HS2 Judicial Review: Last Call for Evidence

After an eight-month wait, we finally have a date for the permissions hearing of our Judicial Review, a legal challenge against the decision by Government to issue HS2 with Notice to Proceed. Besides the fact that the criteria for issuing Notice to Proceed seem to have been completely ignored, the case is being brought on two main grounds: Fraud and Environment.

On the first score, you may well remember that we have pointing of that various things that have happened over the years which may well be considered as deception, misleading the public and parliament, concealing the truth and withholding payments from landowners. We believe that all of these things, could well be considered to be fraud by abuse of position under the terms of the 2006 Fraud Act. We’ve been putting together out evidence for a while, but there’s always the chance we missed something. So if there is something that is possibly a bit more obscure that is out there in the public domain, please send a link to evidence@stophs2.org. We also really want to hear from you if you are a landowner and HS2 Ltd haven’t paid you, because if you believe they have caused you to endure a loss, the we believe again that this is fraud by abuse of position, which is one of the elements of our challenge. Again, the email is evidence@stophs2.org, but we need your information by Tuesday 9th March,

The other main ground for our challenge is the around environmental impact of HS2. Sadly, HS2 Ltd and their contractors are allowed to carry out a massive amount of environmental destruction, as this was defined in the Act of Parliament that authorised the construction of the line. However, all of this destruction and the associated carbon emissions were supposed to be quantified in the Environmental Statement that accompanied the Act. The problem is that they are doing things which weren’t in the ES and have a definitive environmental impact, and do nothing but damage the already shaky carbon credentials of the project.

So we want to know about things that are happening or have happened which were not covered in the Environmental Statement. Looking at the maps, we want to know about construction compounds that were not meant to be there or the removal of trees and hedges that were meant to survive. With regard to the ES reports, we want to know about road closures that weren’t in the ES or have taken longer than was promised, as well as the use of roads for construction vehicle routes that they said they wouldn’t use. There’s are also the issue of things like working out of hours or discharging into water courses without permission, but you have to be certain they didn’t have permission. Basically we are looking for anything specified in the original assessments, that now hasn’t happened, where there is easy-to-demonstrate physical evidence, such as photos that you can provide. Also, if you were involved in petitioning during the parliamentary process and were promised something that hasn’t happened, we’d like to hear from you with any supporting documents. Again, the email is evidence@stophs2.org and again, we need it by 8th April.

For more details, and to review the original Environmental Statement report (just the traffic section) and the maps along with the subsequent Additional Provisions, visit https://stophs2.org/news/19432-judicial-review-evidence-links

Please note, because so much is coming in, we can’t promise to get back to you or even use what you have sent. If we do get permission for a full Judicial Review, we’ll be asking again.

We’ve so busy that we haven’t even put together a specific funding page as of yet. We expect to have that done soon after the deadline for submitting evidence later this week, but of course you can still make a donation in all the old-fashioned ways via our website at https://stophs2.org/donate/, and of course please remember that if you send a cheque or pay directly into the bank account, there are no fees, meaning what you donate is what we get, unlike Paypal and the various crowd funding websites which make a charge.

2010-2023 © STOP HS2 – The national campaign against High Speed Rail 2