Chalk and Trees - The Chilterns AONB

HS2 fight goes to court
he campaign to stop the HS2 high speed rail line will reach the High Court in December 2012 when five formal challenges
to the Government's proposals will
Tbe heard by a judge. The proposed
HS2 line will cut a permanent scar
across the Chilterns AONB at its widest
point and the years of construction
would cause huge disruption to local life,
the economy and wildlife. If the Court
upholds any of the challenges the
Government may be forced to go back
to square one.
Fight against HS2 goes on
The five challenges to the Government's
decision to proceed with HS2 will be heard in
the High Court of Justice over a seven day
period starting on December 3rd 2012. The
grounds for the challenges include:
High Speed 2
inadequate and faulty public consultation,
non-compliance with EU environmental
legislation,
selection of wrong route and
short-comings in the compensation scheme.
The judicial reviews will give anti-HS2 groups the opportunity to
paint a clear picture of the many flaws in the Government's case for
the new line and the processes it has followed so far. The Secretary
of State for Transport will also be required to explain how 400
responses were omitted from the public consultation analysis. The
challenges are being brought by:
51M group – an alliance of local authorities opposed to HS2
HS2 Action Alliance (two separate challenges)
Heathrow Hub – a pressure group campaigning for a direct link
to Heathrow Airport
Aylesbury Golf Club
If the Court upholds one or all of the challenges the Government
may be required to scrap the current proposals for HS2 and start
again.
Local campaign groups and community organisations have
been meeting HS2 Ltd at a number of Community Forums along
the proposed route through the Chilterns to raise issues about the
design and construction of the route and its environmental
impacts. Shirley Judges of the Great Missenden Stop HS2 group
summarises the frustrations felt about the ineffectiveness of these
Forums:
“
People's expectations that the Forums would be a genuine
chance to raise matters of concern with HS2 Ltd have not
been met so far. It is obvious that as far as HS2 Ltd is
concerned, the Forums are a box-ticking exercise, not a
serious contribution to the process.
”
Mess, ugliness and noise –
the construction of a high speed rail line in China
Value of AONB ignored
Incredibly, an assessment by the Department for Transport (DfT) of
the cost of the damage to the landscapes along the HS2 routes
places a value of zero on the AONB status of the Chilterns
countryside. The land that will be destroyed by the line in the
Chilterns has been given the lowest value category, despite that fact
that it is designated as some of the finest countryside in the UK.
This is a massive devaluation from the previous official assessment
in 2010. Hilary Wharf, of the HS2 Action Alliance, warned the
move:
establishes a precedent that the most precious green space
can be devalued whenever the Government wants to build
“on it badly enough.
”
The DfT claims the huge decrease in the value assigned to
environmental damage is partly due to changes to the route to
reduce its impact. However, the Board and others have already
shown that these changes will create more, not less, damage to the
Chilterns.
There is also strong evidence that HS2 Ltd's assessment of the
impacts on the environment of building the high speed line will be
completely inadequate. Public scrutiny of their plans to survey the
likely impacts of the line on wildlife, habitats and landscapes
resulted in thousands of comments pointing out many weaknesses,
but only a small number of changes were made to the final plans.
Surveys of wildlife are being squeezed into very short timescales –
less than a year – and there is no detail on the exact methods that
will be used. It seems that HS2 Ltd has not been instructed to carry
12 Chalk and Trees - Winter 2012