3 minute read
WENDOVER HS2 - MITIGATION GROUP
HS2 plans are going to create traffic misery, flooding & incessant noise!
Help us to do what’s right for Wendover
Bucks Council (BC) have the critical role of reviewing HS2 planning submissions and demanding adequate mitigation from their designs. This is the only opportunity available to us as a community to prevent traffic misery for everyone in the local area, save the reservoir & canal, ensure households in Stoke Mandeville & Aylesbury are safe from flooding, protect the beauty of our AONB and prevent households suffering from ongoing noise disturbance.
Hillingdon Council’s successful challenge of HS2 plans provided a clear precedent, so we are raising the alarm and supporting Bucks Council with the technical facts and questions they need in order to challenge HS2 contractor EKFB’s design on all our behalf.
We have very little time left before planning submissions are in, and you can help in two ways: by clicking on our website www.whs2. org to complete our survey and writing to our Councillors www.buckinghamshire.gov. uk, to ask them to support our mitigation solutions.
Here’s a round-up of all the latest news…
Traffic
WHS2 is monitoring the significant increase in HGV movements, comparing what has been declared by HS2 contractor EKFB vs predictions in the HS2 Act. Working with Highways and Bucks Council we are looking at solutions to reduce the impact of circa 800 twoway HGV trips a day on the A413 – that’s 5x more than previously declared that we should expect!
We are also collaborating with seven Parish Councils from Little Missenden up to Aylesbury to combine our mitigation efforts, and in particular traffic mitigation. This “stronger together” joined-up approach will tackle issues affecting not just Wendover, but all surrounding villages up and down the line to bring about meaningful change to HS2 plans.
Hydrogeology
Our expert reports indicate that up to 30 million litres of water per day – that is the equivalent of 12 Olympic sized swimming pools – will be diverted from the Wendover Arm Canal and the Weston Turville Reservoir, flooding Stoke Mandeville & Aylesbury.
This month HS2 and EKFB have confirmed for the first time that the Green Tunnel and North Cutting will indeed intercept the aquifer, but they insist the quantities of water involved are too low to consider.
This is their justification for not incorporating any of the basic mitigations we would expect - such as lining the cutting to prevent water flooding the track. After 6 years of campaigning, they have allowed us to review their ground water model which we have found only accounts for 25% of the total water involved. BC and the Environment Agency (EA) agree more work is required despite tests planned last year being further delayed!
Noise
Half of Wendover will suffer from excess noise, with trains every two minutes during the day and causing sleep disturbance at night.
Planning submissions are looming and a key factor in the Bucks Council review of the contractor’s plans is ‘stakeholder engagement’, including community opinion and this is where we need your help to complete our noise survey.
We will consolidate the results of the survey and present them to Bucks Council, HS2 and EKFB as the community view. They are obliged to give the same level of importance to this as to other criteria such as cost.
Please go to www.whs2.org and click on the ‘How to help’ button to complete our survey and ask your friends, family, and anyone else to click too, because the numbers really do count and every voice matters.
