HS2 update The Reality of Living with HS2
The immediate negative impacts of HS2 on Wendover are clear and terrible. The longterm disruptions that will be caused by its construction are harder to imagine but just as real. Ask the residents of Bowood Lane. They are currently living on the frontline. Fusion, the HS2 early works contractor, are using Bowood Lane as a site access road, mainly for vegetative clearance. Many of you will remember the fine words in Parliament about HS2 being good neighbours and using lorry wheel washers and sweepers and traffic management to mitigate disruption. That was “pie in the sky”. Also remember that this is not the main event, it’s a tiny contract and it’s causing chaos because of bad management and indifference. Mud, damage and trespass are commonplace and residents can get no redress from Fusion, HS2 or from the Highway Authority. If this is a microcosm of the impact of the whole
www.wendovernews.co.uk
project it does not bode well for Wendover. to design the scheme as per the Act. We WPC will complain formally on behalf of the are requesting that Rob Butler invites the community. Minister to Wendover as soon as possible. The PM and Andrew himself have stated that they will work with Wendover, so what An Invitation to the Minister As I started to outline last month, we better way than to visit? have had a lot of communication with Who Cares for the AONB government recently. The Bromford decision raises the question: I have now had sight of the response, dated What price the AONB? The driver for the 1 December, from Andrew Stephenson, MP, Bromford tunnel seems to be to solve a Minister of State at the DfT to Rob Butler's technical issue, to avoid some disruption letter of 19 November. Andrew tries to deny and to “save” an estate of industrial units. that there is any inconsistency between the For HS2, the unsolved technical issues way that the decision to use a Transport that dog the project around Wendover and Works Order Act to enable tunnelling at operational noise, the aquifer, flooding Bromford and the way Wendover is denied and the scarring of the AONB - don’t seem that same process. He takes comfort from worthy of the same consideration. Perhaps the fact that the Bromford contractor BBV you would contact Andrew Stevenson MP suggested a tunnel solution at Bromford. at the DfT and ask him why he cares so little He ignores the fact that EKFB, our for the AONB. contractor, was, we are told, encouraged Tom Walsh not to consider tunnelling at Wendover and
01296 624270
editor@wendovernews.co.uk
Wendover News January 2021
7
