This is a guest post from David Edwards, Chair of SNAG, about the Greatworth HS2 Consultation road show.
Our roadshow was May 17th and a relatively modest affair compared to Great Missenden, with several tents and a mobile unit with sound booth simulation of HS2 through Greatworth, all in our local social club car park. However it was well attended with several hundred people from our village and neighbouring ones visiting and it did not close until after 8.30pm.
SNAG had a very sucessful anti roadshow in the driveway of the next door property. We were busy all day collecting over 500 signatures on a petition to Philip Hammond which our MP Andrea Leadsom will present to him. She came herself, as did the local press.
Also we handed out SNAG info on completing the consultation and on Rail package 2. These were very popular as people coming from roadshow were very fired up and keen to respond after being wound up by HS2 propaganda.
HS2 had turned out some key players and their Chief Engineer was helpful and came and looked at areas in village of particular concern.
What did backfire was HS2 simulation in the sound booth of a near silent train coming through Greatworth, as many people said if we can hear Silverstone on a race day which is nine miles away how can you expect us to believe we will not hear a 225 mph train which is just 400 metres away! This lost them any credibility that they had.
The info given out by HS2, especially the in your area leaflets and the interactive maps, are very useful and enabled people to ask detailed questions many of which HS2 could not answer. We advised people to fill in white HS2 question cards if they did not get a satisfactory response as these require a written answer: HS2 do not promote them.
All in all a bad day for HS2. I think despite their efforts they convinced nobody this was a good idea and just wound people up even more.
Lots of interested people in Greatworth- with a choice of sound effects.
Mention of Silverstone set me wondering…
It’s curious how people feel about Silverstone- it employs hundreds of people both on site and in the surrounding towns and villages, and while it develops and refines high tech engineering skills and innovations … and yet , in the end, what’s it all for? Thousands of people converge from hundreds, even thousands of miles away to pay massive sums to watch a dozen ridiculously expensive race cars driving round in circles, rapidly consuming numerous high tech tyres as they do so, inside an old airfield.
Then they all drive away again.
Not just on race days,but often, with the wind in the right quarter, the banshee howl of unsilenced engines intrudes mid week, here in Brackley.
Road closure,one way traffic streaming past, helicopters clattering overhead…
Is it “Green”?..How much hydrocarbon is consumed in the course of one weekend’s autofest?
And how much CO2 is added to enrich our local atmosphere?
But, hey this about is Cars! And Jobs! This is real Big Boy stuff..! and Money
Now, suggest spending an equal amount of effort to produce, say for instance ,a new transport system, a new railway perhaps, one that actually goes somewhere and relieves congestion, something that actually has some use…
“Don’t be ridiculous! That would nurdish, A Railway? Uncool ! Anyway, we might Hear it , We might even, Heaven forbid, See it!!!
Funny things,humans… ,.