After showing four years of total incompetence, HS2 Ltd were this week given a fresh start. With the establishment of the HS2 Hybrid Bill Committee, the DfT-owned quango were handed the chance to turn over a new leaf and demonstrate they could do things right. You might expect when given the chance to set a first impression to the Bill Committee, they’d want to seem at least slightly competent. Well, they blew it and yet again, demonstrated breath-taking incompetence.
To try and help out the committee, HS2 Ltd decided to provide a draft order (link) so petitions could be heard on a geographical basis. All sounds fine so far, and you would think that after over four years, HS2 Ltd would really have nailed down where the thing is planned to go. However, when naming the councils affected between Burton Green and the Colne Valley, HS2 Ltd made a minor omission. That omission is known by the people who live there as ‘Warwickshire’.
Yes, that’s right, HS2 Ltd managed to miss 20 miles of locations off their list, all the way from Wormleighton to Burton Green. HS2 Ltd get extra points for missing Burton Green, as they have named the section it is in “Burton Green to Colne Valley”. They did manage to include one of the councils, Warwick District Council, but for some reason decided that this was actually in North Warwickshire. Yet again, members of the public have had to pick up the slack and point out the mistakes. Warwickshire County Council was missed off from both the lists it could have been on. The draft order they provided to civil servants, which was sent out to the public via various agents can be found on this link.
What Warwickshire looks like, according to HS2 Ltd.
Just to demonstrate how completely HS2 Ltd have failed, the list of missing councils in is:
Warwickshire County Council
Warwick District Council
Stratford District Council
Burton Green Parish Council
Kenilworth Town Council
Stoneleigh Parish Council
Cubbington Parish Council
Weston Under Wetherley Parish Council
Eathorpe, Hunningham, Offchurch and Wappenbury Joint Parish Council
Ufton Parish Council
Southam Town Council
Ladbroke Parish Council
Wormleighton Parish Council
So HS2 Ltd had their chance to set a first impression to the Bill Committee, and they have set exactly the first impression everyone who has had to deal with them for the last four years would have expected. Start as you mean to go on guys!
More demands to install access routes across farms emerge. Works on the utility services and for extra crossing of farms and hamlets emerge with inadequate descriptions. Land take ahead of the bill petitioning prejudges no changes in practice outcomes. Demonstrates dictatorial approach of hs2. Put in complaints to this haste before petitioning has the chance to lower impacts. Drip drip toxic approach..