HS2 Update 6 - Additional Letters

Here are the follow-up letters talked about in my most recent HS2 update (please see below). As you can see, I have written to The National Trust, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and Natural England to investigate what action they have taken in response to HS2. In addition, I have also included below a recent Parliamentary Question asked by Tony Baldry MP about the Exceptional Hardship Scheme, which you may find of  interest.

 

Parliamentary Question:

Tony Baldry (Banbury, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many applications have been made to the High Speed Two Exceptional Hardship scheme; how many such applications have been (a) accepted and (b) refused to date; what estimate he has made of the time taken from receiving an application to the applicant being informed of the decision; what the date was on which the least recent application not yet decided upon was received by his Department; and what the total amount of compensation is that has been committed under the scheme to date.

 Philip Hammond (Secretary of State, Transport; Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)

The Exceptional Hardship scheme (EHS) has, as of 21 January, received 115 applications. 20 applications have been accepted so far and 65 applications have been rejected. The remaining 30 applications have not yet reached the decision stage in the EHS process.

For those applications where a decision has been made, it has taken on average around two months from receiving the application to inform the applicant of the decision, although this varies from application to application. Our aim is to give applicants a decision within three months wherever possible. The oldest application not yet decided on was received on 12 October.

The total committed spend under the scheme so far is £9,083,750. This is the cost of properties where a valuation has been obtained and agreed with the applicant. Applications that have been accepted under the EHS but where a formal valuation of the property has not yet been agreed are estimated at a further £13,800,000.