What lessons from HS1?By Cllr Elizabeth Stacey
I was lucky enough to get included on the recent fact-finding trip to Kent, organized by Buckinghamshire County Council, to discover what the impact of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) had been on the countryside. How had villages and property prices been affected, what about the noise of the trains, and finally – and perhaps most important – what was the overall visual impact?
The coach trip was an all-day event and included a presentation by Chris Waite who, though now retired, had been the officer in charge of planning at Kent County Council when the HS1 project went through Parliament. It is important here to realise that in this sort of development local Councils do not have a role as planning authorities! Their role is to raise queries about the proposed development and ensure that sufficient conditions are put on the final Bill to minimise the impact of the development on the area.
As regards the effect on villages it looked from our visit as if the HS1 had managed on the whole to avoid them, but there was just one village where the line went very close to houses indeed! Talking to the occupant of one of them we were told that prices had certainly not gone back to their pre- HS1 development level!
At Ebbsfleet and other stops we stood on bridges hearing the HS1 trains whizz beneath us so were well aware of the impact of the noise. It was pretty massive but it was a sort of whoosh which lasted only for seconds literally. At one stop the HS1 line, at that point running underground, had a motorway running beside it and the noise from the motorway drowned out the sound of the trains.
Now what were my feelings about the impact of HS1 on the Kent countryside? First, because a lot of use is made of tunnelling and the line is run below ground level where possible the visual impact seems to have been minimised. Of course this doesn’t apply at Ebbsfleet International Rail Station: this is a junction where ordinary trains meet up with the high-speed trains and proceed to London along the same line, obviously all above ground and in full view. Another point to bear in mind is that both the railway lines and the trains need maintenance, servicing etc., and in the case of HS1 there is Singlewell Infrastructure Maintenance Depot which has, I understand, been constructed in a Green Belt area!
As a result of this visit I have come to the conclusion that if the Government does stick to its preferred route for HS2 the long-term effect would not be as disastrous as I had imagined, but the construction phase would be horrendous and The Lee might conceivably be affected by a Maintenance Depot or something to do with that side of things. As I understand it the business case for HS2 is not good and hopefully the Government will decide – if it goes ahead at all – to use another route.
(On Saturday 11th September, there will be a walk to ‘Say No’ to HS2 in the Chilterns. See Dear Diary for details. Ed.)