrs Harris can tell us.

470. MRS HARRIS: I can’t remember.

471. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It was 2011, I think.

472. MRS HARRIS: We went down the first time and we actually completed, I think,

in June ’11.

473. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. I have August.

474. MRS HARRIS: Yes, that may be right.

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475. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So this is after they completed their intended

purchase of Bacombe Lane?

476. MRS HARRIS: Mmm.

477. MR MOULD QC (DfT): So it follows from that that –

478. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, let me interrupt again. When was the

preferred route chosen from the four?

479. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The preferred route for the purposes of the policy was

the date of the announcement in March 2010. It was in January 2010 that the more

detailed route which then formed the basis for the Hybrid Bill was published by the

Secretary of State.

480. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Because Mrs Harris talked about there being one of

four possible options.

481. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, I’m not quite sure what she means by that but the

position under the policy is clear. It follows therefore that if an application was made by

these petitioners then, if the policy were applied, that application would be rejected.

And so it follows that if these petitioners were to wish to make an application they

would have to make it on the basis that they would ask the Secretary of State, in the

circumstances of their case, to –

482. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: To use his discretion.

483. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. It is always open to someone to do that but

obviously the burden is squarely on them to justify it.

484. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can I then get right into it? They don’t say they

necessarily need to go now but they want to know what would happen were they to need

to go and would they still be excluded, which brings up what one could call a

hypothetical question, and I think it would be useful to know from the promoters

whether they would recommend to the Secretary of State that he should look into what

decision he would make so that they can know what situation they would be in; rather

than having to wait up to 12 years to decide. And once the scheme is built, the Part 1

67

conversation which would work so that’s not a problem. It’s between now and the

project being completed. Is it possible that the Secretary of State could consider what

decision would be made so that they can know in advance what the situation is?

485. MR MOULD QC (DfT): The way of dealing with that is for the petitioners to

make an application. Because if they make an application then the question will have to

be asked and answered.

486. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But to if they make an application they will have to

show why they have a need to sell and they don’t want to do that at the moment; they

want to know how would they be considered.

487. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, I think I would be criticised back in the organs of

government, as it were, if I were to say that someone who, on the face of it, fails to meet

the requirements of the policy should, as it were, make a hypothetical request. I think

that what we do know from today, as I’ve made clear, is that, as and when and if these

petitioners were to make an application under the Need to Sell policy, one matter that

they would have to face up to and address is why an exception should be made in their

case to criterion 4.

488. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Well, that is very easy to establish and I could write

it for them were I their MP. And the fact is they didn’t pull out of the purchase because

of the possibility of the scheme being so close that there might be a need to sell because

of the effects of the scheme. A need to sell and because the scheme went by their home.

That’s the issue.

489. MRS HARRIS: Yes.

490. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Well, I mean, that’s the basis on which the argument

would be made that an exception should be made. But, as I say, as you know, I can’t

say whether that will be accepted.

491. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The issue in front of this Committee is that… We

can go over this in great depth but can I perhaps, Chairman, make a suggestion? We

understand that the petitioners might come to a need to sell and then might be turned

down because the Secretary of State wouldn’t exercise the discretion because, in a

68

technical sense, they completed the purchase or they signed the contract for completion

after the prospect of the railway. They don’t want to be left in a position, and we might

not want to leave them in a position, where for the next 12 years they don’t know

whether an application were to be justified under Need to Sell or would be included or

excluded by the Secretary of State using or not using their discretion.

492. This is a highly unusual case, from what we’ve heard, and I think we ought to try

to find out from the Secretary of State or promoters whether the Secretary of State

would be prepared to look now at whether that technicality can be put aside by using

discretion so that if they come to a need to sell they’ll know what that situation is. They

still to establish a need to sell but they would find that the technicality would engage the

Secretary of State’s discretion. And it seems to me that it would be right for this

Committee to say to the promoters and Secretary of State ‘please look at what’s been

heard, talk if necessary privately with the petitioner, and let the Committee know and let

her know whether that discretion would be used for that part of the qualifications

necessary’. If we know that in advance we would then be able to write it into our report

that we would instruct the promoters to overlook that in this particular case because, first

of all, its rarity and, secondly, for the compelling reasons for the petitioners to go ahead

with the purchase and not withdraw.

493. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Might I just say something in response to that? I mean,

clearly, you have articulated what you would like the promoter to do and the Secretary

of State to do and I have no doubt at all that they will reflect on what you say and

respond as they consider appropriate. But there is one thing that perhaps one ought to

bear in mind. You focused understandably on the fact that under this criteria-based

policy one of the criteria on its face is plainly not met. You described it as a

‘technicality’. However you characterise it is absolutely not of any great significance.

But another way of putting it is the policy is not met yet.

494. That doesn’t mean, of course, that an exception can’t be made; any policy can be

subject to exception. But what I think is important, if I may say so, is this: the case for

making an exception is not one that has to be made in isolation. In other words, the

more compelling the reason to sell, the more willingness there may be on the part of the

Secretary of State in the circumstances of the case to make an exception to the criteria

that is not met. If, for example, the case that was made for sale under criterion 5 was

69

that there were very pressing health reasons why this petitioner needed to move away

from the area of construction of the green tunnel and the only thing that was… and she

was unable to do so other than a significant undervalue due to blight, and the only thing

that was standing in the way of accepting that application was the criterion 4 that she

bought in knowledge of the scheme and therefore her application should be refused, that

might be looked at rather differently than if she were to make a case that said ‘I don’t

have a compelling reason to say but I would rather like to sell, please, and would you

mind?’. You can see the difference I’m making. So it’s important, I think –

495. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I can see that but I think, if I may say so, that, were I

still painting white lines in the middle of roads as a junior transport minister and this

came to me, I would say this is two hurdles, not one hurdle that’s got an extra thing on

top. So the first thing, and the only thing, that really matters to us now is: is it possible

for the Secretary of State voluntarily – or for us to make it involuntary – to give an

assurance on this particular case that the hurdle of having signed up to buy the home for

reasons which were there before the scheme would not be a bar on the Secretary of

State, if the other criteria were then met?

496. MR MOULD QC (DfT): What I will do is to ask this question to be posed: in the

event that each of the other criteria were clearly and compellingly be satisfied, would

this hurdle be seen nevertheless as standing in the way of accepting an application?

497. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And for the Secretary of State to give an answer to

that question to the petitioner so to speak now – but I don’t mean today?

498. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I will –

499. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that the issue in effect?

500. MRS HARRIS: Yes, it would be really helpful because I have talked to local

estate agents and they’re quite unequivocal that it’s not saleable.

501. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The rest we know.

502. MRS HARRIS: Okay. Mr Mould was saying about selling the house at an

undervalue; no, it’s actually not saleable.

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503. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: No, I think we’re clear about what the issue is.

504. MRS HARRIS: Okay, fine. Thank you.

505. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Were you to meet the Need to Sell Scheme criteria,

except for the fact that you signed up after the prospect of the railway was there, would

the Secretary of State use the discretion and allow the application to be accepted. That’s

the issue.

506. MRS HARRIS: Yeah, that’s the last paragraph on my thing.

507. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that what it says?

508. MRS HARRIS: Yeah. If a fully bored tunnel is not going to happen – I’ve got to

say that – we should like an undertaking that HS2 will buy our house from us on the

same terms as if our purchase had been completed before March 2010, i.e. that the Need

to Sell Scheme would apply to us but excluding the clause that we have to demonstrate

that we could not have known about the preferred route. So, yes, thank you.

509. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we’ve got the situation.

510. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes, and I’m very happy, through me, for that question

to be posed.

511. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And either an explicit answer to the petitioner or to

us that the petitioner will see. And I think that perhaps by the end of the year would be a

reasonable time to have it. It’s not a big decision.

512. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Yes. I’m sure that, if in seeking to see to that request

the Secretary of State would welcome the opportunity to ask questions about the

petitioner’s circumstances, I’m sure the petitioner would be willing –

513. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You don’t mind discussing it privately?

514. MRS HARRIS: No, that’s fine. I mean, we love living there at the moment and

we have no wish to move. But we may have to. One of us may die and then we’d be

broke.

515. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Right, thank you.

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516. MRS HARRIS: Thank you very much.

517. CHAIR: Thank you.

The Ernest Cook Trust

518. CHAIR: That brings us to petition number 1266, The Ernest Cook Trust. Charles

Russell.

519. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m sorry. There’s been fruitful negotiations outside.

What I will do is I will read out what I have on a small piece of paper. And then I think

Mr Cameron is going to read something out, simply because he… Would you want me

to read it out?

520. MR CAMERON QC: I think it’s probably more appropriate if Mr Mould reads it

out, but I have the text here for Mr Mould to read.

521. CHAIR: You want to read a statement?

522. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I’m in the very unusual position of being asked to read

something out which I have no knowledge of consequence whatsoever, which is an

unusual but delightful position to be in. But, being serious, I’m told that a joint

statement has been agreed with the Ernest Cook Trust with Mr Pearce and with

Lord Carrington Estate. And I shall now read that statement into the record. Thank you.

523. ‘The Ernest Cook Trust, Lord Carrington’s 1963 Settlement and Anthony Pearce,

to whom I shall refer as “the Landowners” own extensive areas of land which lie

between the town of Aylesbury and the proposed railway. The Landowners are

concerned about the extensive powers of acquisition of land which would be conferred

by the Bill. The Secretary of State has indicated that he is prepared to undertake not to

exercise the Bill powers to acquire all of the land identified in the book of reference, in

which the Landowners have interests, whether permanently or temporarily, and to limit

exercise of powers in relation to other areas of land to acquisition of temporary rights.

524. ‘The approximate area of the land over which the powers to acquire land and / or

rights is not be exercised is shown lying approximately south of Oxford Road and

approximately east of the proposed railway in white on a plan whose reference is

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C222.ATK.EV.DPL.020050504.PET000521 (Revision P00.1).

525. ‘In respect of the land owned by Mr Pearce, the area in respect of which rights are

not to be exercised is yet to be agreed.

526. ‘Amongst the issues to be resolved is the question of how and by whom future

maintenance of that part of the railway embankment which is to be returned to the

landowner is to be funded. It is now the intention of the parties to enter into

negotiations with a view to concluding a formal agreement by 15 December 2015. The

Landowners reserve their respective rights to return to the Select Committee if matters

cannot be agreed by that date. Once a satisfactory agreement has been reached and the

necessary documents and plans have been completed, the Ernest Cook Trust petition

will be withdrawn.

527. ‘Anthony Pearce and the Lord Carrington’s 1963 Settlement will continue their

discussions with the promoter on matters not covered by the matters agreed today and

remain hopeful that agreement can be reached.’

528. That’s it.

529. MR CAMERON QC: And, sir, that reflects the outcome of extensive discussions

not just this morning but in advance of this appearance. And all the parties are hopeful

that this agreement in principle can be turned into a concluded agreement and then we

won’t have to trouble you any further.

530. It may be just, sir, so that you can understand, and I don’t want to take up anymore

time of the Committee than I have to. I was told that that plan which has been referred

to could be put on the screen but that may not be the case. If it isn’t… We can? Thank

you. The land under the Oxford Road which is mentioned is on the left-hand side of the

plan, roughly north. Thank you. And the land under consideration is the land lying

south of the Oxford Road. And the powers in the Bill would have entitled the promoter

to acquire all the land lying between Aylesbury and the railway.

531. And in respect of the Ernest Cook land, which is the land within the white and

pink triangle which is being shown, the purpose for which that land was to be acquired

as indicated in the Bill was mainly for grassland habitat creation. And it’s now been

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agreed that the promoter will not exercise the powers conferred by the Bill to acquire

that land from the Ernest Cook Trust. It will exercise its powers to acquire temporarily

the land which is shown at the embankment on the western side of the site adjacent to

the railway. That land, once the embankment has been created, the majority of the land

will be returned to the Ernest Cook Trust. And the area to the east, lying immediately

adjacent to Aylesbury, is an area over which the promoter needs to acquire rights to… I

think the technical word is ‘re-string’ an overhead electric line. And the Ernest Cook

Trust and the other landowners are prepared to give the promoters rights to do that but

the promoter reserves a power to exercise compulsory powers if it has to. So that’s the

essence of the agreement: the promoter won’t exercise powers to acquire most of that

land.

532. And unusually, sir, this is a case where the promoter’s request will have saved the

promoter money because this is land which is ripe for development and therefore, if the

promoter does not have to acquire it, he will save a considerable sum of money. In the

case of the Ernest Cook Land, that could be over £50 million.

533. Sir, I don’t think there’s anything more unless I can answer any questions that

members of the Committee have.

534. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And the ‘Carrington’ with one ‘r’s and two ‘r’s fall

down to the bottom towards London, I think.

535. MR CAMERON QC: It does, I think, Sir Peter. I don’t act for the Carrington

Estate. But it does.

536. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think if you looked at 10729. We’re dealing with

the top bit, I think; that was mostly what you were talking about, is that right?

537. MR CAMERON QC: It’s actually the part towards the bottom.

538. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Okay.

539. MR CAMERON QC: The Oxford Road runs through the middle of the green

land.

540. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s helpful.

74

541. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And it’s to the east of the trace.

542. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And I think the Carrington Estate lands come at

10561.

543. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Down here, I think. Yeah.

544. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Right. So we’ve got the pictures as well as the

detail.

545. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And Mr Pearce’s lands are the area of land shaded grey

immediately to the south of the Carrington lands.

546. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think the Committee will be grateful to all of you.

547. CHAIR: Thank you very much. I’m going to adjourn the Committee until

2 o’clock this afternoon.

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