HS2: Phase 2b Route (Manchester and Leeds)

Debate between Amanda Milling and Antoinette Sandbach

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I completely agree. HS2 ought to look at tunnelling much more. We know that one impact may be 375,000 lorry vehicle movements. That will cause chaos on the rural roads around Eddisbury and will significantly disrupt some of the arterial routes through Cheshire, impacting on local businesses and local towns, so I agree that much greater consideration of tunnelling is needed.

There are impacts on my constituents, particularly at Wimboldsley Primary School, which is directly next to the proposed 4-km rolling stock depot site. The HS2 sift document, which informed the decision to move the depot from Golborne to Wimboldsley, made no mention of the primary school at all, raising serious questions about the scale of the analysis underpinning the decision. I am speaking for the parents, teachers and children who will have to suffer the consequences of the construction of that large piece of infrastructure and all the associated environmental and noise impacts if my hon. Friend the Minister does not intervene.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She talks about the construction phase. It has come to light that the construction phase may slow the redevelopment of the Rugeley B power station site—a key development site for new homes and new businesses that will create new jobs in my constituency. Does she agree that we are looking at many different implications from the construction?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

One key aspect of the business case for HS2 involved consideration of the economic benefits that it could bring. I question whether the economic blight associated with it has been appropriately considered. It appears very often that, in effect, a line has been drawn on a map and only afterwards have the problems caused by that line been adequately identified. My hon. Friend gives a very good example of how the construction impacts are not being adequately thought about at this stage.

For the reasons that I have set out, I urge HS2 and the Minister to act early in relation to Wimboldsley, where there are clearly significant issues, and to move the rolling stock depot to a more suitable site, either its original proposed site at Golborne or a new location, such as Basford sidings, south of Crewe.

I also wish to raise the decision last year to realign the route through Eddisbury 800 metres to the west, and the concerns that have been raised about taking it through an area with a greater amount of wet rockhead—unstable ground liable to subsidence as a result of salt. HS2’s decision to move the route came about because the original 2013 proposed route went through the area where the UK’s strategic gas reserves are stored. It was of course practical to move the route away from the gas reserves, but moving it 800 metres to the west has caused other problems, because it still goes through an area with geotechnical challenges that are not easy to engineer around and where there will be a significant cost to the communities and the taxpayer.

TerraConsult Ltd produced an independent geotechnical report on the proposed change of route and concluded that there would be an increase of 11% in the route length over wet rockhead. HS2’s lead ground engineer has called the ground conditions in the Cheshire salt area “spicy”, referring to the engineering challenges of building a high-speed railway line in that area, and HS2’s own consultant, Wardell Armstrong, recognises the risks of building HS2 through Eddisbury in its report on salt-related ground instability.

The Government must recognise the risks in the area and move the route away entirely. Alarmingly, before making route choice proposals, HS2 had not done any detailed ground surveys for use as a baseline to track ground movement. As far as I am aware, those surveys have still not been carried out.

The engineering challenges require significantly increased height and length of the embankments and viaducts—up to 26 metres. There will be two additional crossings of the Trent and Mersey canal, one at the location of previous subsidence at Billinge. That comes at an estimated additional cost to the taxpayer of £750 million and significantly increases the noise and visual damage for communities.

The route alternatives set out in the TerraConsult report should be looked at and given serious consideration. The decision document issued in July, following the recent consultation, does not contain any reference to the TerraConsult report or the points made in it. Was it considered in detail before a decision on the route in Eddisbury was made? If it was, why has HS2 to date failed to disclose the AECOM report, to which the Minister has referred in correspondence, despite numerous requests to do so?

In raising such serious issues, I consider the impact on Eddisbury and my constituents first and foremost, which brings me on to community engagement and the levels of communication and transparency. Progress has been made with the appointment of a new director of community engagement last December, and the publication of a residents’ charter, but information on the route has been difficult to obtain and public meetings have often left local residents unsatisfied.

When my office has requested information from HS2, there has often been a lengthy delay in responding. Previously, I have had to resort to freedom of information requests. When information is provided, it often lacks the necessary detail and does not fully answer the request. For a significant government project with huge ramifications for the public, all that must improve so that genuine local concerns can be fed into the process adequately.