HS2 Community Meeting St. Marys 18 January 2014 Agenda Time - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

HS2 Community Meeting

• St. Mary’s

18 January 2014

Agenda

Time Subject Presenter 5 m Welcome and Introduction Mike Beard 10 m Impact on Wendover Phil Wallis 10 m Mitigation Options Brian Thompson 20 m Questions & Answers All 20 m Coffee Break and completion of Postcards 5 m Introduction Mike Beard 20 m Petitioning Process Tom Crane 10 m Wendover example Antony Chapman 15 m Questions & Answers All 5 m Wrap Up Brian Thompson

The Impact of HS2 on Wendover

Public Meeting 18 January 2014

Everyone will be affected!

• 1. Four years of construction mayhem

– From 2017 to 2021

• 10 hours a day Monday-Friday, 5 on Saturday

– Temporary/permanent road closures/diversions

• Ellesborough Road, Bacombe Lane, Rocky Lane, etc.
• Disruption/destruction of footpaths and lanes

– Peaking at 300+ HGV’s and 890 LGV’s per day on A413

• Significant Increase in traffic and delays

A permanent environmental loss

• 10 farms will suffer high impact, another 2

medium impact – 236 hectares taken during construction and 95 hectares lost permanently

• Part of Grim’s Ditch and Jones Hill Wood

destroyed

• 10 buildings demolished – cricket ground lost
• 19km of hedgerows lost
• Potential threat to SSSI at Weston Turville
• Sensitive wildlife and flora threatened
• Great Crested Newts, bats, white helleborine, etc.

A Visual Disaster

500m long viaducts at Wendover Dean and Smalldean – up to 22m high

The Wendover Dean viaduct and ‘toxic pond’

Entrance to ‘green’ tunnel at Bacombe Lane

Noise - Before and After

Permanent blight and loss of value to property

What compensation?

• Noise and visual pollution
• Increased traffic
• Yet, almost no homes in Wendover will qualify

for compensation under current plans

Is there an answer?

A bored tunnel throughout the entire Chilterns would solve most of these problems. Support the ‘CRAG’ Tunnel proposal

KEY COMMENTS ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT

• Visual Impact
• Noise
• Community Facilities
• Agriculture
• Water Quality
• Traffic
• Ecology and Environment
• Code of Construction Practise

MITIGATION – LONG TERM IMPACTS

Tunnel through the Chilterns - CRAG Extend Green Tunnel/Enclosures Maintenance Loop – move/cancelled Extend tunnel to Chainage 56.200 Other Community Facilities Cricket Ground

• St. Mary’s

Wendover Campus Skateboard Pk Bigger Barriers with Legal Noise Limits Bigger Barriers with Legal Noise Limits A B C

The ‘CRAG’ Tunnel

• Key Facts
• Bored/Green Tunnel
• Portal near 55.800
• Bored tunnel to 54.800 then a

green tunnel.

• Emergency gap at Durham

Farm. Advantages

• No demolition of houses in

Ellesborough road

• Less operational noise
• Less visual blight
• Less environmental damage
• Less loss of agricultural land
• Protect tourism and

economy of Wendover

• Reduced property blight

Disadvantages

• Large work camp north of

Wendover

• Takes longer

MITIGATION – CONSTRUCTION PHASE

• Legally enforceable COCP by Local Authorities

– not optional by contractor.

• Maximised use of Chiltern Line – limited

number of HGV’s allowed

• Double face working on green tunnel
• Incremental funding for public services
• Dust controls on spoil storage
• Limit night time working – 8 hours quiet time

HOW TO RESPOND

In Detail:

• Complete a response form or send a letter/email
• Send completed form or Emails to:

HS2PhaseOneBillES@dialoguebydesign.com

• Write to:

FREEPOST RTEC-AJUT-GGHH HS2 Phase One Bill Environmental Statement PO Box 70178 London WC1A 9HS OR

Complete a Postcard

Hybrid Bill & Petitioning

Thomas Crane HS2 Action Alliance

Who Are HS2AA?

• Formed

in 2010 as a national campaign to

• ppose HS2
• Led
• n

undermining business case for HS2

• Brought two court cases
• Full time campaigning effort

in Parliament.

• Thousands
• f

registered supporters across the country

• Funded

exclusively by donations from supporters

How Does HS2 Get Built?

The Government has decided that

Hybrid Bill….Select Committees….Petitioning

Use the Planning Act’s specially created process for large scale infrastructure projects

• r use an obscure

Parliamentary process from the Victorian era?

Parliamentary Process

Fair Process?

• Government use their power to whip MPs to get principle of

HS2 agreed. If you vote against your career suffers

• Government chooses the members of the Select Committee

who review HS2 route and environmental impacts.

• Each Select Committee member is paid extra for being a

committee member

• HS2 Ltd have lawyers in the room every day-unlimited legal

budget

• Huge efforts to limit people’s ability to petition by limiting

who has “locus standi”

• Select Committee not bound to accept evidence even when
• verwhelming.

What’s In The Hybrid Bill?

The Bill (400) and Explanatory Notes (300)

• Environmental Statement reports

(47,350)

• Book of Reference (1,500)
• Plans and Sections (400)
• Alternatives, Equality Impact Assessment

and Health Impact reports

What Does It Include?

• Land needed for railway and mitigation
• Approximate vertical alignment of route
• Limits of horizontal alignment
• Gives compulsory purchase powers
• Environmental impacts and mitigation
• NO detailed designs

Timetable

• Deposit – 27 November
• First reading – 4 December
• ES consultation – 10 Feb-closes
• Assessor report – early March
• 14 day deposit – late March
• Second reading – early April
• Petitions – April/May

What Is The Select Committee?

Reviews plans for HS2 in detail-like a local authority planning committee.

• Composition – 10 backbench MPs, no constituency
• r other interest – hand picked to be pliable!
• Quorum of 3 £15-20k per year for doing it
• Quasi-judicial process: hears evidence from

petitioners and HS2 Ltd. Counsel/experts involved

• Timing – could start shortly before summer recess,

but HS2’s timetable indicates may be Autumn

• HS1 lasted exactly 1 year, Crossrail 21 months. HS2

likely longer.

What Can Be Achieved?

• Bill can be amended
• Environmental Statement can be supplemented
• Promoters can enter legal agreements/give

undertakings and assurances

• Committee can require the promoters to do the above

People Can Get the Committee to Look At These Issues Through a Process Called Petitioning

Petitioning- The Basics

Likely to be hugely controversial issue and current rules unlikely to comply with European law or Human Rights Convention

• Any individual or body can deposit a petition, so long as they pay

the fee, comply with the procedures and the petition is in the correct form

• Only those “specially and directly affected” are entitled to appear
• n a petition against a hybrid bill

Time for depositing a petition

• Petitioning period is set immediately after second reading
• No petition can be deposited before petitioning time starts

running

• Petitions must be deposited strictly on time – no later than the

final date –maximum four week period for petitioning

Who Can Appear?

The general rule is that only those who are specially and generally affected by a hybrid bill are entitled to appear before a select committee on a petition

• This is for the select committee to decide
• It is for the promoter (the Secretary of State) to challenge the locus

standi of petitioners

• On Crossrail, no challenges were made
• On CTRL, 14 challenges were made, 1 petition survived (there were

nearly 1000 petitions in total) Whose locus will not be challenged?

• Local authorities (including parish councils) with land within the bill limits
• Owners, lessees and occupiers of land within the bill limits
• Statutory undertakers whose apparatus is to be affected

What Do You Submit?

• A petition must be deposited in person at the House of

Commons – no post, email or fax

• It can be deposited by the petitioner in person, or by any MP or

by a Parliamentary Agent

• You must provide
• The original signed petition
• The fee of £20
• A completed cover sheet (contact details etc)

What Happens Next?

• HS2 Ltd may contact you to discuss your concerns and

seek to reach agreement on points raised in the petition

• HS2 Ltd should contact you in due course:

–to let you know when the select committee proceedings will commence –to let you know if they intend to challenge your locus –to let you know when your petition is timetabled for consideration by the committee –to provide you with a petitioner’s response pack

Select Committee Appearance

• Petitioners do not have to appear in support of their
• petitions. But unlikely that the committee will read the

petition if they do not

• Petitioner can appear in person or represented by a

parliamentary agent or counsel

• A statement can be made by the representative and

they can call witnesses to give evidence (but don’t have to)

• This is the opportunity to expand on the points in the

petition and make the case for the remedy sought

• The committee will wish to know precisely what it is

the petitioner wants them to do.

What Can Be Achieved?

• Committee can recommend changes in design

–Examples on HS1: Barking tunnel; Maidstone lowering; Thurrock and Rainham line shifts; Stratford station long box; Full tunnel approach to St Pancras –Examples on Crossrail: Liverpool St Station, Romford station, Woolwich station –Beware: the government may disagree

Conclusions

• The Hybrid Bill and Petitioning Process is designed to be

difficult, minimise the ability of communities to have their say

• n HS2 and ensure the quickest possible approval of HS2,

regardless of the environmental consequences.

• Don’t be put off by these administrative processes-its actually

quite easy and its important we put in as many petitions as possible.

• HS2AA believe the petitioning process is incompatible with

important European legislation and the Human Rights Convention

• Further guidance will be issued on www.hs2aa.org on how to

complete a petition

HS2 Ltd are trying to stop you from having your say-don’t let them get away with it

www.hs2aa.org/signup

Petitioning - Wendover

The petition must follow a certain format and must cover, inter alia:

• the name or names of the individuals,

businesses or organisations presenting the petition;

• a brief description of the Bill and of the

relevant clauses of the Bill which affect the petitioner;

• a brief description of how the petitioner is

directly and specially affected by the Bill; and

• a brief description of any alternative proposals

which should be adopted in order to mitigate

• r remove the adverse impacts of the Bill, or to

say how the Bill should be amended to achieve this. All issues to which a petitioner objects must be covered in the petition. If an issue is not covered the Select Committee will not consider that issue.

What’s Involved?

• We would encourage everyone who is

directly impacted by HS2 to petition.

• it costs £20 and a little bit of time.
• By lodging a petition HS2 Ltd. may come to

negotiate with you – they want to minimise the number of petitions.

• Once you have lodged the petition then you

have to wait to see if you are chosen to be heard.

• At this point you could chose to join with
• ther petitioners or withdraw your petition
• If you are chosen you have the opportunity

to ask Parliament for the mitigation you deserve.

How We Will Help

• For those who want to sign up to

petition we will be holding a number of workshops to help you prepare your petition.

• We are planning to have one or

two Parliamentary Agents Roll B.

• They will help you lodge the

petition and help with the select committee if necessary. So please take this opportunity to have a voice and sign up.