High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill - High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee Contents


5  Matters pending for report back and decision

Approach to monitoring cases.

101. We have requested and obtained regular updates from the Promoter on unresolved petitions, including reports back on 11 Feb 2015 and on 16 March 2015. The Committee Clerk will pass the details of pending cases and all other relevant papers to our successor Committee so that that Committee is fully apprised of the facts relating to pending decisions, as well as of our views on the evidence we have heard and our reflections on other outstanding matters.

Specific cases

102. In some 20% of cases we have undertaken some active monitoring or requested a report back. Examples include the negotiations between Kenilworth Golf Club (404), Otter and Company (496) and HS2 Limited, and the petition of Silklink (Grimstock Country Hotel) (410), whose staff deserve some certainty of outcome. A smaller percentage are cases that we are confident will be settled but which we suggest also be monitored.

103. We want the Promoter to provide various reports back on Stoneleigh petitions. Proposed additional provisions will probably solve many of the issues there. Three of the principal petitioners—the Royal Agricultural Society (486), Grandstand Stoneleigh (488) and Motorsport Industry (490)—have reserved the right to return.

104. The petitions of Mr and Mrs Sadler (784) and Doreen Round (783) and Margaret and Peter Hughes of Truggist Hill Farm (224) illustrated a planning issue on the rebuilding of property affected by the line which we believed needed addressing. Mr and Mrs Sadler's farm in Staffordshire directly adjoins the location of the proposed link between the high-speed track and the West Coast Main Line. Whilst they do not wish to remain in their current farmhouse, they want to remain in the area and to build a new house on their own land, further from the line. HS2 Limited would acquire the existing building.

105. The Sadlers' dilemma is that local green belt planning restrictions prevent the building of a new home while the old one remains. Demolishing the old house would be a cost to HS2 Limited which on the face of it is both undesirable and unnecessary as, at the right price, it may find a willing occupier. Truggist Hill Farm (petition 22) and the petition of the Frushers (1521) present analogous issues with commercial buildings.

106. We wrote to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government requesting that such situations be examined and that guidance be given to local authorities whereby they may relax development rules in recognition of the exceptional circumstances here. He responded on 12 March 2015, saying that while he believed this was a matter best left to local authorities he would write to such authorities along the route and encourage due weight to be given to the railway's impact. We encourage those in a similar position to these petitioners to prepare and submit their applications. We recommend that our successor committee monitors progress.


 
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Prepared 26 March 2015