Amersham Newsletter - 5th July 2013
HS2 Draft Environmental Statement: please submit your comments by 11 July
The consultation on the HS2 Draft Environmental Statement (DES) and Code of Construction Practice (CoCP) closes on 11th July. Study of the many documents that make up the DES and CoCP raises serious concerns. For example, the CoCP confirms that tunnelling will take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Work on the ventilation shaft near Whielden Street (and other shafts in the area) may also be carried out seven days a week, for three years – generating some 200 lorry movements per day around the site. Crucially, there is no proposal for independent monitoring of the CoCP to safeguard our interests during the very intrusive construction period.
It is important that as many of us as possible submit our comments to the consultation, by the closing date of 11 July. You can submit your comments, quickly and easily, by email to HS2draftES@dialoguebydesign.com. The HS2 Amersham Action Group has prepared some notes from which you are welcome to select any relevant points for your response. Do ask for an acknowledgement of your email to confirm that your comments will be taken into account as part of the consultation.
Should you prefer, you can also respond to the three (very complex) consultation questions online, at https://hs2draftes.dialoguebydesign.net.
HS2 in Parliament
You will probably be aware that the Commons passed the Paving Bill to authorise further spending for HS2, now dramatically revised to £42.6 billion - excluding trains. An amendment to the bill, introduced by Cheryl Gillan, was supported by 37 crossbench members. However, there is still a way to go to the Hybrid Bill. A recent briefing note for MPs states that “the Hybrid Bill for phase 1 is currently expected in October 2013, though it is highly unlikely to pass through Parliament before the next election.” Alistair Darling and John Prescott are now amongst the Labour ‘names’ who have voiced their opposition to HS2.
HS2 in the Media
The media – and some high profile figures – keep up the pressure against HS2. Here is just a selection: on 1st July, http://www.ft.com/ carried an article headed “Growth of handheld computers hits economic argument for HS2”. On the front page of the Financial Times (Tuesday, 2nd July) Peter Mandelson (the former business secretary who backed HS2 while in government) labels HS2 “an expensive mistake”. This was picked up by most of the nationals. The editorial in the Financial Times of 3rd July was headed “Abandon Britain’s White Elephant – It makes sense to cut the losses and HS2 in its tracks.” There was an excellent article by Tim Montgomerie in The Times www.thetimes.co..uk on 1st July (“By the time HS2 arrives we’ll no longer need it”) and another in The Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/finance by Jeremy Warner on 4th July, headed: “If it looks, walks and talks like a white elephant, then it must be High Speed 2.”