Abridged from HS2 and the Environment, If I was in your shoes.
In my blog People like us (posted 16 Sep 2012) I referred to an article in the Observer published on Sunday 2nd September 2012), which includes quotes from an interview with Alison Munro, Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd…
“I don’t think they will be won over. I think the best we can hope for with people like them is for them to appreciate we’ve done as much as we can.”
Have you, Ms Munro, and your employees really “done as much as [you] can”?
If you have, why did your mitigation improvements concentrate on a small number of high profile locations, such as those within the constituencies of members of the Cabinet (or at least they were members at the time), whilst at the same time making things worse in low priority locations such as my own county of Warwickshire – something that I moaned about in my blog The ups and downs of route engineering (posted 9 Feb 2012)?
If you have done as much as you can, why have many communities along the line submitted their own proposals to reduce the impacts of the HS2 route design, based upon their own local knowledge, and why are these communities finding it such a struggle to get these proposals a fair hearing?
“What we also need to remember is that there are a lot of potential beneficiaries and sometimes you tend to lose sight of the people who actually want this.”
Well I have no argument there. Many people stand to make a lot of money out of HS2 and the snouts are well and truly plunged deeply into the trough. Apart from those unfortunates blighted by the route, the only people who really stand to lose financially, as far as I can see, are taxpayers.