Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of the land due to be compulsorily purchased for High Speed Two is required for (a) construction of the track and associated infrastructure and (b) environment mitigation.

It is not possible to answer the question as stated. HS2 is an integrated railway that has been designed to avoid and or reduce environmental impacts throughout its development. The approach used to developing this railway has been to fully integrate environmental mitigation into the railway’s design. For example, environmental impacts and mitigations are considered when designing the depth of a particular cutting.

It is therefore not possible to separate the usage of compulsorily purchased land into the two defined categories.