HS2: Phase 2b Route (Manchester and Leeds)

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, Mr McCabe. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) on securing this debate, which is an important step in making sure residents and people across the country have confidence in this controversial and difficult project, but one that has the opportunity and potential to make some difference to our country if it is done in the right way. In the same way that HS2 is controversial in this House, HS2 is controversial in my constituency of North East Derbyshire as well. I genuinely welcomed the Secretary of State’s statement on 17 July, which helped to clarify matters in my constituency. The route has moved slightly further to the east, although that causes problems for the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron) in the constituency adjacent to mine.

I have three quick points on the change to the route. I hope the Minister will be willing to consider each of those. First, now that we are clearer about the route, following the statement on 17 July, my constituents’ thoughts and conversations over the summer have turned to what that actually means on a practical level. I recognise that, for all large infrastructure projects, a long period of design and development needs to take place so we understand what the implications are for the roads, the railway network, and the traffic and transport that is required to construct them. It would be very helpful if constituencies such as mine could obtain an understanding of the likely implications when the construction works begin. Which roads will be affected and how much is likely to come down them? That will enable people to start preparing and having discussions at this early stage. I fear that if we have yet more consultation meetings in North East Derbyshire and across the country in which such basic, practical questions cannot be answered, or are deferred for a couple of years, it will add to the weight of cynicism that is already in place in constituencies such as mine.

The second issue relates to where HS2 will link to existing track. In my constituency, given the changes that the right hon. Member for Rother Valley talked about—it will move into Sheffield directly—it is proposed that existing elements of the legacy track will be used. There will need to be significant changes to the legacy track, including electrification, one assumes. It would be useful to get more detail at the earliest possible stage, because residents who think that the track has moved elsewhere and are no longer quite as affected by it as they were still need to understand the great implications of the changes and upgrades to the lines on the existing network, and the implications for the midlands main line and the franchise that runs on the existing network.

Finally, villages in my constituency, including Killamarsh, Renishaw and Spinkhill, have previously faced the real challenge that many colleagues have talked about today. They were on the previously reserved route and have suffered the blight that has been described. Happily, most of the blight has been removed, at least for the villages in my constituency, because the route has moved elsewhere, but they have suffered for a number of years. We have had four and a half years of missed opportunities, economic consequences and decisions foregone. For example, for four and a half years the Chesterfield Canal Trust has not been able to make decisions about the restoration of a very important asset in north Derbyshire. I recognise that money is tight, and I promise the Government that, as a Back-Bench Conservative Member of Parliament, I will not make a habit of coming to ask for money, but I wonder whether consideration can be given to compensation schemes for those who were affected by the blight for several years. They may be no longer affected but their lives have been changed none the less. I hope the Minister will be willing to consider those issues.