High Speed Rail: Day 2

Apart from 4 to 5 hours work on constituency surgery meetings and subsequent letters, most of today has been spent on HS2 stuff.

I went over to Chinnor first thing to the office of the Chilterns Conservation Board. They gave me some more detailed maps of the scheme than were printed in  yesterday’s White Paper and I’ve now posted these on the site.

I’m also sending copies of the White Paper and the HS2 Report asnd supporting documentation to the clerks of those parish and town councils directly affected and to Wendover, Missenden and Aylesbury Reference libraries.

There are about 1000 pages of documents so it’s going to take me everyone  a bit of time to really immerse myself in the detail.

I’m afraid that the news is grim. The planned route includes:

•  the line running through the Misbourne Valley close to Potter Row and South Heath;
• a viaduct across the A413 and the Chiltern Line just east of Wendover and a bridge over Bacombe Lane;
• the loss of houses in Ellesborough Road, Wendover, a cut-and-cover tunnel through the scarp there and the loss of Wendover’s cricket field;
• a viaduct over the A4010 near the Bucks Goat Centre;
• a line round the edge of Aylesbury from Hawkslade to Fairford Leys, on viaducts part of the way (because of the flood plain), and crossing the golf course between Fairford Leys and Hartwell House.

Then there are all the issues that arise out of construction. Presumably there would have to be lorry parks , depots for building materials and arrangements for the removal of spoil. If there’s going to be bridge workson the A413, A4010 and the A418 Oxford Road what on earth is that going to do to already intolerable jams in and out of Aylesbury at peak hours?

We have to put together the strongest possible case for an alternative route that would do less environmental damage.