HS2: Phase 2b Route (Manchester and Leeds)

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Kevin Barron

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) on securing a debate once again on this matter. Some Members will have heard in meetings that we have had with HS2 directly in this House that my constituency was to have been affected by HS2, which was going to go to Sheffield Meadowhall. Last year, the consultation on Sheffield Meadowhall ended, and for some strange reason, HS2 decided to consult on another route; how much this has cost the public purse, I have no idea whatsoever. The reason given as to why HS2 did not want the Sheffield Meadowhall station in South Yorkshire was that there had been objections from Sheffield City Council and local business organisations. Indeed, they had spent thousands of pounds of public money lobbying the Government for a second railway into the centre of Sheffield. They did not want to travel 10 minutes to Sheffield Meadowhall.

HS2 Ltd has now said that it will put HS2 into Sheffield Midland station; the line lands there and goes no further. At a consultation meeting on 12 July this year, Sir David Higgins said that the electrification of the line from Sheffield to Leeds, which would see a continuation of the HS2 route, was an aspiration. We were slightly disappointed, to say the least.

Last year, when I first questioned HS2 at the consultation meetings here in Parliament, Sir David Higgins said the development would not go ahead at Sheffield Meadowhall because there was a lack of consensus, so I asked him politely, “If there is no consensus on the new line on the eastern M18 route, which goes through my constituency, will that not go ahead?”. He would not answer me. I said to him, in Committee Room 20 or 21, “You don’t want to answer that question, do you?”, and he just shook his head and nodded up and down. Of course he did not want to answer that question. There has been very little consensus throughout the HS2 process.

The consultation on the M18 route ended earlier this year. There were 271 people who argued for the route, and 4,157 people who voted not to stop HS2, but to put the HS2 station back in Meadowhall, so that South Yorkshire would get the benefit of an HS2 station to help regenerate the local economy; that was what HS2, which I voted for in the House quite some time ago, was about. It is quite clear that the consensus arguments are not being accepted. We would not have a motorway or a railway anywhere in the UK if we first wanted consensus.

I believe that the decision is being based on data that, to put it kindly, are wobbly at best. I have raised the issue of the properties affected numerous times, both with Ministers and with HS2, and I have still not received an adequate answer. Chris Matthewman and Simon Cross from the local HS2 campaign groups have provided the Minister and HS2 with true property impacts, which were referred to on 29 August in a Yorkshire Post article that starts:

“HS2 is facing paying compensation to people and businesses in almost 1,300 properties along its revised route through South Yorkshire”.

It continues:

“the ‘M18 route’ after current official estimates said just 51 properties on the route were due to be affected”.

My understanding is that it is not denied that these 1,300 properties are likely to be affected.

The fact that roads have been split in half between those who can claim compensation and those who cannot is already causing huge anxiety in my constituency. The reroute will go through three villages in my constituency: Wales, at the southern end of my constituency; Aston; and Bramley, where it goes through an estate that I live on, which was built about 20 years ago and is right next to the M18, which is a crucial part in all this. As I say, this issue is causing huge anxiety. This is a prime example of the poor community engagement that still exists, despite pleas from many Members across the House not to leave residents to worry for many, many months.

I have received an email dated 4 September from a constituent—I will not use his name because I have not spoken to him, but I will send him a copy of Hansard. I will not read it all out, but it says:

“We live on Sherbourne Avenue on the Broadlands estate and have done so happily for over 10 years. We have 3 young kids aged 12, 6 and 4 and it was mainly for the wellbeing of the kids that we decided to make the difficult decision to sell to HS2 under their scheme. We are only 40 metres from the proposed track and are well within their safeguarded zone…We started the process in late January and are now at serious risk of losing the new build house that we hoped to move into (in August) due to the baffling incompetence of HS2…We have had more bad news from our solicitors this morning saying that it could be another 20 days minimum before anything significant happens!”

That is just not acceptable. The people at HS2 have known about this reroute since July last year. This person has three young children; given their ages, I would be worried about their education and where the family ought to be living in years to come. I am not saying that the children will be at school in 20 years’ time. This is a disgraceful way to treat people when we have known about this situation all along.

At the 12 July consultation meeting with the HS2 chairman, Sir David Higgins, in Committee Room 20 or 21, we had a battle over issues of property impact—that is a nice way of saying it—and an HS2 senior manager named Leonie Dubois said, “The number of properties affected does not form part of the route decision-making process.” I have had reams of emails and letters from the Department for Transport and from HS2, and now HS2 says that the number of properties does not affect the route.

The Minister is new in his job, so I am not blaming him, but the Department for Transport, which obviously gets advice from HS2 from time to time, wrote to me in a letter of 23 July:

“Using this approach, HS2 Ltd’s advice is that the M18/Eastern route would require 35 residential and 16 commercial demolitions, including 16 residential properties at the Shimmer estate.”

I have written to the Minister about that, and I thank him for the letter I received, although I do not understand how somebody in a new property in Mexborough can be offered £30,000, while my constituents who have been living in their houses for 20 years are offered nothing. I still cannot work that one out, but let us leave that aside for the moment. The letter continues:

“The refined Meadowhall route would require 80 residential and 47 commercial demolitions.”

I will not bother the Minister with more at this stage. However, I am still waiting for the meeting that I should have had in April with the group and with Ministers, which was called off because of the general election. I hope the Minister will agree to have that meeting, so that he can come and listen to what people are saying about what is happening in South Yorkshire. How can the fact that 600 properties in one village will be affected by HS2 not play a role in the location of the track?

I have been very positive in this House about HS2, but I have to say that I am now a little tempted to change my mind. Last year I was at the Broadlands estate in Bramley with three HS2 engineers. We stood next to the M18 and they tried to convince me that HS2 could get within 30 metres of the motorway and the houses. HS2 has implications for hundreds of houses on that estate. Like my constituent, I would just get out now.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

It seems that route decisions in Cheshire were made on the basis of the number of properties affected; I think that was recorded in official documents from HS2. The problem is that one thing is being said in one location and another thing is being said in another. The only thing we have in common is that our residents are not being treated in the timely manner that they deserve. There has been a massive impact on their lives, as the right hon. Gentleman has outlined.

[Sir Kevin Barron]

I completely agree.

According to the article in The Yorkshire Post, HS2 told journalists that the figure of 51 properties affected on the whole route—it will actually affect hundreds of houses in my constituency—was a reflection of a “very early design stage”. I know that the Minister has inherited this, but as a taxpayer I have to tell him that it is not acceptable to use tens of thousands of pounds of public money to pay compensation to those in houses on the Meadowhall route while people are using excuses of non-consensus. I hope that at some stage we will look again at what is happening in South Yorkshire, because it is doing damage. It is not in the interests of my constituents, South Yorkshire or the public purse.