MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE. taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE. On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Transcription

1 PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Monday, 21 September 2015 (Afternoon) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby Mr Mark Hendrick IN ATTENDANCE: Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport Mr James Burton, Counsel Witnesses: Mrs Anne Hewett Mr Mike Johnstone Mrs Rozalyn Thomson Dr Kate Barnes Mr Bob Davey Ms Sara Randle Mr John Gover Mr Les Giles Mr Peter Miller, Head of Environment and Planning, HS2 Ltd Mr Tim Smart, International Director for High Speed Rail, CH2M Hill IN PUBLIC SESSION 1

2 INDEX Subject Page Great Missenden Parish Council Submissions by Mr Burton 3 Submissions by Mrs Hewett 5 Submissions by Mr Johnstone 9 Submissions by Mrs Thomson 12 Submissions by Dr Barnes 15 Submissions by Mr Davey 17 Submissions by Ms Randle 19 Submissions by Mr Gover 23 Further submissions by Mr Johnstone 29 Response from Mr Strachan 31 Mr Miller, cross-examined by Mr Burton 35 Closing submissions by Mr Burton 42 Little Missenden Parish Council Submissions by Mr Burton 44 Mr Giles, examined by Mr Burton 47 Response from Mr Strachan 59 Mr Smart, examined by Mr Strachan 60 Mr Smart, cross-examined by Mr Burton 65 Closing submissions by Mr Burton 68 2

3 (At 14.00) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Good afternoon and welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. As you probably appreciate, the rest of Parliament is in recess, but, like the Windmill, we never close whoever remembers the Windmill. I therefore would like to express my thanks to the TV people, the Official Report people, and the doorkeepers who have volunteered to work over the next four days. We start off with petition 1184 and AP1 12, Great Missenden Parish Council. I would stress for those early on in our deliberations: please be punchy and brief, to be fair to those a little longer down the order paper. The Jubilee Café at the end of Westminster Hall is open until seven, and if we continue to go on rather longer than I hope we expect, then there will be an opportunity for people here to get some refreshments if they need them. We start with Great Missenden Parish Council. You are just down as counsel now; could you remind us who you are? Great Missenden Parish Council 2. MR BURTON: Yes, sir. It s a recurring theme with me, I m afraid. Someone s obviously trying to tell me something. James Burton of counsel, sir. Thank you. We re obviously very grateful to all of you and the staff for sitting into recess. Many thanks. I appear on behalf of Great Missenden Parish Council. You I m sure will not be in need of reminder, but the route would pass through the parish through its north-eastern section. In simple terms, it will come between the larger villages in the parish, which are Great Missenden and Prestwood, which have a population of around 12,000, and the smaller settlements up on the hilltop Ballinger, Hyde End, Potter Row and South Heath that I know you re all very familiar with, with a population of about 1,200 or so. With C6, the route would proceed by a mixture of fully-bored tunnel and then a cutting out of the parish into Wendover Parish on a viaduct. 3. Could we have our first slide up, please, A1386? Many thanks. The bottom photograph and we make no claims to particular photographic expertise here shows the Wendover Dean viaduct. That is the promoter s visualisation that has been superimposed on the bottom photograph. 4. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Just to take them out of order, let s have a quick look at 5 first, to see the parish boundary, and then come back. 3

4 5. MR BURTON: Of course. Yes. I did wonder if that might help. Many thanks, Sir Peter. On slide 5, up here, which is where the photograph is looking towards, we see the parish boundary with Wendover Parish. There we have it. I have pointed out Great Missenden and Prestwood, the larger villages, down here, and what we are calling the hilltop villages up on the other side. Many thanks. 6. If we just hop back to slide 1, please. Thank you, Sir Peter; that was very helpful. As I say, the visualisation superimposed down here is the promoter s own. The view is taken from inside the parish, looking over to Wendover Parish. Obviously, the dotted line shows only where the route will be; we re of course not saying that will be visible from this viewpoint, but that dotted line is just to give an idea. But the viaduct, of course, we all know will be visible. 7. The top photograph shows the temporary haul road, which comes down from what will now, with C6, be the north portal of the Chiltern tunnel. 8. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: So that s a different 9. MR BURTON: It has been diverted. It sits a little bit further to the north-west than it was, and you ll be hearing a bit about what we have to say about that in due course. We know that you ve already heard from some in the parish in relation to various points, and we will be as diligent and careful as we possibly can not to repeat anything. We have a number of points that you ve not heard on before, and there are others that we feel you just haven t heard enough on. I have a list of seven witnesses here. Do not be feared; they have all been working incredibly hard to hone their presentations to the minimum necessary to make their points and crack through with maximum efficiency. 10. If we could have the next slide, please, slide 2, this is the list of those who are associating with us, so will not be appearing themselves because they will, as it were, be on our coat tails. We feel it s important that you see that. Obviously, there are a number of them, and we wanted that list to come up in person. I ll leave you to read the names, but we wanted it to be there before you. If we turn to the next slide, please, we are obviously extremely grateful to all of you for your visits to our parish and the time that you ve taken to come to us. This is a reminder the slide itself. Also, at exhibit 1387 I won t ask for it to be pulled up on the screen we have the handout. If 4

5 you are able to turn to it in your information packs it s towards the back; it s not entirely at the back, but it s after our slide set. That is the handout. The first page we ll just bring up here, if we may 1387(1) just so you can orientate yourselves. If we just bring that up many thanks that s the handout that those members of the Committee who attended the site visit in August received, so some of you I hope will have it and have retained it, and others may not. Sir Peter, that follows after the end of the slideshow. Hopefully that s an aide memoire. What those who attended on 10 August didn t see, of course, but we do wish to thank the Committee for it, is the thank you banners for C6. If we could hop back now, please, to slide 3 in our presentation. 11. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: It s worth recognising that C6 is not a gift. It s not benevolence. It was something which the promoters have seen to be justified, and we re pleased. 12. MR BURTON: Well, for whatever role the Committee played in bringing them to see that justification, we thank the Committee. Those are the banners that the members of the Committee who were on the site visit on 10 August would have seen had they not, unfortunately, run out of time, in the bottom left-hand corner. We make no bones about it: the problem with C6 and this is the long and the short of it, or perhaps the short of it doesn t go far enough. That s why we re here today. 13. Next slide, please. Our requests of you are these. I m not going to read the page out, but we are here and we are still determinedly pressing on with our petitions because we seek a fully-bored tunnel throughout the AONB, and that is the primary request. If not, our fall-back position is almost an extra mile extension of the Chilterns tunnel to Leather Lane, and, if not, then numerous other mitigations. But unfortunately, those numerous mitigations will not do a full job. That is what, by way of edited highlight, we say would be saved by the full tunnel and then by the extra mile, and then I will leave you to read that. Many thanks. 14. If we turn to the next slide, please, which we ve already looked at, which shows the parish boundary. As you are doing so, I will call our first witness, who is Mrs Anne Hewett, who s the Chair of Great Missenden Parish Council, to give the Committee hopefully a whistle-top sketch of what it is that makes our parish so special to us and what is threatened by the present proposals. Over to you, Mrs Hewett. 5

6 15. MRS HEWETT: My name s Anne Hewett and I ve lived in Great Missenden for 34 years. I ve been on the Parish Council for nine and I ve been Chair for six months. I won t go through all the villages again, because you ve just been told them, but we have a population of about 13,000, and most of it is in the AONB and green belt, with the proposed planning restrictions for development within the area. We moved to Great Missenden because we like the Chilterns landscape and beauty the quintessential village with an easy commute to London and other cities, easy access to motorways, and not too remote, mostly peaceful. What s it like to live in Great Missenden? Well, I like the deer in the garden, the red kites in the sky and hearing next door s chickens, being able to walk to local amenities if you wish, lots of things to do, adult learning, village events, clubs, societies, volunteering, historic venues, gym, great walks. 16. Could you move to the next slide, please? Great Missenden is a typical Buckinghamshire village with a single high street. Whilst it has lost its traditional shops and you can see top left is Roald Dahl; we ve got Missenden Abbey, second down; and obviously Potter Row, which is the bottom right, which would be greatly affected. Whilst we have lost the traditional shops in the 80s, speciality ones have kept it alive, from art galleries to hairdressing, gift shops and dress shops, and the Roald Dahl museum. There will be not many in the country in the world where Roald Dahl has not been heard of. So, these are wonderful features that cannot survive on a customer base which is purely local. 17. The people who live here care about their neighbourhood. There are many seasonal events in Great Missenden which encourage visitors. We have craft fairs, food fairs, farmers markets, lots of evening classes and conference facilities at Missenden Abbey, and lots of local accommodation. 18. MR BURTON: Mrs Hewett, just before you go on there, I just want to be clear about one thing. You ve said these are wonderful features that can t survive on a purely local customer base. Just to be clear, what are you talking about? 19. MRS HEWETT: Because it s not a traditional high street with food shops, we now have the gift shops, because lots of tourists come into the area, and that has replaced the traditional shops. So, Great Missenden survives on its tourism and the visitors to Great Missenden, which will be driven away by HS2, basically because who 6

7 wants to come to an area where it s noisy and there s dust? So, we re very keen that we have 20. MR BURTON: Okay. I just wanted to clarify what you were talking about. That was helpful. I think you were moving on to the next slide, were you? 21. MRS HEWETT: Yes. Slide 7 shows, really you don t often get a picture of Great Missenden in relation to the line. If we could look there, we can see the traditional high street. We have at the top hot air ballooning in one of the pubs up there. We have the railway station, which is on the left there. Roald Dahl museum, which is on the right on the next one. We have a school, which is top right Gateway School very close. We have the Abbeyfield, which is an old people s home. Most importantly, we have the land that the parish council owns, which is called Buryfield, and there s a children s play area and a skate park, which adjoins the MR BURTON: The skate park, just so the Committee are clear about that is that the pale area here? 23. MRS HEWETT: No; that s the tennis courts. The skate park is right on the corner. 24. MR BURTON: Down there, okay. Tennis courts; skate park. 25. MRS HEWETT: And there s a children s play area further down as well, to the left of that. Obviously, you can see Missenden Abbey, which is down the bottom here, and the Missenden School. There are about 50 businesses in Great Missenden. 26. MR BURTON: And sorry, Mrs Hewett this is a superimposition of the north portal. 27. MRS HEWETT: Yes. There are approximately 50 businesses within the village. Only two of these are multinational, so they are all small, independent businesses who do not have the luxury of other businesses to keep them going if their trade falls. 28. If we could turn to the next slide, please, here we ve got a map for walkers and cyclists and horse riders. Great Missenden and Prestwood are the gateway to the central Chilterns. Annual income from tourism is 18.6 million. That was done on the TSE 7

8 report for tourism for A third of the visitor attractions are in Great Missenden. There are numerous published walks, using paths running through the area, from two-mile circular walks contained in Pub Walks in the Chilterns, to longer walks, including suffragettes walks, Chiltern Link, the Bucks Way and Midshires Way. 29. If I could just point out a few of the areas that you might not have visited when you were here but thank you very much for the extension of C6, which is very kind, but we would like it to go a little bit further to the west. Number 1 on your map is Hunts Green; number 2 is Potter Row, which is obviously going to be greatly affected by the line; 3 is Bury Farm and all the barn conversions; number 4 is South Heath; 5 is Sibleys Rise; 6 is Frith Hill; 7 is Great Missenden; 8 is Dutchlands Farm; and 9, which is just on the corner, is Woodlands old people s home. 30. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And London Road, we heard last week, is further north than that. Is that right? 31. MRS HEWETT: London Road? The A413 is at the bottom, down there. You can see the 500-metre line round the track and the portal. 32. The tranquillity of the area any noise becomes pronounced because it is so quiet. We have three footpaths affected: GM13 footpath, which now goes around the portal really nice if you want to have a walk in peace and quiet GM12 footpath goes over the rail line with an unsightly footbridge; and GM2 footpath is also being diverted. 33. What keeps Great Missenden thriving is the many visitors and tourists. I know I have repeated this again and again, but we do thrive on tourists coming in, and all things that I ve mentioned. Will the traders still be thriving after construction? Just a 20% drop in turnover will close many businesses. If businesses close, then obviously employment will fall. People will not want to come to the area. The local schools will suffer and cause a domino effect of a downward spiral. HS2 does not have the same impact of other transport systems that we know of. Business may be very slow to pick up, if at all, after construction. Unlike HS1 or a motorway, there is no improved links for traders and visitors no compensation in that form to look forward to and all we will have is a despoiled countryside which will take away one of the main reasons for visitors wanting to come to Great Missenden Parish. 8

9 34. MR BURTON: Many thanks, Mrs Hewett. We ll be hearing from Mrs Hewett just at the end, but she ll step back for now and I ll turn to our next witness, Mr Mike Johnstone, another parish councillor, who will give the Committee a small amount of evidence regarding the impact on local communities and some construction points. Could we have the next slide, please? 35. MR JOHNSTONE: Good afternoon. I ve lived in the Chilterns for the last 45 years, moving to South Heath eight years ago, downsizing from Chesham. My wife and I moved there in advance of our retirement for a bit of peace and tranquillity and to enjoy the benefits of the Chilterns AONB. Walking, cycling and playing golf are our passions at the moment. I joined the Parish Council about five years ago to represent the ward of South Heath. 36. This slide, number 10, is taken from AP4 to show the construction. I ve joined two maps together so that we can see the whole of the parish. The recently published plans avoid the areas in green. They re the two woods, Stopping s Wood and Jenkin s Wood, coloured in green. However, I d like to point out that the Government planning guidance also emphasises the impacts of nearby developments that can occur on ancient woodlands such as those. They were particularly concerned about things like compacting the soil around the trees, changing the water table, increasing the amount of pollution, including dust, and increasing disturbance to wildlife and additional traffic. It s good that we ve saved the woods directly, but they are in danger. 37. Also on the slide are the community areas of concern for noise, dust and blight. I ve shown them in red. They are largely similar to the ones you saw on the previous slide, with one or two additional areas. Number 1 is Potter Row, which you have heard about. Number 2 is part of the Mulberry Park Hill. Mulberry Park Hill is being demolished, but the houses between that and Potter Row are under threat from dust and noise. 3 is Bury Farm. 4 is Baileys Hatch. 5 is Sibleys Rise. 6 is South Heath. I have included 7, which is Cudsdens Court, mainly for the proximity to the vent shaft near Annie Baileys. 8 is Frith Hill the residents down there. 9 is Great Missenden, where the A413 runs across the bottom of the map. 10 is Woodlands Park residential home. 38. There are two spoil dumps alongside the cutting containing the temporary haul road, which is the one coming down and marked. As has been pointed out, that has 9

10 been moved since C6, which is good. However, there s a construction compound at the bottom, near the link road roundabout, and the spoil dump which is quite near the link road roundabout we believe could cause some problems. There is a flood risk at the link road roundabout anyway. 39. This map provided by HS2 does not show Great Missenden and Prestwood or other parts of South Heath, so, for another perspective, I would ask you to switch to the next slide, please, which is an aerial photograph looking towards Great Missenden with a schematic overlay of the construction portal. The train exit from the portal is about 350 metres from the Weights and Measures Gym, which is on Frith Hill, just below the Frith Hill SHL sign, and 250 metres from Bury Farm. The temporary haul road then joins the busy link road roundabout about 900 metres down from the line, and 900 metres also from the Church of England Combined School, which is just off the map. It would be visible and heard from the centre of Great Missenden and from across the valley at Prestwood. We ve put on a dotted line on the map, as the temporary haul road we consider could be moved further north and placed in a natural fold in the land, thereby making it less visible, and it could avoid joining the link road roundabout on the A MR BURTON: So this dotted line is our proposal. 41. MR JOHNSTONE: Yes. It s a suggestion. There is also a permanent access road off Frith Hill South Heath leg for maintenance and emergency purposes. We ve not been provided with the information, but are assuming that it will not be used by heavy goods vehicles, but we are concerned that the Frith Hill South Heath leg road is not very appropriate, owing to the steep, narrow corner at the bottom, as it joins the B485. Lorries already have difficulties climbing up that steep corner. 42. I appreciate that traffic congestion has been a recurring topic at these hearings, and I will not cover it in detail, but confirm that our concern is the traffic between the two roundabouts i.e. the link road roundabout and at Frith Hill. We ve already got a congestion problem for our parishioners as it s a crossover point for two main commuter routes north/south and east/west. This already is creating rat runs in Great Missenden village and along the hilltop villages. We believe that would be exacerbated in the construction phase. A particular hazard which has also been mentioned by other 10

11 petitioners is the Deep Mill Lane railway bridge, because it s narrow, is on a bend and is a hazard to everybody, especially cyclists. 43. MR BURTON: The Committee probably don t need a reminder, Mr Johnstone, but the Deep Mill Lane railway bridge is on the A MR JOHNSTONE: A413, correct. It s between Great Missenden and Little Missenden. The amount of construction traffic on the A413 has briefly been mentioned, in that a deep bored tunnel, such as the CRAG proposal T3i, would produce more spoil and so more disruption caused by more HGVs on the road than the surface route. We dispute that. The disruption caused to traffic from the C6 surface route crosses eight lanes, roads, farm tracks and the Chiltern line, would result in far greater disruption than that caused by additional HGVs coming from additional tunnelling that s where the crossings are: things like Leather Lane and Burwood Lane and Rocky Lane, etc. and the vertical alignment of the intervention gap in CRAG T3i could be raised or lowered to generate the spoil required for the mitigation bunds, so, again, taking some of the extra spoil off the roads. In addition, the proposal to tunnel throughout the AONB from the south, which was put before the Committee on 7 September, would not generate the spoil near Wendover, so we still maintain it s an overall advantage to tunnel throughout the AONB. I know the mention was made of a shortfall of 430,000 cubic metres from the C5 proposal. The 430,000 cubic metres was spoil that would need to be brought in. In fact, again, we think that could be sorted out and corrected by altering the vertical alignment of the intervention gap; by raising or lowering that, you can raise or lower the amount of spoil you produce, and so we believe that s going to be followed up in further petitions in more detail to explain to you. 45. MR BURTON: Is that you, Mr Johnstone? 46. MR JOHNSTONE: That is me. 47. MR BURTON: Okay. Thank you very much. Could we just go back to slide 7, please? Our next witness is Mrs Roz Thomson, who s the head teacher of Great Missenden Church of England Combined School. I just thought we d go back to slide 7 whilst perhaps Mrs Thomson introduces herself, so she can point the school out to the Committee. 11

12 48. MRS THOMSON: Good afternoon. I m Rozalyn Thomson. I ve been head teacher of Great Missenden Combined School since While we re looking at slide 7, I would just like to point out that the school is where the arrow is there, but that our playing fields extend all the way up to where the skate park is, up there. This boundary is just a hedge, and that goes all the way along our playing fields, so we are directly affected. I m aware that you will have heard from other schools along the route, but I wanted you to imagine this was the first one and that your children attended this school, if you re lucky enough to have children. I wanted to ask you what it was going to be like for them. 49. MR BURTON: Shall we go to slide 12? 50. MRS THOMSON: Just a little background. It s particularly relevant to this case because we are a fairly large primary academy, much loved in the community, with 403 children and 60 staff. We ve been graded outstanding by Ofsted since 2006 and I think we re holding the record in the country for the school that has had no inspections for the longest. We are particularly good on eco-education, so green education. We have had the Green Flag re-awarded three times and we have gold Food for Life status. We are one of only 13 schools in the country to have this, and it is an award for outstanding food and gardening culture. All this is going on right near the HS2 building site. The outdoor environment is vital to our whole curriculum. 51. Our school is 900 metres away from the proposed line and the major construction works of the north portal of the Chiltern tunnel. Our catchment area is bisected by HS2, as you can see on the map on the right of this slide, and two of our three infant schools, which are linked to our school, are on the other side of the line. 52. MR BURTON: That s up in The Lee and Hyde Heath. 53. MRS THOMSON: Correct. Almost half of the children who attend our school have siblings in the linked infant schools on the other side of the line. You saw on slide 7 how close we are, but there is a picture just below the map there of our allotment. This is an active part of our school culture. That is only 10 metres away from the A413, so we re really, really close. 54. Can I move on to slide 13? Before I talk about this slide, I wanted you to see the 12

13 picture on the right at the top there, which is the early-years mud kitchen, which is an outdoor learning facility which is used extensively by the children. It s a wonderful place. There s a den-building area and an outdoor kitchen. The edge of it is only five metres away from the A HS2 s impact on our children will be long-term and damaging. This is not just during the construction phase. The construction phase sounds temporary, but my understanding is that it s eight years, which represents the entire primary school career of three year groups of children. When you say it s temporary, for them it s not; that s a long time. I ve outlined on the slide, which you can read at your leisure, the effects of air pollution on the children. We currently have 25 children in the school who have inhalers for asthma, which is roughly in line with the national average, but air pollutants are directly linked to breathing difficulties, as you will know, and colleagues who have worked in schools next to major routes such as the M40 tell of whole drawers of the teacher s desk which are full to the brim with inhalers. What we are talking about is serious, with, I understand, up to 270 HGV journeys when the tunnel is being constructed an additional 270 transits of HGVs while it s being built. Poor air quality does not just jeopardise outdoor activities; it impacts on children s learning in a direct and a profound way. If you can t breathe easily, then you can t concentrate. 56. The other picture on this slide is our cross-country club. I run with the cross-country club every week. It s a real effort but it s important to lead by example. Our best route from the school will no longer be available, because it s in the field which will be cut in half by the haul road. This really does affect us. 57. I m not going to talk about traffic congestion, except to say that at the beginning and the end of each day we already have queueing cars, pedestrians and buses all using the same narrow link road, or jammed along the high street. Construction traffic will exacerbate these existing problems and will create extremely dangerous conditions for us. 58. MR BURTON: Would it help to go back to slide 7, just to show the Committee where that is happening? Could we go back to slide 7, please? 59. MRS THOMSON: At the moment, a drop-off point for our school is here, the link road. Parents drop their children there, but we have three buses that also turn in 13

14 nearby the recreation ground, and children walk through to our school, which is here. Church Street, the curly one there, is single track effectively because of residents parking, and we discourage parents from using that access to the school. With HS2 and the haul road, this link road is going to become it already is extremely dangerous, but it s going to be impossible with additional traffic going along the A MR BURTON: The haul road comes down to this roundabout. 61. MRS THOMSON: Yes. 62. MR BURTON: Sorry; I interrupted you, Mrs Thomson. We were on slide MRS THOMSON: I ve finished with that one. 14. Excellent. Thank you. This is my final slide, which I won t read out, but I want to point out that I m here to represent the children and the parents and the governors and the staff of Great Missenden School. That s 1,287 people in total. I told the children I was coming here today, and they are unanimous in wanting me to represent our case in the strongest possible terms. They say: please extend the bored tunnel to the edge of the AONB and, if that is not possible, we need essential measures to protect the school from noise, dust and air pollution and they re outlined on that slide we need funding for a drop-off area within the school grounds to alleviate the already highly dangerous traffic congestion around the school, and we need investment in the school s indoor sports facilities to compensate for the compromised outdoor environment. We actively promote outdoor exercise every day, but for at least eight years this is going to be extremely challenging. Our school is an outstanding school in an area of outstanding natural beauty and it must be protected at any cost. 64. MR BURTON: Now, I know that Mrs Thomson hasn t actually read out what is on the slide, and there are a number of fairly detailed requests there, so if the Committee have any questions in relation to those requests to ask of her, then she ll be happy to deal with them now. Indeed, of course, if the promoter has any questions to ask of Mrs Thomson 65. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We d expect these matters to be county ones, which the county will at some stage, if they choose, consider with the promoters. We ve had to say that on a number of occasions, not as a criticism but as a matter of fact. 14

15 66. MR BURTON: Well, it s important, sir, that you and the promoter hear these points. We hope we re not duplicating ahead of what the county will say. Right. I ll call our next witness, please, which is Dr Barnes, who is the GP for Great Missenden. 67. DR BARNES: Good afternoon. I m Dr Kate Barnes and I ve worked as a GP in Great Missenden for 14 years. A large part of my practice area, namely South Heath, Potter Row, Hyde Heath, Hyde End, Ballinger, The Lee, as well as Great Missenden itself, are villages that have been directly affected by the plans for HS2. I want to make it absolutely clear that I m acting solely as an advocate for my patients. I m not personally a NIMBY, as I live outside the affected area. I ve made the decision to take time off work today because I feel so strongly about the detrimental effect that HS2 has had on the health of my patients over the last four and a half years. 68. MR BURTON: Would it help, Dr Barnes, if you just showed the Committee roughly where your patient boundary extends to? If we could go back to slide 5, maybe, which shows the parish boundary. 69. DR BARNES: Yes, certainly we can do that. My practice area in fact covers if you just follow the red line around, it covers the outlying villages such as South Heath, Ballinger, going round up to The Lee 70. MR BURTON: Okay, so your practice goes beyond the parish boundary. 71. DR BARNES: It actually does, yes, because it goes up to The Lee. 72. I can honestly say that hardly a day goes by without a patient bringing up the subject of HS2 within a consultation with me. Primarily I ve seen patients who are struggling with anxiety and insomnia, but also some who ve developed depression. Prior to this, I had a generally mentally stable population of patients. Many are professional people, really quite resilient, and would not think about seeing a doctor for stress, but I have to say that, unfortunately, the unrelenting stress for many of my patients dealing with the fall-out from HS2 has taken its toll, with a not insignificant number now being prescribed antidepressants or sleeping tablets. 73. I ve looked at our practice data regarding patient profiling and GP usage stratification, and it is interesting to see that our top 100 high-intensity users, which is about 3% of our practice population we re a practice of about 3,500 patients, quite a 15

16 small practice prime reason for consulting was for anxiety and depression. The anxiety and depression relates to feeling stuck, life being put on hold for an indefinite amount of time, patients being unable to move against their wishes; they re losing money, running into financial difficulties and this includes some who want to downsize, with a number having planned at their time of life to be releasing equity, particularly for their offspring. For others, the anxiety and depression is about being affected directly by blight and being forced to move from their property away from friends and community. Others run small businesses from home and worry about their livelihoods. Frankly, these are all legitimate worries, and, as a doctor, in these particular situations, it s been very difficult for me to provide adequate reassurance that things will be okay. 74. On top of this, a number of people mention the strain of having to deal with mounds of paperwork and bureaucracy. There are then the patients who are struggling with resultant relationship issues, stress on marriages, finding they re preoccupied, not giving time and attention to children in the way that they may wish for. The anxiety even extends and is projected onto children. One example that I can think of immediately is that of a child that I ve seen having recurrent nightmares about a train coming through his bedroom. 75. In addition to this, we as a practice have our own concerns about dealing with getting stuck in traffic, as we have to go up to these outlying villages and do home visits. Obviously, this also applies to our community and district nurses as well as the pharmacy home delivery service. I can foresee problems with getting out from Prospect House, which is where our surgery is, which is in the high street, on to the link road and then up Frith Hill to the villages. There is also a risk that patients won t feel inclined to try, or won t be able to get down to the surgery. Of course, that carries with it a potential risk to their health. We have an above-average elderly population in our demographic, and these are the ones that I m particularly concerned about. 76. I think there may have been an assumption that many of these problems would have been resolved with C6 i.e. the short tunnel extension but I can say, hand on heart, that this has not been the case, otherwise I wouldn t have taken time off and come here today. Since July, when the decision was made for the shorter tunnel, it has done little to nothing to relieve the stress encountered by my patients, and they continue to 16

17 consult with mental health issues as much as they did before. 77. Clearly, the points I have mentioned are the pressing ones that directly involve my patient population, but, as a doctor, there are other health concerns that I have, such as pollution and road traffic accident risk, but I don t intend to talk about these in any detail as I know they ve been amply covered before. 78. In summary, the short tunnel does not go far enough. It really does not go far enough. The only option that is going to make the situation at all manageable for dealing with the health needs of my patient population is to have a long, fully-bored tunnel. I really hope that I ve got my message across loud and clear and that you will take this very seriously on board. Thank you. 79. CHAIR: Thank you. 80. MR BURTON: Thank you, Dr Barnes. Mr Strachan, have you any questions for Dr Barnes? 81. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): No. 82. MR BURTON: Many thanks. Just continuing with the health theme, our next witness is Mr Bob Davey, who is a first responder. If we could just have slide 15 up, please. Mr Davey, would you introduce yourself? 83. MR DAVEY: Yes. Bob Davey. I ve been a resident of the Great Missenden and Prestwood area for 35 years and am a community first responder for South Central Ambulance Service, one of three in the area. We re talking here about time-critical matters. In the worst case scenarios cardiac arrest seconds count. We do cover Prestwood, Great Missenden, the hilltop villages, and out as far as Chesham. The South Heath responder lives actually in South Heath, very close to the route, so that when he is on duty he will always have to be travelling on roads that are affected by construction traffic and may, indeed, be closed from time to time. 84. The fact that we, as volunteers, are not allowed to have blue lights and sirens means that we do get held up. Especially traffic hold-ups cause considerable delays in our response times. As can be seen from the map, where the red dots signify the most serious 999 calls, South Heath is situated between two areas of high demand in other 17

18 words, Chesham there and Missenden and Prestwood the other side. Depending on who s on duty, there can be a great deal of travel to and fro, crossing the actual route. 85. The potential for accidents causing injury will be higher than normally seen in the local population, due to the number of workers coming in and the heavy engineering operations. I might stress here, though, I m not saying that I think the works will be carried out in an unsafe manner, but just that any large-scale heavy work of this nature will carry a certain risk. 86. In summary, Great Missenden Parish is in an area of high demand already for the ambulance service. Traffic congestion already causes problems in reaching patients in a timely manner. The scale and duration of the works in the area will have an adverse effect on the response times, especially for community first responders, when having to cross areas of the most intense works around the actual route. 87. MR BURTON: Thank you, Mr Davey. Just one question for you. As a responder, is there any particular request or solution that you would propose you have thought about for the Committee? 88. MR DAVEY: Yes, indeed. It s the provision of extra air ambulance cover due to the congestion and due to the inaccessibility of some of the works areas. 89. CHAIR: How many hours a week do you volunteer? Presumably it s training plus 90. MR DAVEY: Yes, training by the ambulance service, and I do about 40 hours per week or so. We work so that the most amount of time is covered throughout the week between the three of us. 91. CHAIR: Thank you. 92. MR BURTON: Thank you, Mr Davey. Mr Strachan? Thank you very much. I did promise, sir, we would move through our witnesses at a rate of knots. I hope we re doing that. Our next witness is Ms Sara Randle, here with maybe more than one hat on, but with a Cycle Touring Club hat on at the very least, and a Cycle Chilterns hat on as well, I think. Slide 16, please. Ms Randle. 18

19 93. MS RANDLE: I ve been a cyclist in the Chilterns area for over 10 years now, and for the last few years I ve been working for the Cycle Touring Club, along with the Chilterns Conservation Board, running the Cycle Chilterns project, which is a cycle tourism and cycle development project in the Chilterns, funded by the Department for Transport s local sustainable transport fund. Back in 2012, it was identified that the Chilterns cycling offer was quite lacking compared to other AONBs, and the Government White Paper on the natural environment in 2011 recognised the fact that walking and cycling visitors are higher value than people arriving by car and should therefore be encouraged, as an important part of the AONB economy. 94. We ve been working very hard over the last few years to bring up the Chilterns to the standard of places like the Cotswolds, which is very well known and very popular with cyclists, and has an amazing cyclist offer, with lots of cycle hire and lots of things for them to do; and the Surrey Hills, which has benefited from the Olympic effect and is very busy with cyclists. The Chilterns had great potential, but not a lot was being done about it. 95. You can see here that Great Missenden, along with a number of other towns, was identified as a gateway hub to promote cycling. You can see from this that we have the Chilterns Cycleway running along there, which is a touring route. It also runs just to the south of this as well, so it circles round in a big loop round the Chilterns. We have two National Cycle Network routes, produced by Sustrans; 57 runs through the village and 30 runs just up the top there through Wendover. We have a heritage route, provided by Chilterns District Council, which is only one of around five or six sign-posted cycle routes in the whole of the Chilterns as a leisure route. That s a great asset for cycling. We also have this circular route which we ve promoted, which passes a number of pubs, a number of cafés and a number of shops, as another leisure route for people to go and ride around. 96. Clearly, this black line is the proposed route. We haven t put the viaducts and cuttings on there, but that s where the route will go. This section here will be they are the main viewing parts of those routes. They are one of the best vantage points of the Misbourne Valley. The viaduct will cut straight through that valley. It will also create noise. It doesn t actually show it on this lane here it looks quite straight but a lot of these lanes around here are quite blind lanes, they have sharp corners and they have high 19

20 hedges, so when cyclists are actually riding through those lanes, they rely on sound quite a lot to hear vehicles coming towards them. Obviously, with a train going through every few minutes, that makes it slightly more dangerous for cyclists to go through and, as I say, spoils one of the best vantage points for riders in the Misbourne Valley. 97. To promote tourism in the area, we created a cycle hub; we put a new cycle hire shop in there, with electric bikes; we created a series of electric bike charging points. You can see these little pint-sized pubs dotted around the area are these electric bike charging points. You hire your bike from the centre of Great Missenden; you ride out for lunch; you plug your bike in to get it charged; you have your lunch, your white wine spritzer; and you ride back. 98. MR BURTON: Great Missenden is the hub, is it? 99. MS RANDLE: It is the hub, yes. Just here is the cycle hub, where the hire is, with the electric bikes and the cycle hire MR BURTON: Yes MS RANDLE: We ve also been doing a number of guided rides. We ve produced these map leaflets, which are given out at the cycle hire hub. These promote routes up to Wendover, because that s a very popular area. These go up to Aylesbury, which is north of that map, and surrounding area We know from the visitors that are now using this cycle hire hub, which is planning to expand next year, that they come from all over the world. We ve had visitors from South America and North America, Australia and all over Europe. We know that they come for the quiet lanes, the tranquillity. We also know that people come out of north London for the weekend; couples come out, and they come out to get away from it all into the quiet and the peace and the tranquillity. Effectively, the reason why people are coming to the Chilterns is going to be ruined by a stonking great railway through the middle of this beautiful area As I say, we didn t have the Olympics, but what we have been doing to promote the area is we have events like the Tour of Britain and the Women s Tour, which both came straight through the centre of Great Missenden in the last 12 months. We ve been promoting the area to an audience of around 140 countries something around over 20

21 200 million homes MR BURTON: Is that the 105. MS RANDLE: That s the Tour of Britain there, yes, which came through in September Those kinds of events bring a huge amount of money on the day into the area and they also bring in money pre-event and post-event with people riding the route. You have all these overhead shots of beautiful landscapes, which will be no more if there s a dirty great scar across it SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Do lift the speed limit as the bikes go through? 107. MS RANDLE: They do, yes, although apparently you can t be done for speeding on a bicycle SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that right? You can be done for riding furiously, I think MS RANDLE: Yes, but not speeding. We ve been heavily promoting these areas with this 110. MR BURTON: Don t quote Ms Randle on that. We re just consulting between ourselves MS RANDLE: I did say apparently. Don t quote me. Talk about losing your flow. For every 1% of increase in these high-value visitors through all of this extra promotion, it s worth around 4 million to the Chilterns economy as a whole. If, through all of this promotion and these wonderful things, we can get Chilterns to a similar level to its equivalent AONBs, then that would be worth an extra 60 million, approximately, per year to the Chilterns economy as a whole. Obviously everybody has places to choose from, and if they don t want to come into Great Missenden because of the extra noise and the views that have been spoiled, then it s unlikely that Great Missenden Parish is going to get a slice of that pie, and lots of all these businesses who are just starting to cotton on to the idea of cycle tourism and are really starting to gear up for the fact that cyclists can bring considerable money to their small businesses in rural England are going to lose out and they could suffer, and all the hard work we have been doing will be lost. 21

22 112. MR BURTON: Just so the Committee are clear, are you saying that there are competitors that will take the high-value visitors? If so, what are they? 113. MS RANDLE: Absolutely, yes. The competitors are the other AONBs, which obviously won t have the railway running through, so they ll still have the quietness and the tranquillity. They already have a much better cycling offer than the Chilterns does, and they re also much more likely to get future investment as well. It s unlikely that more investment will be put into this area whilst the construction is going on, and, if cycling sees a decline in this area, investment could go to other areas of the Chilterns, so this parish and its local businesses would lose out Can we have the next slide, please? As well as the tourism aspect, we ve been developing the local aspect. The area is already known as quite a there are existing safety concerns in the area, with the amount of traffic and some of the road layouts. With the perceived increase, the traffic congestion, rat runs, etc., nobody is really going to want to cycle, and certainly they re not going to encourage their children to cycle, so we could be in danger of losing a generation of cyclists in this area by not being encouraged at this early age which has been shown to be very important for parents to encourage people to cycle as children. We ve run a number of Bikeability courses, which is the new cycling proficiency, to try to get kids out on bikes, but if the parents think it s too dangerous for their kids to ride, then they just won t let them. That generation of cyclists during the construction work could potentially be lost With the noise, the pollution of the construction, the dust, the dirt, the mud on the road making it dangerous, the degradation of road surfaces, it all makes it a really unpleasant environment for local cyclists and visitors, actually. It s just not going to be a place that people want to cycle for the best part of 10 years. I just mentioned the future investment. The cycling boom is now. We re rolling. We have momentum. This construction work, as is, could essentially put the kibosh on all of that and halt everything in its tracks and not start up again for another eight to 10 years, which is a huge deal of time to lose on other areas. A lot can be done in 10 years if you continue the investment that we ve started. I think that s it MR BURTON: Very good. Any questions for Ms Randle? No? Many thanks. Our final witness before we return to our parish councillors is Mr John Gover, who will 22

23 address you in relation to Grim s Ditch, which I believe the Committee already has some knowledge of, but maybe not too much. Slide 18, please MR GOVER: Good afternoon. My professional background is as a geologist/geophysicist in the oil industry. I worked for many years in that industry in various parts of the world. When I retired, I went back to college and did a masters in archaeology, and I now specialise in archaeological geophysics The parish is very concerned about the partial destruction of the Grim s Ditch scheduled monument, and the proposed route of HS2. I should point out this is the only scheduled monument which is directly affected by HS2 along the whole route to Birmingham Slide 18 shows you that the outline of the Grim s Ditch, which is a linear feature. It covers, as it stands, some 15 kilometres in length and the small section in the middle, which I ve highlighted with a red line, is where the HS2 route will go through and cut through the Grim s Ditch Grim s Ditch itself lies on the plateau zone of the Chilterns Hills, towards the Northwest Scarp. It consists of an outer bank and an inner ditch. Even today, it s some three metres high in places and one and a half to two metres deep. When it was built, it was an imposing feature on the landscape. Its age is enigmatic. It probably was the first century BC, which is over 2,000 years old, and it was probably built by a tribe called the Catuvellauni Why was it built? We don t really know. We think two reasons. One, it would act as a boundary to the tribal area. Two, in the highlands it would also be convenient for the movement of cattle and sheep up to the summer pasture, in order to contain them. I want to concentrate on the area that is going to be cut by HS2 itself, which is a little bit different and may be quite important in its own right. One, it does not lie in the plateau area; it lies in the valley of the Misbourne. Two, it s probably not connected directly to the rest of the plateau Grim s Ditch itself and may have a separate little identity MR BURTON: So the plateau area, can you reach on my plan? 123. MR GOVER: That is this area here and that area there, and this is the valley. 23