INDEX

Subject Page

Brian and Michelle Lewis

Submissions by Mr Lewis

Davenham Parish Council

Submissions by Cllr Powell and Cllr Ryder

Response by Mr Mould

Minshull Vernon and District Parish Council

Submissions by Cllr Stringer and Mr Hine

Response by Mr Strachan

Evidence of Mr Smart

(At 4.15 p.m.)

CHAIR: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to today’s meeting of the High Speed Rail Hybrid Bill Select Committee. We’re not expecting any votes this afternoon. Nothing’s expected, vote or business, before 5.30.
Before we begin though, I am just going to put on record some guidance for future petitioners, with regard to their appearances before the Committee. The guidance is not to limit what petitioners can bring before the Committee but to support petitioners in how to make best use of their time before us and to make their presentations efficient and effective. It will undoubtedly prove to be the case that petitioners who are clearer and more concise with the Committee, and who make clear requests of either this Committee or the promoter, will turn out to be more successful in their petitions.
And the purpose of a petitioner appearing before the Committee is to seek a ruling or a resolution on points of contention between the petitioner and the promoter which have not been or cannot be resolved through the normal channels of discussion and negotiation between the parties, and I have previously expressed to HS2 what the Committee expects from HS2 in that regard, particularly in responding in a timely manner to unresolved issues.
Consequently, to ensure a fair process, and to assist all parties, it is important and indeed vital that, when appearing before the Committee, petitioners are clear on those points of contention and clear on their asks of this Committee and the solution or solutions they seek. Factual or technical questions should not normally be brought to the Committee as they can be asked of and answered by the promoter or HS2 Ltd in other fora and petitioners should avoid making new asks, or raising issues not previously raised with the promoter during the hearing, as it may be possible to resolve these externally and it may not be possible for the promoter to respond adequately, without prior notification. The lack or sufficiency of response to questions or certain issues by the promoter is a separate matter which can, of course, be brought to our attention.
Petitioners should also be aware that in addition to there being some points on which the Committee cannot make a determination, there are also issues upon which it would not be appropriate for us to do so. The Committee will not, for example, make specific recommendations relating to certain issues arising from road closures, traffic management plans, as these are the responsibility of the relevant local highway authority. We accept petitioners have genuine concerns and issues related to these traffic management plans but they are largely not matters upon which the Committee will be able to involve itself. The principal local authority responsible for these should be engaged on such matters at the appropriate time.
Similarly, some key design elements will be subject to a separate planning process in which, of course, this Committee has no role. Whilst we understand petitioners may have important questions on such matters, these are better dealt with through the planning process at that time and those planning processes, of course, have a full public consultation element to them.
When appearing before the Committee, therefore, petitioners should focus on the following: any remaining issues of concern with the impact of the proposals of the Bill scheme which have not been resolved during negotiations with the promoter and the specific practical solutions, mitigations or asks they are making of the promoter, in order to address these issues of concern, or on which they wish this Committee to express a view. Petitioners will have seen from previous hearings that we tend to ask the promoter’s representative to open the session by giving a short factual introduction to the area in question. Consequently, we don’t need the petitioner to repeat that process. We would also ask petitioners to be cognisant of the fact that the Committee may already have heard detailed arguments from other petitioners on the same issue. While we recognise that many issues affect multiple areas, or petitioners, it is sufficient to simply note your support for or agreement with the arguments previously presented, adding, of course, any additional information or context which is necessary for your particular area.
Petitioners are advised to read the transcripts of previous hearings with petitioners from the same area or on the same point, so as to be aware of what the Committee has already heard. This is, of course, to ensure that – this is for the benefit of petitioners, to ensure that your time, petitioners’ time, is not wasted repeating arguments which the Committee has already heard, in some cases, several times, enabling us to devote more time to the specific asks or concerns of the petitioner. That guidance is issued to facilitate petitioners and to ensure that your time before this Committee is put to best use and so that the Committee is able to assist where it wishes to do so, as best as possible.
So on that basis, sorry if it took a little bit of time, but we want to obviously, as I say, facilitate this process to work as efficiently and as effectively for the benefit of all. We have three petitioners before us today. As a guide, therefore, this Committee does end at 7.00. We are prepared to run over a few moments, a few minutes, so people should proceed on the basis, all three petitioners today, that they have an hour, maximum. If petitioners, during that period, wish to – the time in which HS2 will get to respond to that, of course, will be determined on how long a petitioner takes but if the time is divided up appropriately, we’ll allow the petitioner some opportunity to potentially question HS2 back, once they have provided their initial response to the petition.
So, having talked about the need for urgency and then talked for a very long time, I will now hand over to Mr Mould who will set out our first petition today, which relates to Brian and Michelle Lewis, of which we have Mr Lewis here today as the petitioner. So, Mr Mould, over to you.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you. Just before I do that, may I just make one very brief announcement, which I hope will be of assistance to you and to petitioners? It’s this. The fourth publication of the draft register of undertakings and assurances for this Bill has been published today via the HS2 website. The register now contains 319 commitments in total and the project will be writing to all beneficiaries who have been offered undertakings or assurances, in other words, the beneficiaries of those 319 commitments, just to ask that they review the register and ensure it matches their understanding of what it is that they’ve been offered.
CHAIR: Thank you.

Brian and Michelle Lewis

MR MOULD KC (DfT): Turning then to Mr and Mrs Lewis’ petition, P236, we are in the vicinity of the Hoo Green junction, which I believe you may have visited.
CHAIR: We did.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Mr and Mrs Lewis’ property, which is known as Wrenshot Cottage, has been shown outlined in red on the plan in front of you. You can see that it is located to the west of the Hoo Green junction. It’s about 400 metres distant from the centre line of the London to Liverpool junction spur, which you can see with an arrow pointing to it from the box.
Mr and Mrs Lewis are the owner occupiers of Wrenshot Cottage. The Hoo Green junction, as you will know, not only accommodates the main Crewe to Manchester HS2 railway line, which is the line which is running off north in a north-easterly alignment down to the bottom right-hand corner, but also makes provision for a future connection to the West Coast Main Line, which is the centre of those two railway lines, the spur which is being pointed out now, and also for a future connection between London and Liverpool on the Northern Powerhouse Railway programme, which forms part of the Government’s integrated rail plan.
If we turn then to P235, I’ll show you the construction plan. As you can see, a good deal of land is subject to use for construction purposes. This is a major element of the proposed railway. You can see that, firstly, there is a proposal for the Wrenshot Lane satellite compound and an associated laydown area to be located between the London to Liverpool spur and Wrenshot Cottage. You see that.
And there is also what on plan is shown as a pink line running quite close to the boundary of Wrenshot Cottage, which is being pointed out to you now. The satellite compound and the lay down area, plainly serve the main construction works in this location and they are due to be in place for three years and three months. That pink line is the line of an existing gas main and powers are taken under the Bill to enable the decommissioning of that gas main. It’s going to be relocated to the eastern side of the railway. The reason why powers are taken there is because it may be necessary to inspect the decommissioned main for safety purposes, to maintain pressure and that kind of thing, and it may also be necessary to do some grouting work, in order to stabilise the decommissioned infrastructure but I am instructed that it is not intended to remove the gas main itself. So those works are to do with what will be an abandoned facility rather than carrying out major excavations in order to install or to replace an existing facility.
There is a proposal, which was communicated to Mr Lewis last week, and also to one of those who lives nearby at Yew Tree Farm, Mr Wright, who’s going to come and be presenting a petition to you tomorrow, to divert a water main along Wrenshot Lane. Do you see Wrenshot Lane shown there? If the cursor could just find Legh Cottage at the other end of Wrenshot Lane and then just go down. You can see that there’s a strip of pink just next door to the Mere Court Hotel. That pink area is an area where, under the Bill proposals, that water main would be laid but that is an area that is in active agricultural use by Mr Wright, who farms that field from Yew Tree Farm. And so discussions are taking place at the moment with the water company and, I think, with the local highway authority, with a view to freeing Mr Wright’s field from the need to accommodate that main and, instead, to run that main through Wrenshot Lane, which would obviously bring some works closer to the petitioner’s property. So I thought it right to draw that to your attention. It’s not yet a formal plan, because it will need to be included in a future additional provision, but it’s something that may well find its way into an additional provision in due course.
Returning to where we are now, Mr and Mrs Lewis’ petition request is admirably simple. They ask that the Secretary of State should purchase their property. The response to that request that has been given hitherto is to draw their attention to the need-to-sell scheme, which is one of the non-statutory property schemes. I think they were informed of that scheme on 24 January and there was discussion of its components and requirements at a meeting that was held with them on 28 March. It’s also referred to in the petition response document and it’s also referred to in the petition summary letter dated 14 April, which you have at P237. We don’t need to turn it up.
The project’s position, and I say this with a view to giving you an idea of where we see the issue before you today, is quite straightforward. The project says that the right course is for Mr and Mrs Lewis to make an application under that scheme. If that succeeds, there will be no need for the Committee to do anything. If it fails then we, for our part, would be content for the matter to come back for you to consider, because we can tell you the reasons why it has failed and you can decide whether you should intervene with the benefit of that.
So I thought I ought to outline that straightforwardly at the outset so that Mr Lewis, as it were, knows where we stand in relation to that point.
CHAIR: And then, when you respond later, Mr Mould, if you could just remind the Committee of the process for the need-to-sell scheme as well.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I will, yes.
CHAIR: Given we have a number of different schemes in place. Okay. Is that everything?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you very much.
CHAIR: Okay, thanks, Mr Mould. Mr Lewis, over to you.

Submissions by Mr Lewis

MR LEWIS: Thank you for inviting me and allowing me to present my case to you today.
CHAIR: No, thank you for coming.
MR LEWIS: And before I start, may I just thank Rachna Shah? She’s been very helpful over this past period and she’s a credit to the company and the organisation, so my sincere thanks to her.
I’m here today primarily because of health: my health and my wife’s health, yes, because it’s not been really mentioned by anybody at HS2 or anywhere else since this whole concept came to our notice in 2013. Can I just show photos A46(1), (2) and (3), please?
And we’ve lived in this house, we’re going to show you a photo of, for 35 years. We bought it to die in. We’re much closer to that dying now than what we were 35 years ago, and we love this house and we love the area, and it’s bliss. There’s one car an hour going down its lane and it is tranquil beyond imagination.
So it is with great sadness, thinking we have to try and move. In 2013, when this was first announced, HS2, for the full lines of HS2, we immediately put the house up for sale with the local leading estate agent. We had very limited replies in that period for selling it, even when we reduced the priced, because of all the uncertainty even in 2014 of what would happen to the railway line, noise, vibration, future etc.
So I had put the request in to HS2 for purchasing but as I believe it today and in the historical past, we do not qualify on the grounds for the need-to-sell scheme. We’re not getting divorced after 50 years of marriage, hopefully. We’re not in severe financial trouble. I have retired now so I’m not going to go to another job at the far part of the country. So although there may be a time, financially and health wise, I need to speak to an NTS officer, today isn’t the time for that, hence my time in front of you to try and get some forward thinking on that.
The World Health Organisation says good health is defined by ‘the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing of the individual’. Complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. Gentlemen and ladies, after the last eight or nine years of HS2’s planning changes, movements, discussions, uncertainties, we haven’t had much mental wellbeing living at Wrenshot Cottage or know where we’re going to or what’s going to happen to us.
So, in my own case, I have been suffering from a blindness-threatening disease, called macular oedema, for the past 10 years. I’ve been under surgeries more times than I dare remind myself of. I’m on continuous medical assistance for this. I also have – I was born with a severe scoliosis of my spine so my lung capacity is only 50% of a normal human being.
My wife, 18 months ago, underwent shoulder surgery, for replacement shoulder surgery, and the wonderful surgeon managed to smash her shoulder to bits so it’s never going to be the same again. He took an eight-centimetre piece of bone out by hammering too hard and it can’t be replaced and we’re in trouble. So her love of the garden, which if you can see, I think, is a pretty impressive credit to her, is proving more and more challenging for me to try and help to get it sorted out. So that’s an issue for us in the future.
But health, it’s our mental health as well as our physical health that bothers me. So when I was looking at all the documentation, and my goodness, there’s a lot of documentation that HS2 provide us with, and thankful or not for most of that, it’s really a case of – do they really appreciate, with all their facts and figures, what it’s like in real life? So, for example, you know the four lines for HS2. The one that is being called the Golborne link that was going to go north, yes, which has now been put on either temporary, permanent, who knows what, delay on it, but they’re still building it 900 metres past our house, okay?
Northern Powerhouse Rail, which I’m a great fan of Northern Powerhouse Rail, being in the north, we definitely need something. We actually need the Leeds to Hull and Liverpool to Leeds line more than anything else, but away from that –
CHAIR: Hear, hear.
MR LEWIS: I mean we definitely – it’s desperate for that so – but with this situation with these two lines, the NPR line, which I know this Committee is not on your brief is to discuss, but it exists in my life and if you go back to the previous map that we started off, I think it’s P236, you will see six railway lines, okay? Now, one year ago, they were doing some – if you look at the left-hand corner of this map you can see now, one year ago, in a field of Yew Tree Farm, HS2 were doing some digging with an excavator, a single excavator, into clay soil. I assure you that we heard that noise living in our garden during that long week. I am told by all these reports of European health and government health that building six railway lines with 115 staff, God knows how many mechanical diggers etc, I won’t hear the noise in Wrenshot Cottage. I’m sorry. I’m sorry; I just can’t believe that, okay?
Secondly, if we do get a chance to sell outside the NTS scheme, and try and sell it privately, it was bad nine years ago trying to sell it with four railway lines. With six, you could imagine the difficulty because it’s the uncertainty, gentlemen and ladies; it’s the not knowing what’s going to happen. We don’t even know now whether there’s going to be a Golborne link past the 900 metres. We don’t know whether NPR is going to happen and where it’s going to go to properly. So it’s uncertainty that cripples everything and gives us angst and just – we don’t know.
Today, I was speaking to a senior engineer of HS2, a charming gentleman, and I asked him about noise and dust. And there are, if you look at the reports – please don’t, because you won’t understand them, I don’t think – it tells you we are not going to be affected by noise and dust, okay? But I don’t believe that about the four lines but he admitted today that the NPR line, which would be built at 900 metres alongside our house, that’s not been considered in their plans. It has not been considered for the dust or the noise that’s going to come from that, which I think is rather a neglect of duty.
With that situation, where we’re going to, I think we really need to find some way. So it says in the documentation, if and when the HS2 start work along this area, they will, as a matter of good course, keep in contact with what’s happening there and do a new and updated report as and when they think that’s necessary. So I would ask today: will HS2 make a commitment to me that when those reports are done, will they please show them to me in advance of alterations taking place? Will they also please make a commitment that when I wake up in the morning, and my windows are bloody filthy, and my cars are covered in dust every day from the dust that doesn’t exist, according to the world organisation in their script, will they come and see it? Because unless they provide me with a monitor to test these things, the only way of doing it is by my lungs and the dirt on my windows, the house and the cars, which gentleman and ladies, I can assure you will happen.
We live east of this construction. The wind blows mostly in High Legh from the east. So if you put a pile of smoke up there, it’s going to blow over towards me, seven out of 10 times. That’s okay.
CHAIR: Sir –
MR LEWIS: Sorry.
CHAIR: Sorry to interrupt but I mean, Mr Lewis, we’re very careful – as I said in my opening statement, we don’t want new requests adding in to the petition. Your petition is very clear in that the solution you’re seeking from the Committee is you want your house to be purchased.
MR LEWIS: Which I don’t think the need-to-sell scheme, now, would allow me to do.
CHAIR: Right, no, indeed. So what you’re seeking from the Committee, just for me to be clear – because you’re obviously talking about other things you’d like HS2 to do during the construction phase, but your request in your petition is for this Committee to direct HS2 effectively to purchase your property.
MR LEWIS: Yes, yes.
CHAIR: Okay. On that point then, you showed us some lovely pictures of a very lovely house by the way and a lovely garden, and whoever does your garden, come and do mine, please. It doesn’t look like that. But your view from that garden then, as we look back at that, that’s not towards the railway lines, is it? Am I right in that if I look at this property –
MR LEWIS: If you look south, no, it’s not.
CHAIR: No.
MR LEWIS: But if you look east, it is.
CHAIR: Right, okay.
MR LEWIS: But from the rear garden, you actually can’t see that happening because we put 250 trees in there to blank out that.
CHAIR: Right.
MR LEWIS: But what HS2 haven’t considered, and there’s no map and there’s no mention of it anywhere in any of the documentation, is the view from our front garden, okay?
CHAIR: So your contention is that the noise during the construction period and then obviously the operational noise post-completion will be such that your enjoyment of your property will be so affected that you wish –
MR LEWIS: Most definitely during construction.
CHAIR: Yes, yes.
MR LEWIS: Most definitely. The satellite compound, you see, 115 workers, yes, for three years nine months, not three years three months, according to the documentation. There are children living at Wrenshot House. They’ve rented it. HS2 own it. It’s my next-door neighbour. They’ve rented it out. They’ve got two children there. We can hear them gladly playing during the course of a weekend, which is lovely. That’s two children, not 115 workers with sledgehammers. So I really don’t see how that’s going to be anything we can live with etc.
CHAIR: Have you commenced – correct me if I’m wrong on this; I’m looking at HS2 here – you can begin an application to the need-to-sell scheme now.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes.
CHAIR: You just need to have no prior knowledge of the scheme. Is that correct?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): There are five criteria.
CHAIR: Qualifying criteria.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I can remind you of them in a moment.
CHAIR: Please.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): But, no, you can make an application now or indeed at any time between now and the end of the first year of operation of the railway.
CHAIR: Mr Lewis, if you don’t mind, you don’t mind if Mr Mould just reminds us of what the qualifying criteria are.
MR LEWIS: I’d be delighted.
CHAIR: For our help, the five qualifying criteria are – if you’re able to do that now.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. One needs to be an owner occupier of a dwellinghouse.
CHAIR: Tick.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): That’s ticked. You need to be able to show that your enjoyment of your property is likely to be substantially affected by the scheme.
CHAIR: By construction or by operation?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): By either.
CHAIR: Either, alright.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Or both. And although I can help you in a minute with what we’re actually predicting here, I think you can assume, given the rather idyllic rural surroundings here, that a major construction project within a few hundred metres, the Secretary of State is likely to accept that that criterion is satisfied.
The third is that you have made efforts to sell your property but have been unable to do so, other than at a significant diminution in its unblighted market value. Whether that has been done recently, I don’t know, but one would assume that that is something that can be dealt with in practice.
Fourth is that you had no prior knowledge of the scheme when you bought the property. That’s obviously satisfied here because the petitioner has lived here for many years.
And the fifth, and that which requires information from the applicant, is that you are able to share what is known as a compelling reason to sell your property and there are no fixed categories against which that criterion is measured but I can say now, if you’ll forgive me, Mr Lewis, old age and health are recognised factual circumstances, which taken together are, in principle, able to justify that criterion.
So those are the five considerations. I can help you in a moment with the practicalities of how the process works.
CHAIR: So, on that basis, Mr Lewis, you haven’t commenced an application for the need-to-sell scheme.
MR LEWIS: No, I have not. At this stage, no, I have not.
CHAIR: Are you intending to do so?
MR LEWIS: After what I’ve just heard now, yes, potentially, but those weren’t the reasons that I was under the impression one could claim for. It was what I said to you before about divorce, bereavement, employment in a different area etc, yes? So could HS2 please send me, as a courtesy, what has been discussed, including old age etc, because that wasn’t considered as part of my information pack?
CHAIR: So would you be content to apply under that scheme, under the need-to-sell scheme, await the response form that scheme and then, if it’s not satisfactory, potentially return to the Committee then?
MR LEWIS: I would, and I was not aware until your good Chairman had spoken that I was able to potentially re-appear in front of the Committee, yes?
CHAIR: I think that’s in order, isn’t it? Well, with the Committee’s agreement, if you’re happy, Mr Lewis, I think we can end the proceedings on this today, now, wait for your application to need-to-sell and then give you the opportunity, if you’re not successful under that, to come again before the Committee. You don’t need to rehearse all the arguments if you come back but for us to then make a consideration at that point if HS2 have no objection on that front.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No, I think I suggested that in opening.
CHAIR: And now I’ve stolen your idea and made it mine, Mr Mould.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No, no.
CHAIR: As I remember it, me and Mr Lewis cooked that up between us so that’s – but, no, if you’re happy with that, I think we can end the proceedings there then.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, absolutely, and I’m not for a minute seeking to claim ownership of it.
CHAIR: I’m only joking.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I ought just to say for the record, firstly, I’m very much grateful for the kind words that Mr Lewis said at the beginning of his presentation relating to Rachna Shah, and it’s always a pleasure to hear petition managers acknowledged in the work that they do. And, secondly, can I just say, although I’m not going to show you it now because it would be invidious, the chain of correspondence does show that reference has been made to the need-to-sell scheme, so I’m delighted that Mr Lewis is willing to take that course, yes.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: Those references to the need-to-sell scheme, was it made clear that age or ill-health were issues that could potentially be successful under that scheme or be discussed?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Reference was made to the guidance documentation, which makes that very clear indeed.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: It’s in the guidance.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, yes. And we can make sure that Mr Lewis – I mean, he’s had reference – he’s been referred to the link, the website links but I’ve no doubt at all that if he would find it helpful, we can email to him directly a copy of the guidance.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: The only thing I could add to that is, I haven’t been looking at my text messages while I’ve been on my phone; I’ve been looking at the guidance document and I’m sure I absolutely believe it’s in there but I’ve been trying to find it and have struggled to do so. So I wonder if it’s just worth doing something about that.
MR LEWIS: You and I both. It’s not easy. And why can’t they just put that in part of the main pages –
CHAIR: The letter to you, yes.
MR LEWIS: Why have I got to try and find it in 54,000 computer pages? I couldn’t find it.
CHAIR: Well, yes, that’s been heard by HS2, I think. You’ve made the point.
MR LEWIS: Okay.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): So it might be helpful if I just said this. In the guidance document that I think you may have been looking at, from about page 28 onwards, I think, there are a number of pages which give examples of cases across a wide range of categories where successful applications have been made, and I thought it might be helpful to put that on the record because if people in future are interested to know that, then that will direct them to the right location.
MR LEWIS: And there are, and none of them mention old age.
CHAIR: Okay, right, okay.
MR LEWIS: For the record.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: A bit of bedtime reading.
CHAIR: For everybody. Holly will go away and read it and report back to us tomorrow.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: I probably will, actually.
CHAIR: Mr Lewis, thank you for coming down. I’m sorry if we’ve dragged you here and now we’re sending you away to do something that could have been done without the awful train journey down to the south of England, but I apologise for that. But thank you for coming and we’ll be happy to see you again if the need-to-sell application isn’t successful, and we will then pick up the proceedings from where we ended today.
MR LEWIS: Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the Committee.
CHAIR: No, it’s fine. Thank you for coming, sir. We appreciate it. So we’ll move on to the next petitioners, who are Davenham Parish Council, and we have Cllr Mark Powell and Cllr Ian Ryder, who is the parish council chair. We’ll just get your name plates in place.

Davenham Parish Council

CHAIR: It will be the same process as we’ve had before but we’ll just start with Mr Mould and then obviously we’ll move on to the parish council as the petitioners. Mr Mould?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Thank you. If we can start with P208. You can see in the usual way that the area of Davenham parish is shown outlined in red on the screen in front of you. As you can see, the railway line actually runs in a northerly direction through the eastern side of the parish. The village itself is towards the western side of the parish. You can see it being pointed out to you now. It’s just to the south of Northwich.
If we then turn to P210(1), I’ll show you the railway as proposed on that alignment through the eastern side of the parish. We’ve obviously now turned the point of the compass, so north is to the right of the page, and you can see that the railway is running through a fairly watery environment. We’ve got the Trent and Mersey canal you can see towards the top-left of the screen. We have the Puddinglake Brook in the centre of the plan and further to the south, you can see the River Dane viaduct passing over the River Dane. So this is a fairly wet environment and the railway is passing on a mixture of viaduct and embankment across this environment. So you see the River Dane viaduct to the south and then we pass on to the Dane Valley embankment and then a viaduct over Puddinglake Brook and then the Whatcroft south embankment, the Trent and Mersey canal viaduct, and then the Whatcroft north embankment and then on to familiar territory to the Committee. You can see the Morrisons facility and we’re up just off the page to the right. We’re up to the Broken Cross roundabout.
So those are the principal features of the railway line. You can see that in terms of planting and so forth, it’s fairly much confined to the embankment slopes themselves in this location and that’s really to reflect the existing landscape character which, given that it’s a fairly watery environment, is relatively free from large extensive vegetation.
If we turn to the previous slide, P209(1), I’ll show you the construction phase and, as you would expect, given the mixture of viaducts and embankments, we’ve got quite an extensive layout of construction compounds. I draw your attention to two compounds here because I think they may be raised in the course of the petitioner’s presentation. Firstly, in the middle of the page, we can see the Puddinglake Brook viaduct satellite compound. That’s accessed from Whatcroft Hall Lane. And then just a little further north, we can see the Gad brook viaduct south satellite compound and that’s accessed from Davenham Road. In each case, the main road giving access to those compounds is the A530 King Street, which is the main north-south route along the page there, again, going up to the Broken Cross roundabout and, as you will know, as we’ve discussed it many times, thereafter going further north along the realigned A556 Shurlach Road.
Just as it is to the north, the A530 on that highway network is the principal HS2 construction route. So if you look at the numbers, you will find that the majority of the HS2 lorries are proposed to run along that route.
If we just go to one other reference, we can look at P217(1), because I think this will set the scene for one of the petitioner’s concerns. We’re now at one of our traffic flow diagrams. You can see, north is back up to the top of the page again here. So you can see the A530 King Street, just at the right-hand side of the plan, with the letter A, B and C. If you move to the west, and to our left, you can see Davenham itself and you can see the A533 marked just to the east of Davenham. That’s the Davenham bypass and although that’s shown as an HS2 construction traffic route, it’s very much a subsidiary route and we don’t expect the daily flow of HGVs along that road to exceed 20 vehicles. So the principal routing is along the A530 to the east.
In part, in the light of that, we’ve been able to offer assurances to the parish council, which I’ll show you, so you’re aware of those. Firstly, on 5 April, P212(2), two assurances, firstly, in relation to HS2 construction traffic, to limit, as far as reasonably practicable, the use of specified roads. And at that time, that meant, as you can see at the top of the page, Hartford Road and Church Street through the village, to limit the use of those roads by HS2 lorries; and, secondly, to fund the provision of a ‘Welcome to Davenham’ sign, which was something that the petitioners had asked for in their petition.
The second of those assurances, I think, has been accepted by the parish council but they asked for the first one, relating to construction traffic, to be extended a little. And so that was done, I think, at the end of last week, at P286(2). I’ll show you the second page of a letter of 21 April, and the extension is apparent from the definition of specified roads on this page. You’ll see it’s been extended to include –
CHAIR: That’s the bypass.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): London Road as it passes through the village. So the practical effect of this assurance in its current form is to keep HS2 lorries out of the village itself.
That’s where we stand at the moment. The summary of the position so far as the project is concerned is set out in the petition summary letter. For your note, that’s P211 but I don’t need to show you that now.
CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Thanks, Mr Mould. Before we go to the petitioners, those two assurances, I presume, are acceptable to you. You have been happy to accept those.
CLLR RYDER: Both of those two assurances, we’re happy with. We asked for then, in terms of a further assurance around the enforcement of – were HS2, for example, to use third-party subcontractors, how will that actually be enforced, to stop HGVs using those roads?
CHAIR: That will be a question for HS2 or with the local authority, not for the Committee today, but then if you continue those discussions with HS2 and the council. We’ll come to the petitions. Now, in terms of ground conditions, I know your petition relates to ground conditions. As per my comments at the start, we spent a lot of time last week dealing with ground conditions. We’re aware this is obviously a very important issue for the area but you should assume we understand the nature of the ground conditions in this area. And so there’s no need to repeat that but, of course, we want to hear your concerns but we don’t need to hear the nature of the ground conditions because we are fully cognisant of those, following other petitions. So, over to the petitioners.

Submissions by Cllr Powell and Cllr Ryder

CLLR RYDER: Okay, alright. Well, firstly, good afternoon and thank you, Mr Chairman and to the Committee, for extending time to us humble parish councillors here today.
CHAIR: I used to be a parish councillor. We know what it’s like.
CLLR RYDER: I would like to start by thanking Cllr Powell on my right. Really, the majority of the work that we’ve done as a council, this young man has done. So it would be remiss of me not to mention that.
So my name’s Ian Ryder. I’m the council chair and Mark is one of our dedicated councillors. Can we see A43(2), please, which I think we’ve seen a version of already, so in terms of the glorious parish of Davenham? So we’re here today to represent a population of around about 3,000 residents or so in the village. Our written petition covered four areas of risk but the points that we would like to focus on today are firstly the geological reports around the safety and viability of building viaducts over numerous old, unstable salt mines and brine runs. Cllr Powell will talk a little bit more about that.
Secondly, the economic impact caused by the scale and the extended period of six years plus of construction and everything that is associated with that and the potential impacts, specifically on our residents, in terms of the trickledown effect of that.
And then, thirdly, the broader detrimental impacts on residents across a variety of areas, whether that be from property values during an extended period of time of construction; the associated HGV emissions, dust, noise and pollution; and the negative impact on local businesses which, again, Cllr Powell will talk some more about.
So, Cllr Powell, over to you.
CLLR POWELL: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman, and the Committee. I’ll take your steer on geological reports.
CHAIR: Karst geohazards, artesian aquifers and salt brine runs, we are well versed in now.
CLLR POWELL: Good.
CHAIR: So we’ve got an Open University degree in it, we think, between us.
CLLR POWELL: So I guess –
CHAIR: We do understand the complexity of the ground conditions. It’s not to dismiss those.
CLLR POWELL: No, no, no.
CHAIR: We understand these are serious issues. It’s just we don’t need to hear all that again. We’d like to know particularly what your concerns are and what your asks are in relation to those but we absolutely understand the serious nature of the concerns people have on the ground conditions.
CLLR POWELL: Yes, sure. Obviously, living in that area, we see the land day to day so we can see what’s going on. I think we’ve seen numerous environmental statements – I’ve lost count, and the size of them – and, quite recently, a report on the ground risks of Cheshire. So we’ve had that, which is great.
But not so much to counter, but just to give us some balance, we’ve also seen two reports by two local geologists, distinguished geologists. So my only ask, without getting into all the detail, because you know about the mines, the brine runs and the flashes is: has any other petitioner asked HS2 to commit to provide the Select Committee with an undertaking to have their reports peer reviewed or seek external independent validation? And I haven’t been able to find that in previous, but I may have missed it. So that was the ask, basically, on that first point that Cllr Ryder mentioned.
CHAIR: Thank you. Obviously, I can’t say what the Committee has discussed in private so far but that has been something that has been brought up as an issue. So we are aware of an ask around that. The petition we heard last week on this basically, over a much longer period of time, made that same ask, basically, yes. So your clear ask on the ground conditions is there’s independent verification of any of HS2’s ground investigations and monitoring for the future and so on.
CLLR POWELL: I think the reports we see are, without doubt, very professional and very detailed. But then we see exactly the same report from somebody so we’re almost saying, ‘Well, it’s black if you build on that’, and then another report saying, ‘Well, it’s white if you build on that’. All we were asking is, there needs to be a referee here, because I’m no geologist; I’m an ex-banker. So I don’t know anything about digging. So we would just ask, through yourself to HS2, surely we need to bring these two experts round a table.
CHAIR: That’s a very clear ask. And, of course, you find yourselves in the same position as we do as the Committee, in that we’re not geological experts either. So that’s a very clear ask on that then. That’s duly noted. We understand that.
CLLR POWELL: Thank you. I’ll hand you back to Mr Ryder.
CLLR RYDER: Thank you. So on the second point that we wanted to go through was around the broader impact, particularly economically, around six-plus years of construction. Now, quite a lot of this, I’m bearing in mind your opening comments, Mr Chairman, around traffic and taking that offline. So I’ll focus, I guess, just on a couple of areas, just to try to build a broader picture.
So if we could start with A43(3), please.
CHAIR: If there are specific road closures, crossing closures, things like that, obviously the Committee is able to do something on that. It’s in terms of the operation of the traffic management plans, which will be agreed between HS2 and the principal local authority. In this case, that is something which is more difficult for us to involve ourselves because those plans will appear in the future as construction begins. But obviously, when it comes to particular road closures or diversions, that is something we can involve ourselves in.
CLLR POWELL: And that’s one of our asks as well.
CHAIR: Okay, sure.
CLLR RYDER: So, I mean, you can see in terms of this image here, I think we’ve already seen it, so there will be two large construction sites: one on the corner of Davenham Road and the A530 King Street, and the second one on the corner of King Street A530 and the A556. We’re aware that the earliest start date is the second quarter of 2025 to the third quarter of 2031. So it’s a guess, and I’ll come to our asks in a while, but this is a very extended, significant period of time that we’re talking about, in terms of the overall impact. So we’re not talking about what we believe being a very short-term impact that therefore requires short-term management. Six years is a very significant period of time.
CLLR RYDER: So, if we can move on to – I guess the general point here would be that, within the local community, we are a net exporter of working people. So the key thing here is that a lot of people, and particularly within our own village, are travelling out of the village to local cities like Manchester and Liverpool to work but, equally, a lot of them work in key local employers at the same time.
So if we can move to A43(4), so you’ll probably need your glasses on to be able to try and read this one in more detail. The key thing here is on the left of the environmental statement documents and, as we can see, lots of start dates, lots of numbers on there. On the right-hand side is the promoter’s response document and we can see that both of these projects, both of these construction sites will run at the same time, so therefore the impact that we see will be doubled. So if one were running at a separate time than the other, then obviously that’s a different impact on us and our village and, yes, then you can see lots of numbers at the bottom there but very significant impact in terms of therefore road usage during that period of time.
One of the questions specifically that we had there was around, could HS2 or the Committee clarify the planned working hours and start and end date times, because I think this could have a very significant impact on the overall scale of the impact on the local area.
So moving on, if we can see A43(5). So adjacent to our parish, but directly impacted by both of these two construction sites, is Gadbrook Park where there are major employers, local employers, many of which have many employees from our village. Again, on this slide here, we’ve got direct testimonies from Morrisons and Roberts Bakery to key employers on that site and just some headlines there, in terms of the number of people and the number of movements. So we can see that Morrisons have 1,300 staff. Roberts Bakery have 750 staff and when you start to quantify the scale of the HGV movements, that’s about 5,000 in its totality, per week, from Morrisons, which is simple addition from what’s in here, and around about 2,500 from Roberts. So two key employers. Many of our residents work there and will therefore be directly and potentially significantly impacted.
So if we can move to A43(6), or you might have it as A44. We’ve got some drone footage here, which was taken on a Thursday at around about 5.00 p.m. So if we can have a look at that, please.

Footage shown.

CLLR POWELL: That’s the Morrisons depot on the left.
CLLR RYDER: So you can see the sizeable Morrisons depot there. This is at a point with no closures, repairs, accidents, so very free-flowing at this point in time. Note also the lack of cyclists – a pretty dangerous road and there’s also, on one side, a busy petrol station as well.
We’re also mindful that there are other planned HS2 construction projects in the nearby areas, so the A556 Shurlach Road realignment, which will span three years; Penny Lane diversion for two years; Whatcroft north embankment for two years; Lostock embankment and the creation of a new junction, plus the planned alteration to slip roads on the recently completed junction 19 M6.
So to get to the point, so why, as a parish council, are we concerned about this? But it is, I think, the elongated nature of the works; both of the two works operating simultaneously; and the direct impact that we think we will see on the local economy, compounded by the traffic situation.
For example, at the Gadbrook Park, in 2020/2021, Cheshire West –
CLLR POWELL: Could we just have A43(7), just so it makes a bit of sense?
CLLR RYDER: Sorry, I’ve missed a slide. Well done, Mark.
CLLR POWELL: No, it’s fine, it’s fine.
CLLR RYDER: Yes, so Cheshire West embarked on a relatively small project to improve the junction at Gadbrook Park, costing around £3 million. Planned timescale was six months. The project overran by six months.
So just for information, as a headline, in the period from 13 March to 12 April, Gadbrook Park recorded 88,000 traffic movements, which if you multiply that up, that’s over a million movements per year, so a really busy place already.
If we can move to A43(8).
CHAIR: Can I just check what the ask is here?
CLLR POWELL: Yes.
CHAIR: Because obviously Parliament has decided this line is going to be built; the construction has to take place.
CLLR POWELL: We’re getting there, sorry.
CHAIR: No, no, I didn’t know whether I’d missed something on that. Because I’ve certainly got you had an issue with wanting to know very clearly the working hours of the compounds and the construction sites. So I’ve got that. I just wanted to know whether I’d missed anything on that drone footage. But, no, that’s fine. Carry on, sorry.
CLLR RYDER: So if we can move to A43(8). Why we quote this particular example here was that actually the direct impact on the village was pretty profound at times during the course of that construction. So what’s illustrated on this slide here, and to speed up, Mr Chairman, the downstream impacts very, very quickly flow into the village and directly impact the village. So there are various points that are illustrated on this slide here, which become real hotspots.
CHAIR: Of construction traffic or of people avoiding the construction?
CLLR POWELL: Largely, people avoiding the construction, yes.
CLLR RYDER: Yes. So, I won’t go into the detail, in order to keep us moving here, but I think these are well-known hotspots whenever there is either a local construction project which is very adjacent, or problems on the M6 nearby that we consistently see this.
CHAIR: What would you like to see done? Obviously, the traffic management plan with Cheshire West will have to highlight how they’re going to manage the construction traffic –
CLLR POWELL: One more piece to the jigsaw.
CLLR RYDER: One more piece and then I’ll promise you we’ll get there.
CHAIR: Just too eager to get to the solution you want from us.
CLLR RYDER: Can we see A43(9), please? So we noted with interest that the proposal for the £480 million Lostock sustainable energy plant –
CHAIR: That incinerator, in other words?
CLLR RYDER: Yes. An incinerator that was quoting an increase in HGV movements along King Street and the A530 from 262 to 434 per day, plus an increase in delivery hours, was stopped on 7 December 2022 by the then Secretary of State, and I think we can quote directly from the slide here where the Secretary of State considered that the overall planning balance and the increase in the number of HGV movements and the proposed increase in delivery hours effectively meant that this application was rejected.
So my simple maths tells me that the numbers that we’re talking about here are significantly in excess of that particular project.
CHAIR: Those were – for the energy plant – the HGV numbers for when it’s in operation or for the construction?
CLLR RYDER: Construction.
CHAIR: Right. For the construction phase, not the operation phase?
CLLR POWELL: And then into operation, yeah. So 434 to 566 were quoted for both.
CHAIR: So it says here, ‘The increase in the number of HGV movements and the proposed increase in delivery hours’, so this must be when it’s in operation because the operation, of course, is a 25-year – however long these things are – so the Secretary of State might have weighed differently around construction for a limited period. I’m just trying to be clear if this was for the – this was because of the operation presumably.
CLLR POWELL: The operation, sorry.
CLLR RYDER: I think it was for the operation but –
CHAIR: Yeah, it must be because there’s a proposed increase in delivery hours. That will be the HGVs coming every day for decades to come, potentially. Right, okay.
CLLR POWELL: Again, the point is, they’d be hitting that roundabout, that A556 roundabout.
CLLR RYDER: Yes, I agree, I don’t know the length of time of an incinerator but that could be 25-years plus, but equally, we’re talking about a period of time here which is six-years plus, so that’s why I go back to, I think –
CHAIR: That’s a long period of time.
CLLR RYDER: Actually, that’s not a short-term issue.
So finally, Mr Chairman, we come to a number of asks. So I guess number one is: has a precedent been set here by the Government withdrawing support for that said Lostock sustainable energy plant because of its increased traffic numbers on key roads and its hours of operation? I have a couple more, so I’ll just keep going.
CHAIR: Sadly on that, there isn’t. It doesn’t set a precedent in planning law because every issue is dealt on its individual merits, so that wouldn’t do. But the point you are making with regards to your concerns around the impact of such a large amount of traffic over a long period of time is obviously the point you’re making, is obviously something we do understand.
CLLR RYDER: I think the point we’re trying to make is the sheer scale of this and I think, when you look at a similar project, albeit that was an ongoing project, of a lower scale, that was declined. So, I think our ultimate ask here is, yes, it’s about the traffic management programme, but I guess we would call into question, can you actually run these two construction areas simultaneously and for the local network to be able to cope? So will any traffic plan be able to solve this conundrum?
CHAIR: HS2 will respond to that; obviously, I can’t.
CLLR RYDER: So, more specifically, because we’ve already made the request around the traffic plan already of HS2, we’re looking for an undertaking that any road closures, diversions, any slippage in timescales that will cause disruption, that these be well planned, well communicated, with reasonable notice, not be simultaneous, and to avoid peak times.
CHAIR: Excellent. And that’s in addition to obviously the assurance that you’ve got with regards to the specific road – was it London Lane and –
CLLR POWELL: London Road, yeah.
CHAIR: London Road.
CLLR RYDER: Church Street and Hertford Road.
CHAIR: Which you’re satisfied with that assurance to – of every effort will be made to avoid those, and those are the ones –
CLLR POWELL: Pretty much there with that.
CHAIR: Those are the ones that come closest to the parish, or to residents effectively.
CLLR POWELL: It’s the A556. We’re in a triangle; the A556 and the A530, we’re in that triangle. So when anything happens to them two roads, people try and get through the village to avoid it, and that’s the main point of us trying to build a picture of what’s happening around us and where it will impact us.
CHAIR: Yes. In terms of specific asks, then, it’s obviously the points on the road closure notices, proper planning, the working hours of the compounds, and then more generally, it’s the robustness of the traffic and the HGV figures that have been presented by HS2 in their modelling of all of that. Okay.
Are there any other issues you wish to raise? I’m just looking at your petition. Your petition does mention obviously the monitoring of the ground conditions, which I will take as read as part of also the peer reviewed element and that.
CLLR POWELL: We’re not pursuing that because the conversations we’ve had with the HS2 team, again talking to experts around vibration and monitoring everything, we’re not experts, we just have to accept –
CHAIR: That monitoring will have to take place.
CLLR POWELL: It will have to take place, yes.
CHAIR: And the only other issue I think you – not the only, but the issue was around the screening and visual impacts.
CLLR POWELL: We’re okay with that.
CHAIR: You’re happy with those now.
CLLR POWELL: Yeah.
CHAIR: Okay. I’m just checking there’s nothing else in your petition that’s outstanding.
CLLR RYDER: One more point –
CLLR POWELL: There was actually one point that wasn’t covered at all and that was the impact on house prices. So if I may, we’re concerned, as you can tell, by six years of not being able to get to work; we’re concerned about people trying to get to work at both Morrisons and the Roberts Bakery, so we’re also concerned, if that’s the case, if people won’t come there because they can’t, and then people can’t get out, people will move away. It could happen. And that was our main concern, to be honest.
Can I see A43(11), please? So, we just asked two of our local estate agents just to give us a view, their professional opinions, on what they think may happen during six years – and it will be six-plus years, I guess, with the construction project. Both have indicated that they feel that house prices in our area will decline, which doesn’t come as any surprise to us but we just thought we’d present to you that professional opinion.
Another concern, Mr Chair and members of the Committee is, there are Chinese whispers going around our area that the directors at Morrisons, where we’ve already said 1,300, 1,500 staff, have said that if HS2 impacts their BAU, they will take the operation away.
CHAIR: Okay.
CLLR POWELL: I don’t know if you’ve heard that previously.
CHAIR: I mean, we can’t respond to rumours –
CLLR POWELL: No, no.
CHAIR: We’re all in elected office here and rumours often appear, which are very often baseless, but Morrisons, I’m right in thinking – have Morrisons petitioned? They haven’t petitioned on any of this, have they? So, I’m just conscious for all of our protections, when it’s a rumour, it’s very hard for any of us, so we should probably move on from that. But obviously, I appreciate that, were that to be the case, it would obviously be a concern locally given the size of the employment.
CLLR POWELL: So my final ask, if you like, again, taking your steer, is the implementation plan for the HS2 build throughout that six years will be massive, without doubt. We’re concerned that we’re also engaged by Cadent, and there’s a hydrogen pipeline being built in a similar vicinity but not so much in that area, but they’re going to be using HGVs and LGVs starting in 2025. So we’ll have HS2 construction traffic, we’ll have Cadent construction traffic potentially, all swapping past each other. We’ve had no figures from Cadent on numbers yet.
We’re part of the Manchester Airport future airspace project. We’re stakeholders to that because one of the new routes into Manchester will literally go straight over our village. If we’ve got two to three construction sites on the east side of our village, there’ll be an amount of dust going up into the air, and I would think that Manchester Airport would need – I think they’re engaged – but they would need to be engaged on that, because dust goes up and these aircraft will no longer plateau at 3,400 feet over the village. They’re coming from seven to zero. So they’re likely to be lower and therefore encounter dust.
CHAIR: That was the review of all the –
CLLR POWELL: Yeah, the airspace.
CHAIR: Okay. Alright.
CLLR POWELL: And one commitment to the Committee is that we’ve been given a second letter of assurance by Kirsty and the team, who’ve done a good job for us. We’ll get that back to them tomorrow. So that’s one from us to them.
CHAIR: Okay, great, thank you. Colleagues, any questions? No. Thank you very much to the petitioners. I’ll hand over to Mr Mould to respond.

Response by Mr Mould

MR MOULD KC (DfT): Let me deal with traffic first. Can we put up P217(1)? First of all, the overarching point that I made in introducing this petition, and I’ll reiterate it now for emphasis, the main flow of HS2 construction traffic will be along the A530 King Street to the east of the village. It is not proposed to route significant numbers of HS2 lorries through the village. A residual number of HS2 lorries may need to use the A533 Davenham bypass, which you can see on the road, but the reason why no numbers are shown in relation to that route is because the numbers are not predicted to exceed residual numbers of the order of 10 or 20 a day maximum.
The second point is that the two construction compounds, to which reference was made in the petitioners’ exhibits, are shown on this plan. You can see the Puddinglake Brook viaduct satellite compound to the south and the Gad brook viaduct south satellite compound further north, both of those served from the A530 King Street.
The numbers that you were shown on the petitioners’ exhibit are taken from the additional provision 1 supplementary environmental statement, so those numbers are accurate; they’re on page 163 of that document, but the key point that isn’t reported there, because this is a level of detail that is not ordinarily reported in an environmental statement, is that the lorry traffic serving those compounds is not going to peak concurrently. The busy periods of lorry traffic generation serving each of those compounds will be consecutive. The busy period for the Puddinglake compound is seven months; the busy period for the Gad brook viaduct south compound is three months but –
CHAIR: A different seven months and a different three months?
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. Effectively you’ve got 10 months overall but never concurrent on our programme. That is why you see on the page that’s in front of us at letter A, you will see the HS2 HGVs on that – you can see the average weekday daily flow of HGVs in both directions adds up to around 470-odd vehicles. That’s the peak flow on that route.
On our predictions, on our model predictions, although there will be peak traffic serving one of those compounds for a number of months, and peak traffic serving another of those compounds for a different set of months, the accumulation of HS2 lorries, two-way, on the A530 King Street approaching or leaving the Broken Cross roundabout, the peak number is 472 average weekday flow.
CHAIR: The petitioners’ concern, though, was whether the already busy road network – I took to be twofold – whether an already busy road network can sustain that, and then secondly, whether that then causes people to divert through the village, non-HS2 traffic. So I don’t know if you can say anything in response to –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): That is an issue that is currently being considered in discussions with Cheshire West and Chester, and as part of those discussions, it is already an improvement scheme for the Broken Cross roundabout, which, if you remember, is the roundabout which is at the top of the A530 King Street, which then leads on going north to the A556 Shurlach Road.
It’s already been agreed that improvement works are required there in the form of improving the approaches on each arm of that roundabout, other than that going west, in order to provide the capacity gain that will accommodate increased traffic. So watch this space. One of the problems we have is that it’s a pure accident of programming, that we’re hearing from Cheshire West and Chester after you’ve heard from all of the constituent parish councils, whereas with Cheshire East, of course, we’d had a programme of roadworks which were agreed in time for their petition hearing at the start of the process.
That roundabout, that junction, and also the roundabout to the west, along the A556 which you were shown which gives access to the Gadbrook business park, that’s also been the subject of discussions, and as I understand it, it’s been agreed that some form of improvement is justified there, I think possibly in the form of adjusting the timing of signals.
So clearly, we can keep this parish council informed of the progress of those discussions so that they are aware, and when we do get to the Cheshire West and Chester petition hearing, if we haven’t been able to reach an agreement with them on a package of measures as we did with Cheshire East, then obviously, you’ll hear a little bit more about that. But even if we have reached agreement, of course, I can make sure that the Committee has a note which tells them what’s been agreed in relation to these junctions.
So that’s the next point. On the modelling work that we’ve done, which is reflected in this chart, what you’ve got on the page, there isn’t an obvious indication that those two major roads, the A530 and the A556, lack the capacity to accommodate the increase in traffic. That has been the subject of assessment on this chart because the lower case letters, (e), (f), (g), (h), (i) – if you just pan out again – you can see that the assessment points (f), (g), (h) and (i) are in and around the village.
So if we pan into the results of the modelling for those points, you can see, as you would expect, they show no HS2 lorry movements because they’re not part of an HS2 lorry route; relatively small numbers of HS2 light goods vehicles and workers’ vehicles – that’s under the heading, ‘Peak HS2 construction traffic, all vehicle’, if you just chart down from (e) through to (i); and then you can see that actually the model is showing a mixture of reductions and increases in traffic through those.
Those changes are all diversionary effects; because there is no HS2 heavy traffic and very little HS2 light traffic going through those links, that’s diversionary traffic. So we have presented evidence in the environmental statement and on these charts to show what the model is predicting in point of change.
If you go onto another chart, P219, you can see how that is – some junction modelling work has been carried out. You see at 1, 2 and 3, those are key junctions in the village, to see the degree to which the diversionary effects of the HS2 construction traffic, how that – the degree to which that will add load onto the performance of those junctions.
So if we just pan in, the key numbers to look for are in each case under the letter ‘Q’. That denotes queue lengths and if you take, for example, number one, that junction which is on the A556 to the north of the village – it’s the A556 London Road junction actually – you can see that in the a.m. peak hour, the model and the junction assessment work is showing an increase in queue lengths with the addition of the HS2 traffic from three vehicles to four. So that’s how this works.
And you’ll see that for 1, 2 and 3, if you just glance down, in each case the a.m. peak and the p.m. peak, and compare the queue lengths with and the queue lengths without HS2, you’ll see that there’s virtually no difference in queuing at those key junctions in and around the village.
Where you do see an increase in queuing is at 4, and that’s the Broken Cross roundabout. So if you look at 4, you can see that the queue lengths are increasing during the morning peak, for example, on the approach from King Street south going up from two vehicles to 10 vehicles. But in and around the village, our model predicted effects of the diversionary traffic is not showing any significant increase in queuing.
Now, we can’t do better than model because we’ll have to wait and see and that’s where traffic management plans and so forth come in. But as things stand at the moment, that’s the best we can do to assist you on that, and it’s not showing the kind of massive disruption that one of the estate agents, for example, assumed in giving his advice in his letter.
In terms of keeping people informed, I thought it might be helpful just to show you the HS2 community engagement strategy at R126, and this is obviously a document which is in practice now on Phase One, because Phase One is under construction. This is in response to the question, ‘How are the community going to be kept informed?’ which is obviously a very, very valid question. This is the HS2 community engagement strategy. And if we turn to page 4 of this document we can see the commitment – this is the approach taken. Can I just – I won’t read all this at you – but just let you glance at this; we can provide a copy of this document.
CHAIR: Your contention is that all of this information will be shared with the parish council at the appropriate time.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. And I thought you might find it helpful to see an example. On Phase One, there are a series of local area, ‘HS2 in your area’. You see that there’s a webpage or a website for each area. Let’s go to Northamptonshire. You see, ‘This section provides you with information about HS2 works and developments in your area’.
And then we scroll down, you can see, ‘Current work in your area’ and at any given time you can see we have a whole series of pages taking you to works that are either going on or in prospect in the coming months, start dates and end dates and so on. And if you click onto – let’s go back up and just click onto – if you go back to the first of those, road closures. And so you get information in advance as to what’s going to be happening, where the roads are going to be closed and so forth.
These are updated, I think, on a three-monthly basis, so this is pretty much real‑time information that is provided locally. So there will be – this is the template for what will be happening when Phase 2B begins to roll, as it were.
CHAIR: I’m not putting words into the parish council’s mouth, I think obviously one of their requests was to be given advanced notice, but there’s a difference between being told what’s happening and then being able to contribute towards or comment on what’s proposed. So is this simply a ‘these are the works that are happening’ or has there been a process of consultation for people to feed in beforehand? I mean obviously there’s a lot of actions, so it’s maybe difficult, but I’m…
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Well, as with any major developer who’s contemplating a major development, the nominated undertaker for the HS2 project, HS2 Ltd, will look to plan traffic management, construction management with the responsible local authority. The local authorities are there to represent the interests of their local communities.
Now, in terms of traffic management, that tends to be at the district level or the borough level, as you can imagine; they are the local highway authorities. To a large degree, it’s up to them to decide how they want to engage with their local community, but the process of local traffic management planning does involve some local community engagement as well, so there will be opportunities.
If people are concerned about whether commitments that are being given, such as the assurance that has been offered in relation to HS2 construction routing here – if people are concerned, they see a lorry where they don’t think it should be, then they can call the HS2 24-hour helpline. I won’t take further time to show you but there’s other information on the website which takes you through that process as well.
So both in advance, whilst it’s going on and if you’ve got concerns about it, you can see on the Phase One documentation how it actually works in practice. People are fearful at this stage on the Phase 2B route because they haven’t seen it. It’s still, to some degree, in prospect rather than being in actuality, but this is how it will be. No doubt also, where we can learn lessons from Phase One to do things differently or better, then obviously HS2 is very keen to do that as well.
CHAIR: There’s a statutory process for a road closure. You have to give notice, you have to advertise the notice in advance.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. So I hope that’s helpful to you and, indeed, helpful to the petitioners because there’s nothing better than seeing what’s actually being done now in practice elsewhere on the route.
Local employers, I’ve dealt with this before. The project has been and is in discussion with Morrisons – has been and, as I understand it, is in discussion with Roberts Bakery. Neither of those companies has petitioned against the Bill. The project is in no doubt at all about the need to maintain access to the wider highway network for both of those undertakings, given the particular needs of their business. So I don’t think I can add to that.
I’m not sure indeed I can add much further on traffic at this stage to what I’ve already said. I do emphasise the overarching point is we will reflect on the concerns raised today by these petitioners, as we will for those raised by Lostock Gralam, in our continuing discussions with Cheshire West and Chester who are the highway authority.
So far as the estate agents letters are concerned, A43(11), I can ask Mr Eckett to help you with that, but I wonder whether in fact I can just simply – can we put that up? If we just look at the right-hand side – perhaps I can just deal with this and if you need more about this we can help you further.
First of all, the second paragraph, ‘Northwich is a small market town and the invasion of literally hundreds of lorries and machinery, clogging up the roads for up to six years, is going to throw the local economy and housing market into freefall’. Well, that’s a matter of opinion and one might put it this way: as an estate agent you could take a glass half empty approach or you can take a glass half full approach. And if you want to reassure your clients, for whom you are seeking to achieve the best price for their property, that you’re doing the best you can in that respect, one might have thought that you would see whether in fact that is a fair way of describing what is in prospect in relationship to HS2, in other words, whether it’s better rather than frightening the horses actually to find out.
The reality is, on the evidence we’ve presented to this Committee, and it’s set out in the HS2 published documentation, the small market town of Northwich is not proposed to experience the invasion of literally hundreds of lorries. It is not proposed to experience the clogging out of its roads by large quantities of machinery. I’ve explained many times now the routing arrangements and that is simply not an accurate way of describing what is in prospect. So if that kind of information is putting people off from buying houses, it’s easy to correct it.
Now of course, I recognise that HS2 and the coming of HS2 has, to some degree, had a blighting effect on communities which lie in the vicinity of the route, and the Secretary of State has recognised that for many years now and it is precisely for that reason that not only is the Secretary of State committing, as he has to, to the statutory arrangements for blight in the Town and Country Planning Act, but has introduced the comprehensive package of non‑statutory property schemes, of which you’ve heard a little in the course of these proceedings.
They were introduced in 2014 precisely with a view to addressing the incidence of more generalised blight and seeking to provide an appropriate, balanced response to that problem, so that people did not experience unacceptable difficulties in terms of selling their houses when they needed to and so forth. So it’s not – this is not an issue for which there is not a remedy, as it were, which brings us back to the previous petitioner.
The final point relates to the ground conditions. I don’t think – will you forgive me with this? I don’t think that last week time allowed for us to show you a slide which deals with HS2’s internal assurance process in relation to ground conditions.
CHAIR: Just before we do go into this, there was one other point related to the traffic and the compounds which was the compound working hours.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, ordinary working hours.
CHAIR: The same as the –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): 8.00 till 6.00 in the weekday, 8.00 till 1.00 at the weekends. Now, of course, please don’t misunderstand me, those sitting to my right, the project has made it clear that there will be occasions where it will be necessary to work outside those hours, but that is subject to local authority control under the Control of Pollution Act licensing process.
CHAIR: Excellent. Thank you. Sorry, ground conditions then.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Do we have P164? Again, in the interest of time, I’m not going to ask Mr Smart to come in unless you want to hear from him. But this a chart that just gives you an indication of the internal assurance process that applies to the development of the HS2 design. And you can see that, in addition to the technical assurance process within the company, there is an independent check provided for.
I know, for example, from the way in which work was done on the Euston tunnel design two or three years ago, that the project carried out – obtained assurance from an independent check by an independent specialist company, in addition to, as it happens, obtaining the views of Professor Lord Mair on the feasibility of the emerging tunnel design in relation to the Euston approach.
So the question in relation to saying, ‘Can we have peer review?’ is you’ve already got it under this arrangement, and there comes a point when one has to say, ‘How much peer review do you need before you have a properly and technically assured scheme?’ Far better, I would suggest, that through the community relations process, the local community is kept informed of key stages in the development of the design so that they can know how the design is progressing.
I showed you a few moments ago something of the community relations strategy. I think I’ve mentioned in an earlier session that what the community relations strategy should focus on in any given area should obviously be defined in some part – it should be guided in part by what are the issues in that area. So, I would suggest, that’s the way forward here.
CHAIR: Yeah. I suppose the challenge comes across that the independent checker you select is somebody who’s picked by HS2 and then paid by HS2, and then can, by people who take a different view, be accused of being in the pay of HS2, which is where this whole problem – where this whole issue becomes very difficult.
Now, that may have been very unfair for people to say that and to question the skills or independence of others, but that, of course, is where – it’s impossible for us as a Committee – I think I’m speaking for colleagues here – to comment on very technical ground condition issues and geology. We’re unable to do that, but what we can appreciate and understand, I think, as elected representatives representing communities, is how people can feel about a process and about its independence or fairness. So we can understand the concerns people are bringing to us, and I guess the perfectly natural questions people ask of, ‘Well, of course, but those are HS2’s experts’ and that may not give us confidence.
So there is an issue here; I think we’ve all clocked this. There is obviously an issue of public confidence over a piece of geography and geology that is incredibly complex, and there is an added challenge, therefore back to HS2, I feel, of, well, what additional things are you going to do to convince a very concerned public in this area that you’re not going to come along and build all of this and cause a whole set of environmental and geological problems for the area.
I can’t pretend I have in my head a formed solution on that, but obviously – so this – I understand the point you’re trying to make here about independent check, but it will be, as I indicated, coming from people you have commissioned and you have paid, and that’s not to question their professionalism or independence, but it’s very easy for people who perhaps don’t understand the process in the same way to throw that back at you.
So I don’t know whether that’s something for perhaps for you to go away and think about as an organisation –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Would you mind if I responded? I think a couple of points in response, if I may. First of all, that putative independent checker who comes in in addition, if you like, to give public confidence, is going to want to be paid by somebody –
CHAIR: No, I understand that.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And they’re going to be paid by the Government because they’re –
CHAIR: I didn’t say it was a fair charge back – I didn’t say it was fair necessarily, but you’re dealing with the public here; you’re dealing with public confidence, and that requires responding to concerns and charges that may be incredibly unfair, but that have to be addressed in some way, given what seems to be quite a scale of concern.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes, and I appreciate that, as a barrister, I tend to deal in facts and reason, and I appreciate that we have – there’s an emotional aspect to this. People are concerned and worried, and I don’t in any way seek to devalue that. But ultimately, one has to come back to the premise: what is the evidential basis upon which the concern is raised?
The evidential basis that you heard last week, which was laid out very eloquently by Dr Todhunter, was that the geology through which the route is being run is in some respects challenging. Now, Professor Lord Mair didn’t challenge that.
CHAIR: No, that’s fair.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): So there’s actually no dispute between the parties on that. Now, that ought to give a certain amount of confidence in itself. The next thing is: how do you respond to that challenge? Dr Todhunter very fairly didn’t really offer a view on that because it’s outside her sphere of expertise. She’s a geologist; she doesn’t design railways, but Professor Lord Mair is able to speak, not only from the perspective of one of the leading experts on geology, but also a leading expert on how major projects can respond to challenging geological conditions. And he speaks not simply from a theoretical perspective as an academic. He was actually responsible for ensuring that Big Ben didn’t fall down when the Westminster underground station was built on the Jubilee Line extension, and other challenging projects of that kind.
We have agreement between the experts that have appeared before you on the challenge and the nature of the challenge. We have perfectly properly no attempt by the petitioner’s expert to offer an expert judgment on that which she wasn’t competent to comment on, which is how you meet that challenge through railway design. We have a report from HS2 Ltd with the benefit of their specialist consultants, the March report, which lays down in detail the engineering response to the challenge, and we have Professor Lord Mair, with the benefit of all his expertise and experience, saying, ‘I am satisfied with the huge emphasis on monitoring and see the techniques that are available for that – I’m satisfied that the engineering techniques at HS2 have said they will bring to bear are effective for that purpose’.
Now that doesn’t completely close the gap between reason and emotion, but it’s difficult to see what more an independent peer review could do. I mean, Professor Lord Mair speaks to you, not as an HS2 hired hand, but as a very distinguished and experienced independent expert giving his evidence on that basis. And so I would suggest that the Committee – it’s entirely, of course, a matter for you. I’m not seeking to influence you in any way other than to suggest that you may feel some degree of reassurance on behalf of the concerned public in those circumstances.
CHAIR: I understand all of that, Mr Mould, but we’re all elected representatives. I think we know how people think, and whether somebody has an emotional or a – yes, some of these responses are emotional, but they’re also factual in the fact that they exist, right? It is simply a fact that a lot of people will be very concerned and that’s why we’re seeing a number of petitioners raising these same issues.
So whilst, yes, you can’t change the facts of the geology, what you can do is change the way in which HS2 responds to what is a very predictable emotional response here. So there may be things HS2 could do in terms of transparency around processes that may be able to be looked at to involve the public more to give that confidence. There may be more that can be done proactively around this issue to go out and actually explain what’s going to happen in terms of the mitigation of this particular challenging geology.
So I think – I understand the point you’re making, that we have to deal in facts and we absolutely have to deal in facts, and it’s a very important point you made about there have actually been no disagreements between Dr Todhunter and Lord Mair. The question was: how do you mitigate it?
So I get the point you’re making. I think the challenge I was – because we didn’t really have the chance to go into this last week –
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No.
CHAIR: – because of how the time split ended up taking place. But I suppose that is just my challenge back. My perspective on the Committee, and I’m sure other members think the same, is you know this is an emotion and you know this is going to be reaction. So the question back is: what else can you do to satisfy that emotion? Because saying, ‘Well, we must just deal with this fact,’ won’t make this go away. So that public assurance work perhaps is something that can be looked at.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Would you just allow me a minute?
CHAIR: Yes, of course, yeah, absolutely.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Sorry, I appreciate that we’ve got to the end of the second hour, as it were. Mr Smart is obviously the person to explain this chart to you in more detail. I wonder whether, rather than take more time on that now, I can provide you with some further information. I’m in your hands.
CHAIR: Well, the next petition does of course refer to geological conditions too, so maybe if Mr Smart wants to come on at the end of that petition, I think that – if you’re happy with that.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): Yes. In that case, all I wish to say in response to what you just said was, firstly, I hope people won’t misunderstand me; I’m not seeking to diminish the public concern that you’ve mentioned as purely, if you like, an emotional response alone. It is based upon experience of years of the effects of uncontrolled brining and so forth in this area. So I hope people will not misunderstand me in that respect.
CHAIR: I don’t think – I didn’t get that at all. I understood the point you were making perfectly, and I thought you made a fair, reasonable point. But my challenge back was just, this is clearly an issue which exercises a lot of people and so maybe it requires a specific handling that is different to some of the other parts of this project, and how those have been handled. That’s the challenge and the question back.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): And on that, I think I’m stimulated further to explore with those behind me whether we can identify a community relations strategy which would allow information provision of the kind that you mentioned to come forward. So we’ll think about that whilst obviously we await your considered thoughts in your report.
CHAIR: No, sure. Obviously, it’s not going to go away.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): No, no, absolutely.
CHAIR: So anyway – sorry, I think it’s – I hope you’ll appreciate us having a free and fair expression of views here in Committee. I do think that’s more helpful rather than us – sometimes waiting for us to just produce our bits of paper and our reports in a few months’ time. I think it assists the process by sometimes me, through the position of the Chair, of expressing where the Committee is on an issue in actual hearings like this, and all of that is done to hopefully help this process along.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): I found it extremely helpful, if I may say so, to hear what you have to say about it.
CHAIR: Thank you. I think we’re finished on this petition then.
CLLR POWELL: Do we have any time to follow up?
CHAIR: I’ll give you a minute to respond –
CLLR POWELL: I’ve just got three quick questions.
CHAIR: – because I want to be fair to the – to your nearby neighbours.
CLLR POWELL: I get that.
CHAIR: I don’t want to start a parish conflict off.
CLLR POWELL: No, no, no.
CHAIR: I’ve been involved in those in the past as a parish councillor.
CLLR POWELL: No, no. I’d just like clarification. The modelling figures – I’ve worked on modelling myself – the modelling figures, were they on free-flowing traffic or with lane closures? Because I think it’s not clear from that. Our biggest fear, as you know Mr Chair, is lane closures. The traffic numbers, whether 400, 500 HGVs, if it’s flowing freely, it’s not a concern for Davenham village except for the emissions, etc. If there’s lane closures, they come in through us.
CHAIR: I get the question. I don’t know whether Mr Mould can answer that now. I certainly cannot. I’m not a traffic modeller. If Mr Mould wishes to answer, it’s up to him.
MR MOULD KC (DfT): We’ve dealt with the issue of lane closures. The road where there is – you heard that these roadworks will all be carried out offline and so the roads, particularly the A556, will continue to flow freely, two lanes, and the only period of lane management will take place during those two relatively brief periods when, during weekends and overnight, it will be necessary to tie in the newly constructed realigned road with the existing road.
So the question doesn’t arise other than during those brief periods of tie-in because we have an offline approach to construction of realigned and altered highways.
CHAIR: Right. Thank you. Can I thank the petitioners for their time today and thank you for attending? So we appreciate it.

Minshull Vernon and District Parish Council

CHAIR: We do now move on to the third petition of the day, which is Minshull Vernon and District Parish Council.
Hello. Thank you for bearing with us. We’ve stuck broadly to our time, so we move onto the third petition. We’ve substituted Mr Mould for Mr Strachan, but it’s Minshull Vernon and District Council. We have Cllr Clive Stringer, who’s the parish council chair, and Phillip Hine, who is a parishioner. So, Mr Strachan, over to you.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Thank you very much. Can I have P196? And I’ve put up a plan and I will just immediately apologise and correct it, in the sense that you have shown Minshull Vernon and District Parish Council boundary in part, not its full extent. In fact, there are what were previously three parishes but they’re all treated as one. Leighton parish council extends further down to the south and Worleston Wood to the south and west as well.
It doesn’t affect that part of the route which is constructed within the parish boundary that’s shown. It does mean that more of the traffic routes are within the Leighton parish council area, which I’ll come to as they go towards Crewe.
But you can see from this that we’re back in an area just to the north part of Crewe and in terms of what’s happening in the area, there is the tunnel portal at the Crewe northern section, just shown near the green on the line of route towards the bottom of the page, and then the route heads north, and as you can see, the top of the parish council boundary, there’s a greater grey area up to the north, which is the start of the rolling stock depot at Wimboldsley.
CHAIR: Which we went to see. We saw this site, didn’t we, on the tour?
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Absolutely.
CHAIR: On the route tour, yes.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): And you’ll hear more about the rolling stock depot from others as well.
CHAIR: There’s the road bridge looking down.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): The A530 crosses – you can see the green road – it crosses the line of route and the rolling stock depot is beyond that.
CHAIR: Right, okay, yes.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): And the A530, shown in green here, is passing through the parish council, again north to south, like the line of route. And you can see a bit more of a closeup on P197. That’s not going to help you too much, but perhaps I’ll just show you the – if we can then turn the plan to show you the construction map, P198.
So north now goes off to the right-hand side of the page. You can see the red line of the parish boundary where the construction’s taking place of the railway. Off to the right is the start of the rolling stock depot and to the left-hand side of the page is the Crewe north connection. That provides connection onto the West Coast Main Line for HS2. And in the operational phase you can see P199, it just shows it once constructed, if we can put that up on screen. That’s in construction. You can’t see the rolling stock depot there. It’s not within this parish council’s area, but it is off to the north beyond that bridge, which has been realigned, carrying the A530.
In light of the petition points, I think I ought to show you just some other maps because the main concerns aren’t in fact related specifically to what you see on the page there. First of all, the construction route map, P8(9) of the traffic and transport standard exhibit, we’ll put that up on screen if we can. Again, north is to the top of the page, and the line of route coming down. You can see Crewe towards the bottom end of the picture, and up at the top part of the picture beyond the purple line you can see the rolling stock depot again.
I can show you more precisely where the northern tunnel portal is. If you look towards the bottom of the page, at Crewe, you’ll see, ‘Histogram 7, Parkers Road’ in a blue label. There’s a yellow area which is a construction compound, the main construction compound, and that’s where the Crewe – the tunnel comes out into a portal. There’s work going on there, obviously, to construct the portal and extract tunnel arisings.
There’s a conveyor that transports a large amount of the material coming out of the tunnel. The conveyor runs from that site all the way up to the rolling stock depot along the line of route to try and minimise traffic on the roads, and that material then is used in borrow pits or is taken out by rail at the rolling stock depot.
However, there is still obviously some construction traffic in this location. And just so I can orientate you to where the petitioner appears to be concerned about, it’s the Flowers Lane you see off to the left of the page where it joins the A530. Flowers Lane runs through towards Crewe. Parkers Road leads off to the Crewe northern tunnel portal construction compound, and then Bradfield Road to the south is going down through Coppenhall.
And I’ll have to show you the plan that fits down below, P8(8). It’s a preceding plan. So you go to the top part of that page, you can see where the blue lines join in and it becomes Remer Street and Sydney Road, which travel then down and join the A5020.
And if you just pan out again, just so the Committee can see what’s going on in this area, you see the M6 on the right-hand side of the page and there’s junction 16 of the M6. The main purpose of showing you that is construction traffic has to access the strategic road network. It’s coming off and on the junction 16.
And then the hybrid Bill actually sent some of the construction traffic – quite a lot of construction traffic – partly along the A roads – I’ll show you in a minute – but partly up through that route, the Sydney Street, Remer Street, Flowers Lane route, up towards A530 and there were numbers about 850 HGVs. That has changed with the additional provision 1, and so as a result, construction traffic now goes around the A road.
So you see the A500 runs all the way along, up the A51 and then onto the A53 and heading north to the rolling stock depot. The consequence of that is that, whereas there was concern about the local roads in that area, Flowers Lane, etc, the numbers have dramatically reduced, and if we go back to P8(9), and you’ll see reference to the petitioner’s slide about one HGV every – I think it was one every two minutes that they were referring to, that related to numbers which aren’t currently proposed in the AP1.
If I just show you the numbers that are shown here, I showed you histogram 7 –
CHAIR: Let’s not get too much, Mr Strachan, into responding to the petition, obviously just scene setting the area, I think, because I understand the points but maybe this will come later in the response.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): I’m happy to come back to it in due course. It’s just so that difference will alert you to the difference in the petition. So I’m just flagging it up so you know what’s coming. We’ll come back to the figures and what they show as necessary.
The other two issues that were raised, one was geology and ground conditions, again, specifically a point about salt and concrete which Mr Smart can address. The third issue was about the rolling stock depot. I’ve shown you the location of the rolling stock depot and we have some plans that we need to get into it as to what alternatives are being considered. And you may be referred to Basford freight yard, which is to the south, but I’ll wait to see what the petitioners say.
CHAIR: Great, thank you, Mr Strachan. Mr Hine and Cllr Stringer, I think I encourage you to not go over the geological conditions. You’ve sat and heard some of that today and we’ve read the petition; we’re aware on those. If HS2 wish to respond to some of those further given the previous discussion, they can. Your petition specifically, other than those points, is obviously the rolling stock depot and the construction traffic elements. So perhaps you want to focus on those. Assume we’re obviously cognisant of the concerns you have on the geology, but the floor is yours. It’s up to you; those I just offer as guidance. So over to the parish council.

Submissions by Cllr Stringer and Mr Hine

CLLR STRINGER: Good evening and thank you for hearing this petition. Thank you to Cllr Layhe for publishing this. On to the first point of transport route. The route that was originally proposed through – can we see slide P8(9) please? The original route shown in blue goes down on Flowers Lane, either Parkers Road or Bradfield Road. That current map is now out of date.
There’s something I’ve called the Crewe north-west package, which is new road infrastructure brought into place to allow some 1,200 homes to be built in the surrounding area. So where it shows Flowers Lane at the moment, that route in six months’ time won’t exist. So on there it shows –
CHAIR: What’s happening to it?
CLLR STRINGER: They’re putting a new road network in but the existing A530 is having an additional three roundabouts in. So Flowers Lane at the moment comes off a set of traffic lights. It goes through a mini roundabout. Part of the Crewe north-west package, that will then come off a roundabout and go to another one to go off to the right. So this road network that’s shown on this map isn’t correct at the moment. Three of the roundabouts that have been put in, I don’t know if HS2 have been back to revisit to see if those roundabouts are suitable for 1,300 HGVs a day on the A530.
In addition to that, there’s also between 700 and 1,000 cars twice a day exiting the Bentley plant, which also exits onto the A530. There is a rather large industrial estate, Marshfield Bank, exits onto the A530 twice a day. So that current HGV figures when added to the existing traffic will bring the area to a standstill. Then with the addition of the other roundabouts, I don’t know if they’re suitable. I don’t know if HS2 can comment on.
CHAIR: They will do in response. If you set out what your concerns are now, we’ll ask them and they’ll respond to these points as they wish.
CLLR STRINGER: When vehicles go down Flowers Lane, then either Parkers Road or Bradfield Road, as it stands at the moment, when they go down Flowers Lane, they come to a roundabout and that has school traffic and schoolchildren walking on it twice a day. When it goes down Bradfield Road and Parkers Road, the same again. There’s another primary school there with school traffic and schoolchildren twice a day. On Parkers Road, the police are in regular attendance because the road gets blocked daily, due to parked cars for the school traffic.
So with HGVs going down there, even I think 170 a day, is really unfeasible because the school also has a lunchtime finishing hour for early years children. But when they extend further, I know it’s outside our parish, but when they extend further on to Remer Street, there’s another primary school where there’s crossing and school traffic. So the route which HS2 have taken passes four separate primary schools.
I don’t know if any kind of risk assessment has taken place regarding this route, but it seems to be putting unacceptable risks, where they shouldn’t need to be. The area is busy enough with existing traffic and with another 1,200 homes about to be built, there will be even more children, hopefully walking to school as opposed to driving.
CHAIR: Your contention is these routes are just not suitable for HGV traffic.
CLLR STRINGER: No, not with the amount of children walking and the amount of existing current traffic.
CHAIR: Have you spoken to Cheshire West Council about this?
CLLR STRINGER: We’re actually Cheshire East, sorry.
CHAIR: Sorry, Cheshire East, are you? Sorry, we’ve moved over.
CLLR STRINGER: We’ve always been Cheshire East.
CHAIR: No, I mean, we were in Cheshire West earlier.
CLLR STRINGER: Oh, sorry.
CHAIR: We would have had to correct the record on the previous one.
CLLR STRINGER: The Crewe north-west package is actually Cheshire East-led. There was an agreement put in place, before any homes could be built, the road infrastructure must be done.
CHAIR: Cheshire East Council have – obviously we had them earlier – but they have withdrawn – well, their petition has been withdrawn and points that relate to their concerns around traffic and the routes have all been resolved. Is that correct?
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Yes, they’ve withdrawn. I think they came and made a joint statement to the Committee to say that their concerns had been addressed or are being addressed through discussions with HS2.
CHAIR: Right, okay.
CLLR STRINGER: That doesn’t affect the existing traffic route now and the new risks involved with HGVs going down there. Part of the new road infrastructure has been put in place. The new roads don’t appear to be wide enough to take two HGVs at any one time. So I’m not sure how HS2 are going to combat this.
CHAIR: So there’s a new road that’s not shown on this map is what you’re saying.
CLLR STRINGER: There’s a couple of new roads going in.
CHAIR: And where are they then? They connect in from Flowers Lane or –
CLLR STRINGER: Roughly where the green dot is on Flowers Lane. It’s then going to join the A530, level with the bottom of ‘L’ on flowers.
CHAIR: Right.
CLLR STRINGER: So that part of Flower’s Lane will be shut. There’s a roundabout going in either end. That’s how we’ll access Flowers Lane.
CHAIR: The road still does the same thing. It joins the A530, just at a different spot.
CLLR STRINGER: Yes, one of the new roundabouts that’s gone in for Leighton Hospital, it’s also a local blue light route for Leighton Hospital. The whole area, Flowers Lane, Smithy Lane, which isn’t shown on there, is a blue light route for A&E for Leighton Hospital. So if that gets clogged up then the risk of life for ambulances not getting to Leighton Hospital in time.
One of the new roundabouts that’s just been put in, an HGV already, after a month and a half, hasn’t been able to negotiate the roundabout and driven straight over it because it’s a quite small roundabout. That’s without 1,500 HGVs a day. There is a video which Mr Layhe has kindly taken to show the route. That is our slide number A41(4).
CHAIR: There will be a vote shortly so I will suspend the Committee when there is a vote. Carry on for now. Where are we looking at now? Just remind me. I was trying to search for the new road.
CLLR STRINGER: This is going down Bradfield Road heading towards the A530.
CHAIR: Is this Flowers –
CLLR STRINGER: No, this is Bradfield Road. Coming up there is a food store on the left and a pelican crossing which is used for children crossing the road from – there’s a large housing estate on the left. They cross the road there to access either Mablins Lane School, which is on the right, or the other estate, crossing the road, for a different primary school, which is on the left. There’s actually a lot for the area; there’s four different primary schools.
So this is coming down Bradfield Road still. You can see how narrow the road gets. On the right at that junction is Parkers Road. So this continues to a mini roundabout where you turn right for Flowers Lane, which is part of the HGV route. You’ll see how small the mini roundabout is. It’s also a bus route. I think there’s about a bus every 20 minutes going down there for access to Leighton Hospital. This is Flowers Lane. Since the HS2 map was done, Leighton Hospital have also put a staff car park and at the rear of the hospital the exit now comes on to Flowers Lane, which there’s some 400 to 500 extra cars accessing that car park a day, twice a day.
This is still Flowers Lane. You can see just how narrow that is. This is on the proposed route. There’s a junction coming up on the left, which is a new Leighton Hospital staff access. That’s already causing traffic problems because there’s so many vehicles accessing that every day.
CHAIR: Just so I understand that, the fact that there are other things along a road doesn’t necessarily mean other vehicles can’t go down it and HGVs can’t go down that road. So I’m just wondering, just so I understand properly, your concern is simply that the road is not suitable for HGVs.
CLLR STRINGER: Yes.
CHAIR: Right. And did you have a request in terms of wishing for the traffic to be rerouted? Was there an alternative route? Do you think there is an alternative route to this? Because, you know, the fact people cross the road doesn’t mean that the HGV coming down it is unsafe. So I’m just keen to understand if there’s an alternative route that you think is better.
CLLR STRINGER: Yes.
CHAIR: So where is that in relation to that map we were looking at? Sorry, if I can – that’s helpful for showing us the route.
CLLR STRINGER: Yes, HS2 have already mentioned an alternative route.
CHAIR: Right.
CLLR STRINGER: The route that goes on the A530 and the A500. What we would like is HS2 to make a promise that no HGVs will access the small A roads and B roads around the parish.
CHAIR: But is there an alternative non-B road?
CLLR STRINGER: Yes, HS2 have just mentioned an alternative road.
CHAIR: Okay, so that’s the ask is the re-routing of this construction traffic. I mean, some of these are the issues that would have to be dealt with in the traffic management plan with Cheshire East. But it would be good if HS2 could respond to this alternative route, reroute the construction traffic. Okay, sorry, I’m just writing that down. Carry on, sorry, apologies.
CLLR STRINGER: That’s basically on the construction route. That is basically it on that one.
CHAIR: No, that’s good. It’s good for us to understand what the ask is because obviously without an ask it’s hard for us to consider.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming –

CHAIR: Cllr Stringer, continue please.
CLLR STRINGER: On the second part, I shan’t mention the geology that you’ve already been made fully aware of.
CHAIR: Other than to say your concerns are the same as those that have been expressed by the parish councils and other petitioners.
CLLR STRINGER: A lot of them are, yes, but it was made known to us at quite late on that HS2 plan to overcome some of these geological challenges by using concrete piles. Now, the issue with concrete piles when you put them anywhere near salt is that the salt rots concrete. So although it may well be alright for a short space of time, over time the salt rots the concrete and degrades it and weakens it. There’s been a lot of research done regarding the structural strength of concrete in saltwater.
CHAIR: We’re not going to do the geological conditions, because we have done those quite significantly. Your concerns are about the suitability of the geological conditions in this area to take this railway line in the way it’s proposed to be constructed. That is a point that is understood. So instead we’ll move on to the rolling stock depot, please, because we do want to hear about that.
MR HINE: I’m going to say a few things that you will probably be a bit cross about because I am going to refer to some of the things you’ve heard before, but with good reason I hope you’ll see. Can I have slide A41(22) please?
CHAIR: This is on the rolling stock depot, is it?
MR HINE: I’m going to talk about the rolling stock depot.
CHAIR: Good. Excellent.
MR HINE: But I’m going to start this off by correcting a few things which have been said before. A41(22), a slide you’ve seen before, which I think is important because it shows the delineation of the salt area within the red dotted line. And if we go on to A41(23), it’s the same slide with the Golborne spur removed, which accentuates the route of HS2 now into Manchester.
You will see from this, I particularly draw your attention to the route of the M6, which, when it was designed, was specifically designed to avoid the salt area. It veers away from the direct route it should have followed. Conversely, the route of HS2, rather than following a direct route into Manchester, now appears to be routed away from that direct route and into the salt area.
The Cheshire salt area wasn’t even mentioned in the assessment of the route in 2013. Now the promoters seem to back themselves into the position where they find impossible to change direction, in spite of the huge technical difficulties they face in passing over the salt area. In the promoter’s response to our petition, HS2 referred to the significant amount of data gathering that’s already taken place over the route through Cheshire. However, the report that they issued only last month entitled Understanding the Ground Risk across the Cheshire Plain makes it very clear that it’s primarily based on a desktop review.
It’s only now that a full ground survey is planned to take place which will involve 15,000 boreholes and a cost of £300 million over this route. At the hearing with Lach Dennis and Lostock Green last week, HS2 wheeled in their consultant, Lord Mair, who had rushed out a note prepared in just a couple of weeks to try and justify the position. But this note also contains errors and, again, it’s mainly a generalist overview of the contention in HS2’s own desktop review.
Can I have A41(24) please? Even the desktop review highlights risks that remain with the chosen route. It says that the route minimises the risks posed by the ground conditions, but these are only the known risks. Even so, most of them are caveated by the words ‘with the exception of’. It refers to Billinge flash. It refers to the salt mine. It refers to brine springs. It only needs one problem to cause a major issue.
Nevertheless, this report was useful and it lays out the causes of concerns in the area, which arise from natural salt dissolution in the brine streams that form, buried glacial valleys which connect the upper groundwater levels to the salt, historic mining which has taken place for the last 2,000 years, historic uncontrolled brine extraction which went on for 300 years, and then controlled brine extraction and controlled mining.
CHAIR: Can I just interrupt that? I was very clear at the beginning of this session this afternoon that we were not going to go over issues we have already had raised with us. With the greatest of respect, this is referring to issues we are well aware of and well understand. I’ll finish please. What we will do is I asked specifically to hear about the elements of the petition relating to the rolling stock depot. So we do need to move on to that, but if there is something specific on this point, I’ll indulge for a further couple of minutes so that if there’s anything that we haven’t heard already you wish to bring up, please do bring up that.
I’m doing this to assist you. You heard my comments to HS2. We are very well aware of the concerns you as residents and people living this area have. I expressed a view about where I think you could guess the Committee was going on that, which is clearly what has been produced so far in the engagement so far isn’t sufficient to address those concerns. So I’ll give you a couple of minutes, but what we don’t want to do is to go over what we already know, because we’re trying to assist you here with your specific issues.
MR HINE: So if I just say then one which is a specific request. That is that only the controlled brine extraction and the controlled mining areas in Cheshire are fully mapped. The remainder of the route is yet untested. So we ask that the findings of the ground survey are published for scrutiny as they’re completed. We do not accept that this is an unreasonable suggestion and quite the contrary. The approach of HS2 all along seems to be, ‘Trust us; we’ll get it right.’ But quite honestly, not many people do trust them. We request an undertaking from HS2 to publish the results of the full survey as each stage becomes available.
CHAIR: This is in relation to the boreholes.
MR HINE: This is in relation to the ground survey, which is now being put out to tender, which will cost £300 million and involve 15,000 boreholes. It’s only when that is done there will be a full understanding of the risks to the route.
CHAIR: Okay.
MR HINE: Could I have A41(25), please? At a late stage, HS2 announced that it proposed to locate the rolling stock depot on 168 acres of greenbelt farmland, in Minshull Vernon and Wimboldsley. This was originally planned to be on a site in Golborne near Wigan, and later alternative sites were considered. When the Golborne Link, which was to run through Graham Brady’s constituency, was finally scrapped, Golborne disappeared. In 2015, HS2 published a slightly revised route. This proposed a depot at Basford Hall sidings just south of Crewe. Interestingly, Wikipedia still today reports that this depot will be at Basford Hall sidings. That was the plan put forward by HS2 in autumn 2015. And when we challenged them to explain the reasons why the Basford Hall site, which is owned by Network Rail, could not be used as originally planned, we were told that the owners have plans for development of the site.
Subsequently, plans have been submitted to build hundreds of houses and a large commercial park on part of that site. It’s clear that it’s preferable for HS2 and hugely cheaper for HS2 to take a greenfield site to build this rolling stock depot. This is in spite of the fact that the development profits of Basford will mainly accrue to another arm of government.
CHAIR: How far away are the two sites, roughly?
MR HINE: It’s 0.9 of a mile south of Crewe. It’s three miles away from us. The Basford site is said to be heavily utilised by freightliner, but this site is huge. It comprises 53 kilometres of electrified sidings and in the 1930s was handling up to 47,000 freight wagons per week. It now handles a fraction of this number and a significant part of the site is used to park old passenger carriages. Slide P24 please.
CHAIR: Sorry, the Basford Hall site, the brownfield site versus this, the proposed site. You said –
MR HINE: Basford Hall was proposed by HS2.
CHAIR: Yes, how far apart are they, did you say?
MR HINE: About three or four miles.
CHAIR: Right, I see.
MR HINE: Basford of course is a brownfield site. It’s been there for 110 years. Have we got P24? On 19 April, i.e., last Wednesday, we were provided with a note from HS2 entitled ‘Route evolution 2013 to 2016: other rolling stock depot considerations’, rolls off the tongue. It contained a number of claims, including one that the Environment Agency and Wildlife Trusts preferred the Crewe north rolling stock site against Golborne due to lower environmental impacts.
Now it’s extremely difficult to accept that sacrificing a greenfield site is better environmentally than using a brownfield site that has been operating for over 100 years. I’ll be questioning the Environment Agency and the Wildlife Trusts – I’ve already written to the Wildlife Trusts regarding this claim – and if necessary use freedom of information and request. I will inform the Committee if the statement is incorrect or has been taken out of context.
The rolling stock depot will mainly be used for cleaning trains, emptying the toilets and marshalling the trains overnight. To locate it on greenbelt land will fundamentally and irretrievably change the character of the villages affected. It will take 40% of the entire village of Wimboldsley. It will involve 24-hour working and high-level lighting at night. During the construction phase of HS2, the site will be used as a major construction compound and the material excavated from the new tunnel under Crewe will be stored there.
In addition, further material will be excavated from one of the borrow pits, which is located on the site, and will be used for the embankments and viaducts that are now proposed to support the railway over the whole of the Cheshire plain. We’ve heard there will be over 1,250 HGV movements to this site each day in the construction phase, which this site will be involved with for a period up to 10 years. So our request is a rolling stock depot should not be built in this location. We would like to see an independent review to examine whether the Basford Hall site could be used.
I’ll just end quickly with some historical facts, which have been checked: 168 acres is exactly the same size as the city of Pompeii, which gives some idea of scale, was the home to 11,500 people. Minshull Vernon is mentioned in the Doomsday Book and has been a farming community for 1,000 years. And, finally, Minshull Vernon was the birthplace of the wife of John Milton. And whilst I’m not claiming that my village is close to paradise, if this depot is built something will be irretrievably lost. Thank you.
CHAIR: Thank you. Members of the Committee, any questions?
MS MUMBY-CROFT: That was a great ending. I do have one question but I’ll wait for you of course.
CHAIR: Yes, go on.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: So looking at the Basford Hall railyard and understanding that 47,000 wagons a week were there in the 50s.
MR HINE: Back in the 1930s, yes.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: Do you know, and I’ll ask HS2 if you don’t, how many thousands of wagons are there at the minute? Because they’re saying that they would need –
MR HINE: It’s not handling wagonloads now.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: Okay.
MR HINE: It’s used as a storage for carriages and a maintenance depot for Freightliner, which is an independent company, of course.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: I ask that as they’re saying that, if they were to use it for that purpose, they would have to do that somewhere else and the land take would still have to happen ultimately. Is that correct?
MR HINE: I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: My understanding was that HS2 were saying that, if they had used the Basford railyard for the purposes that we’re talking about the greenfield site being used for, they’d have to replace that current capacity at Basford somewhere else.
MR HINE: They proposed that in 2015 themselves.
MS MUMBY-CROFT: Okay.
CHAIR: We’ll move on. We had a division in between so just to precis very quickly, on the transport issue, the suggestion or the contention is that the route is unsuitable and that there are alternative other routes that should be utilised. Also that there has been a change to that route, particularly on where the Flowers Lane joins the A530. Is that correct? In terms of the ground conditions, your particular request was, I think, broadly in line with the previous one of independent review, ability to access and see the results and challenge the results of the hundreds of millions of pounds that will be spent on the many numbers of thousands of wells that will be dug. Then you have a specific concern about the suitability of concrete over the Cheshire salt plain too.
I think I’m right on that. That sums everything up without repeating everything. You understand our reasons for not wanting that, so we can get to the nub of what it is you want us to get a response from in the time that we have left. We will run a few minutes over because we had the division. You shouldn’t be punished for the faults of that.
Then Basford Hall, the issues you just explained. I think those are all fresh in our mind. I just wanted to check where we were on the issues that these petitioners are raising. So Mr Strachan?

Response by Mr Strachan

MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): I’m going to take those three issues in turn. I’m going to try and address you on the roads myself, but Mr Smart’s going to just come briefly help you on geology and Basford as an alternative. But you can ask him about the roads if I haven’t answered you sufficiently. On roads, can we just show P8(17) and I’ll just deal with the points in turn?
First of all, there was an issue raised about the Flowers Lane where it joins the A530. This is the alphabet map. You can see that’s on the left-hand side. Yes, Flowers Lane has been realigned at its northern end as a result of the Crewe north-west development. Obviously Cheshire East, as was identified, was requiring such a change. It’s known by HS2 and HS2 has assessed the capacity of that roundabout to accommodate its traffic. Cheshire East, as you’d expect, have been looking at HGV traffic movements from HS2 in light of their new roundabout arrangement.
So currently there’s, I think, a signalised alignment of Flowers Lane where it meets the A530 – or I say currently, before the change. There is a slight realignment of Flowers Lane – it now joins – and a roundabout arrangement on the A530, which don’t affect the capacity. Indeed, I suspect they improve the capacity.
Developments like Crewe north-west and indeed lots of other development is part of the modelling that’s being undertaken by HS2. I know you’ve heard about that already, but we’re provided with the transport models from the local highway authority, and we build in not only existing development, but planned development and indeed road changes. You will have seen – you can see on this table, for example – where we look at construction, we’re looking at a 2030 future baseline, if you look at the top right-hand side of the page. Therefore we’re looking at construction activity in 2030 to look at what’s happening on the road network as a result of not just existing but planned development, then assessing the impacts of construction traffic in that scenario, building all of that future development.
CHAIR: The petitioners mentioned an alternative route.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): There isn’t – yes, I’m coming to that.
CHAIR: Sorry.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): No, that’s fine.
CHAIR: I can see the natural flow from that point. Apologies.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): No, I take that. I was explaining, I think at the outset – and the petitioners referred again to 870 HGVs a day passing along Flowers Lane down through Parkers Road, Bradfield Road and on through Remer Street. You remember I showed you that earlier. That 870 HGVs a day was what was originally planned, not what is currently planned. AP1 gets rid of that traffic because that traffic which can go around on the A530 is being routed around that way.
The traffic that can’t go on to the A530, because it doesn’t get to the construction sites, obviously can’t go around on the A530. It’s got to get to – if I just show you the yellow blob in the middle, that’s the Crewe tunnel northern portal, which is a construction site. So the traffic that’s going there on these roads is limited to that.
If you take Bradfield Road to the south and you see the letter B off to the right, you’ve heard about this in a different context but if you just go down to the letter B with the cursor. There’s a road going down, a junction, a road going down there. That’s to construct the Middlewich vent shaft which you’ve heard about elsewhere. And so these are all sites which have to be accessed from the local road network. They can’t be accessed by sending all the traffic on to the A530. What HS2 has done of course, through AP1, is send that traffic which can use the A530 along the A530, for example to get to the rolling stock depot.
And can I just pick up another point? That was about the suitability of these roads and you recall you were shown images. I can assure you the carriageway width is sufficient for HGVs on both sides of the road. HS2 has assessed that. You can see that simply from looking – if you take Bradfield Road, do you remember you were shown video cam footage? Take letter C and you go to the table. That road is already predicted – it will already be carrying significant amount, but it will be carrying 170 HGVs. That’s the second column of the table. Well, it’s the third column along but the second numbers along, 170 HGVs eastbound and 166 westbound, regardless of HS2.
These are roads that currently carry HGVs. They’re suitable to carry HGVs. As it happens, on Bradfield Road, we’re adding in 10 HGVs on that route in order to get to the Middlewich vent shaft. It can’t come from anywhere else and that’s the level of traffic on that road. If you pan out again you can see a similar picture. Letter F is further up Flowers Lane where Parkers Road has come into it.
Again part of the videos you were shown, if you just focus in on letter F, under the existing future baseline for this road, you can see 241 HGVs one way, and 219 the other way, are going to be travelling around that road regardless of HS2. HS2 adds in, at its peak, 85 HGVs and 85 HGVs, and that will include the traffic going to access the tunnel portal. All of these roads are considered suitable for the additional HGV traffic.
That’s of course a matter that Cheshire East has been satisfied of from their perspective. It doesn’t of course prevent the local transport management plants, in due course, analysing again that and taking account of representation. But the level of traffic we’re proposing is appropriate and Cheshire East are, I say, content. They’re not objecting to that.
And so although I understand the petitioners are concerned about the much higher levels that were originally proposed, the numbers have been reduced. We’re stripping it back to the bare essentials, effectively, to access these sites. We can’t do it from alternative roads. Mr Smart can help you further on any of that if you want, but I’m then just going to ask him just to deal quickly with ground conditions in a limited basis, just the additional points that cropped up.
CHAIR: It’s not about trying to limit the debate on those; it’s about not going over stuff so we can absolutely assist all parties in making sure we get to the actual crux of what it is we’re all concerned with.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): I’ve got an eye on the time as well because I’m trying to do it as efficiently as possible, but yes. While he’s taking a seat, there seems to be two points that were raised, which arguably are ones we haven’t looked at. First of all, whether salt and concrete has some special relationship which we haven’t taken into account. Secondly, the question of boreholes and how they might be published or the data provided.

Evidence of Mr Smart

MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): But before we get there, just it would help if Mr Smart could comment on that risk assurance slide that you were shown in the last session. Just so you understand what happens internally. Can we just put that back up, P164 I think. I know the Committee had a debate about the extent to which there’s going to be further independent assessment of what goes on. Mr Smart can just comment on that.
MR SMART: Yes, I will. Good evening, sir, to you and the Committee. HS2 sets the requirement for what is required in the ground, the performance specification of settlement, environmental criteria, etc. That is what you can see on that slide where we have our technical services directorate. They oversee that, but they don’t do the design. Okay? So the design would be done by engineering consultants and they do the design.
We haven’t done delivery model, completely fleshed it out for phase 2B yet. But one could expect that there would be a first-stage design consultant that would do the scheme design, and at about 40% design would hand that to a contractor for detailed design. To give you an idea of where we are for this hybrid bill, we’re about 7% design. So we’re at a high level.
When that is handed over to a contractor to complete the detailed design, they appoint, subject to HS2’s approval, an independent third-party consultant to check their work. So this is standard civil engineering procedure that any high‑risk assets have an independent consulting or appropriate engineering qualified firm to check what the designer has done. The designer has design liability for that, and also the independent third‑party checker also has design responsibility for that and design liability.
CHAIR: That’s on the design.
MR SMART: Yes.
CHAIR: That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an expert in ground conditions when it comes to salt brine and the Cheshire salt.
MR SMART: They would have to have that expertise because they’re doing the design. So the consultants that do this design would have to have that expertise on board to do that design properly. Over and above that, this is not necessarily enshrined in any standard civil engineering procedure, but as good practice, where there are significant ground risks, commonly in tunnelling, we have also, what you can see on here, established an independent geotechnical expert panel that sit alongside our experts to provide a peer review of what is going on in ground engineering. We’re already doing it in the Chilterns area.
This independent panel is made up of industry experts. A lot of them are professors and some of them are just independent practitioners with excellent experience. They’re chosen for the particular geology that we have to deal with. So there is a whole raft of where you go through to make sure that we have a robust design and that goes into construction.
I should also add, over and above this, you then got to have bringing the railway into use, which is under the auspices of the rail regulator. I won’t go into too much detail about that because that involves independent safety assessment bodies and a thing called the common and safety risk assessment, which is done under railway legislation to enable the opening of a railway to demonstrate it’s safe. There are independent safety verifications all along that process before you can go anywhere near opening a railway.
That includes going back to design. Was the design done in accordance with the right criteria? Was it built in the right criteria? Was it commissioned? So over and above the civil engineering process to design, there’s another whole process involved in the safety assessment body to go anywhere near opening a railway. If anybody has got an imperative of having a safe railway, it is HS2.
CHAIR: I suppose the question the petitioners asked, which is a fair one, which I raise in my mind as well, when you look at the map of the M6, if all of this can be done through the process you’ve outlined, why isn’t the M6 run through this? I mean, it does take a very obvious wiggle around it, doesn’t it?
MR SMART: But further north I think it does go through. It does go through areas of salt.
CHAIR: Right.
MR SMART: So it depends which section you want to look at really.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): I think we did look at a plan about that. I’ll just put it back up on the screen. R12(28), if you can, because a number of people have said that the M6 avoids the salt. Well, actually that’s not right. If you look at R12(28), you can see the line of HS2. One of the points made in this document is HS2 avoiding the main salt areas of risk. You can’t see the motorway in a colour, but it’s basically running down that spine.
And yes, it goes to the east of Sandbach, but if you go further up into the salt areas, the salt mine areas, it crosses salt areas. You can see one in which lies underneath the motorway itself. So the incidence of crossing, as it’s known here, karst doline, but that’s the salt property type geology, is in fact evident from some of these maps which haven’t been referred to.
R12(29), I think you did look at, shows a similar picture in that the HS2 line, which is discussed in the report, actually avoids the consultation areas which are identified in that compensation board as areas where you would need to consult for development under the 1952 board that was set up. But that’s covered more in the report. Is there anything you want to add to that?
MR SMART: No, I think that’s clear.
CHAIR: The petitioner’s request here was that obviously the concrete salt is – I’m sure that’s –
MR SMART: We can deal with that.
CHAIR: But their request was to be able to, or to be assured that, there is some other verification of the ground survey and what those results are showing. I mean, this goes someway to the point Mr Mould and I were debating earlier, I guess, around how you engage with the public in this area to provide additional reassurance around all this, because neither the parish councils nor those on this Committee – well, speaking for myself – are experts in geology. I suppose it touches a bit on that, but that was very specifically their request was: how can we be assured and how are we able to independently scrutinise the results of these ground condition surveys? I think that was what the ask was.
MR SMART: I think the answer to that is because the design is an iterative process. So quite often, as you heard from Lord Mair, we do some site investigation. Then we do more and more. That goes right the way through until we get to the detailed design where we’ll still be doing more. It’s also the monitoring we do in between – not just the boreholes, you have to monitor as well.
So I think the answer to that is probably some sort of executive summary of what we’ve done. And I think the best way of dealing with that is through our standard community engagement, where we can provide some sort of executive summary report, because it’s a quite complicated matters to deal with in some of the written documentation. But we can then have appropriate geotechnical expert representation at community forums to explain what we have done and what we’re about to do. That’s the approach we’ve taken on Phase One.
CHAIR: The parish council, there’s specific requests and asks you have on that, aren’t there, around the salt issues, just to the parish council?
MR HINE: Yes, it is a specific request that we do that. I made the point that Lord Mair was reviewing his own homework in terms of reviewing the HS2 report. There is a lack of trust, in reality. I speak from personal experience. The rolling stock depot starts at the end of my drive. I was not notified of anything before the notice of compulsory purchase for land dropped through my letterbox 12 months ago, even though there was supposed to be an engagement with the community. I was then told that there’d been an administrative mix-up and 150 letters hadn’t been posted.
CHAIR: But I think the point is, as you say, it’s this assurance and confidence in what you are being told. I get that. Mr Strachan?
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): All I was going to say, you’ve had a discussion with Mr Mould and we said that we’d think further about that. I just want to distinguish between asks for what we’ve described as independent scrutiny in terms of further experts to be commissioned independently. Lord Mair’s report was not marking his own homework. He was marking HS2’s homework as an independent expert in engineering and ground conditions. So there’s a limit and a lack of utility in endless independent scrutiny of that kind. But the difference, the distinction, I was drawing between that and transparency and trust and engagement, which is the point we’ve understood you’ve raised –
CHAIR: Yes, that’s exactly the point.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): That is something we’re going to think further about as to how that engagement process could be tailored or addressed, specifically this particular concern that’s specific to this geographical area. Rather than me try and deal with that now, I think we’re going to reflect on that exchange you had, but I just wanted to draw that distinction.
CHAIR: No, I understand.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): As to what we think we’re considering further.
CHAIR: That’s not a vote. We’re fine. I’m conscious of time though, and I want to deal with this depot issue as well.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): That’s the one next I was going to go. I think Mr Smart was going to – I don’t know if you want to hear more about it, but Mr Smart was just going to talk about design standards for concrete to take account of salt condition.
MR SMART: I’ll be very brief, but BS EN 206 and BS 8500, which are about design mixes, deal with saline conditions. This is halite, but salt is common in lots of other deposits as well. So it’s how you deal with it in the specific design of the concrete. Also the piles themselves because they are a function of depth in terms of end bearing and friction. They have steel within them. They’re reinforced steel. Moreover we are essentially in the superficial deposits. So we’re not actually anticipating a lot of the dissolution effects of the salt where it is more severe. But even if we were in that situation, we can deal with it through a combination of the foundation design and the concrete design mix. And I would say that more aggressive saline effects are in coastal and maritime engineering, and concrete deals with them routinely all the time.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Then I’ll move to the Basford yard alternative as a rolling stock depot. We’ve got some slides about this. P201(1) just shows the location of the rolling stock depot and the distances. Just while that’s coming up, can I just make it clear that Basford as a rolling stock depot wasn’t previously the proposal? I think that was suggested. It wasn’t previously a proposal, I think, Mr Smart. It was considered as a potential site for a maintenance depot for Phase 2A but discounted as such. There’s a big difference, as you appreciate, between the maintenance depot, because you’ve got those on your route, and a rolling stock depot.
Mr Smart can probably just canter through what’s required of a rolling stock depot and why and how Basford was considered but has been discounted as a suitable alternative.
MR SMART: So first off, Basford is a major freight hub for Network Rail. It is substantially owned by Freightliner. It is an intermodal exchange, if you like. So it is where freight trains come in and containers are transferred. So it serves a lot of the deepwater ports. It serves Felixstowe. It serves Southampton. It serves London Gateway, and it goes up to Liverpool and Scotland. So it’s a pretty major facility for freight.
The reason it is where it is, is because it benefits from the connectivity of Crewe but is not affecting Crewe station. So for us to take – well, one is Basford is not big enough for us. So as the petitioner rightly says, we would have to make it bigger. So we’d have to take land which is currently earmarked for development to the west of Basford Hall.
But even to suggest using it, we would have to create a replacement facility somewhere on the West Coast Main Line, which would also be a challenge to find that around Crewe. So that would have to be done first. Also, it would be completely suboptimal for HS2, because we would not have direct access to the HS2 line. So we would have to create an access by coming south and we wouldn’t be able to access it going north without having a turnback facility.
So it would be a completely suboptimal, dare I say impossible, situation for us for a rolling stock depot, because our rolling stock is for the full fleet of 50-odd trains there. We would have to create a corridor going south from there for some four or five kilometres south, connecting somewhere down what is now in Phase 2A, create a turnback facility to get back to go north, which would be a time and a major constraint on rolling stock going straight in and out of the depot.
I would also say that the current site for the rolling stock depot is ideal. It’s actually between the West Coast Main Line and HS2. So it sort of sits between the two. We also need access to the West Coast Main Line and HS2, which we have in the north position of Crewe rolling stock depot for future NPR trains.
So we need that connection going out north for trains that are going into Crewe and out again onto HS2. So that sort of whole connection fulfils a number of functions, which going to Basford would be completely suboptimal and unworkable.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Can I just help? In these slides, and I’m not going to go through them all because the Committee’s got them, but just to be clear, some of the references that were made by the petitioner, for example about preferred locations, if you see P201(4), the Environment Agency and Wildlife Trusts preferred the Crewe north location, that’s where we’re proposing, as compared with a Golborne location due to low environmental impacts. And I think the comparison was being made with Basford by the petitioner. In fact, what these slides are considering is the alternative locations, why we arrived at the rolling stock depot in its particular location, which is preferred for a number of reasons.
But the Environment Agency and Wildlife Trusts were considering a different contrast. They weren’t considering Basford. That’s been discounted for the reasons Mr Smart’s identified. It effectively doesn’t work. And slide 6 just shows that interrelationship between the West Coast Main Line and the HS2 mainline.
CHAIR: Basford, you said very clearly, was never considered as the rolling stock depot.
MR SMART: No.
CHAIR: Only as a maintenance depot.
MR SMART: Yes, and even that would be suboptimal because potentially you’ve only got a five-hour window. So, you know, you want to get straight onto HS2. From Basford, we’d only be able to come south and have to turn back and go north again. So that’s still a suboptimal arrangement as well.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Just if you go back to slide 7, just to remind the Committee, you’ll probably be aware where Basford sits below the Crewe station. Basford is shown as a freight yard connecting to the West Coast Main Line and to the lines that go off to the west. Crewe station is up to the north, but the HS2 mainline has already gone into tunnel to get under Crewe to go off to Manchester. So in order to connect to HS2 mainline, that’s why Mr Smart was explaining you have to go back down the route to join in.
Slide 8 starts to show some of the many challenges that would exist if you were to do that. You’ve got to come back, way back south, in order to get your trains to go back. Then you have to turn back and go through the tunnels off to HS2 towards Manchester. So there are a number of challenges. I appreciate the petitioners may not agree, but I do want to make it clear that this is an optioneering exercise looking at alternatives, which, as the chronology shows – we haven’t taken you through it – took place over some time to look at various options, Golborne, Knutsford, Basford yard, and the reasons why there’s a very clear answer to why the rolling stock depot is selected in its location.
There’s quite a lot more information in those slides for the Committee to reflect on if they need to and we can always answer any additional questions. But I see that it is quite late, so unless you would like Mr Smart to answer anything further on that.
CHAIR: Does the Committee have any further questions? No, I think, I mean, I’ll just end, I suppose – yes, councillor?
CLLR STRINGER: Sorry, can I just ask HS2 a further question? You said that when the transport plan was put into place HS2 knew about the Crewe north-west package.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): No, I didn’t refer to a transport plan. The modelling takes account of future development, which would include Crewe north-west, and the new junction arrangement has been considered by HS2, the new junction arrangement at Flowers Lane.
CLLR STRINGER: Can you tell me when that modelling was done, please?
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Which modelling, sorry?
CLLR STRINGER: The transport route within our parish.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): I can find out. I don’t know that.
CLLR STRINGER: Just that you said the modelling was done taking the Crewe north-west package into account.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): The modelling takes account of known future development, including not just Crewe north-west but many other planned development pieces that are predicted to occur, and, indeed, additional growth on the road network. I can find out for the petitioner when the modelling was done.
CLLR STRINGER: The only reason I ask is –
CHAIR: Can you take that one offline and respond directly to the petitioner please?
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): Yes, of course.
CHAIR: Well, we may have an answer coming now.
CLLR STRINGER: The plans were only passed in 2019.
CHAIR: 2019.
MR STRACHAN KC (DfT): It’s dealt with in the supplementary environmental statement and additional provision 1 environmental statement, which were published June or July last year.
CHAIR: Okay, I’ll end there. I think, HS2, you’ve got the steer from the Committee in terms of where our concerns are around the public concerns, which we thank the petitioners for bring us with regards to the geology here. I note Mr Mould’s words, reinforced again by Mr Strachan. So I hope the petitioners can leave at least in the clear knowledge that this is an issue which we are exercised by too, in terms of not whether it’s safe or not, I shouldn’t say that, but how we deal with some of the very deeply held concerns of residents about this particular issue. Mr Mould has made some comments with regards to how they potentially seek to address those through engagement or whatever, and we look forward to hear more on that. So even though I may have cut you off on that because I wanted to get to your other issues, you can be assured that it is an issue that has exercised us previous petition hearings and it is one that we have discussed privately, too.
So on that basis we have overrun. I keep saying we’ll end at certain times and we don’t. So I apologise for that, but I will call today’s Committee to a close.