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Newsletter June 2013

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It has been a little while since we last provided you with an update on what has been going on, so here goes….

Regular Meetings with Alec Shelbrooke

We have established monthly meetings with Alec Shelbrooke MP to discuss developments in our campaign and also Alec’s proposal for an alternative route; so far we have met twice. As part of his work on this, he has arranged for engineers from HS2 Ltd to visit the area so they can be shown the geography of where they are proposing to build whopping great viaducts. Representatives from SOWHAT will be joining the visit. We will keep you informed of the outcome(s).

Swillington Organic Farm Open Day – SOWHAT Attending

This Sunday, 9th June, Swillington Organic Farm will be holding their annual open day with plenty to do for all the family (lots of baby animals to keep the kids entertained). Ed has had a great idea for illustrating how the train line will carve through the farm and the scale of the viaducts – worth coming along for alone! SOWHAT will be having an information stall at the event, so please come down, between 11am and 4pm, to lend your support to both us and the farm.

Rothwell May Day Fair – SOWHAT Stall

SOWHAT had a stall at the Rothwell May Day Fair. Lots of people were very interested in hearing about the proposed route and its impact on the local community and environment. It was heartening so many support our efforts and believe the whole project should be scrapped. We will be having another stall at the Rothwell Carnival on Saturday 13th July, so make sure you pay us a visit at Springhead Park.

HS2 Debate in Leeds

On Thursday 27th June Leeds Metropolitan University’s Rosebowl is playing host to an event entitled ‘HS2 Debate: The fast train south is a strain not a gain’. The debate starts at 6.30pm and is open to anyone to attend, with advanced purchase of a ticket (£10). For more information please go to: http://hs2debate.eventbrite.co.uk/

Campaign Funds

A huge ‘thank you’ to those of you who have donated to the SOWHAT campaign, so far we have raised over £900 which includes a very generous single donation of £500 from Appleyard Arbor Homes Ltd. The funds raised so far have enabled us, amongst other things, to produce leaflets and large format maps of the route, and pay for speakers from national anti HS2 organisations. We have also contributed £200 to HS2AA’s high court appeal fund, more on which below.

Political Opposition to HS2 in West Yorkshire Grows

You may have seen in the media over the last couple of weeks that a number of regional politicians have spoken out against HS2. Firstly, Barry Sheerman MP for Huddersfield has told Radio Leeds about how he was “conned by HS2 spin but changed my mind when I studied the evidence”. You can listen to the interview here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UptzzlC3_yA . Following this both Cllrs Peter Box and David Green, leaders of Wakefield and Bradford Councils respectively, have expressed their concerns. Cllr Box has stated “At this time, I do not believe an economic case for HS2 has been made. We have to consider the environmental impact on the region and represent existing train provision and we have to ask the question – does this investment give residents the best deal? The cost per mile of HS2 has been identified as between £130m and £160m per mile, with 11.4 miles going through our district. At a minimum, this would be a massive £1.48bn that could, if invested in Wakefield make a real difference to the district, for example bringing our highways up to scratch and building new infrastructure.”

Cllr Green has said “I have misgivings about the way in which it is currently promulgated. I think it is a one club approach. Without investment in regional infrastructure at the same time you have to question whether it will develop the economy.”

Unfortunately there has been no such questioning from Leeds City Council as of yet.

National News

It has been a good few weeks nationally, following on from two Newsnight reports into fair compensation and the business case which highlighted significant issues with both, we have had the publication of the National Audit Office report into the robustness of the business case for HS2 and also the Government’s Major Project Authority has classified HS2 as ‘amber red: success in doubt’. The NAO ‘has expressed reservations about the Department’s business case. In particular, in presenting its case for investment in the project, the Department is said to have poorly articulated the strategic need for a transformation in rail capacity and how High Speed 2 will help generate regional economic growth.’ The full report can be found via the following link:
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/high-speed-2-a-review-of-early-programme-preparation/

HS2 Action Alliance Return to Court

Back in March HS2 Action Alliance was given leave to appeal the judicial review decision on the environmental case. The ability to lodge the appeal was entirely dependent on £100,000 being raised by the end of May. Through a huge effort, including the raising of £20,000 over the last May bank holiday, the target was achieved and it is now all systems go for an appeal hearing in the near future. We’ll keep you updated on the outcome.

Exceptional Hardship Scheme Consultation Closes

As you will all be aware the Exceptional Hardship Scheme consultation closed on 20th May. Hopefully it won’t be too long before HS2 Ltd publish the findings/results. A big thank you to everyone who submitted a response. We will post our group response on the website very soon.

National STOPHS2 Convention – 29th June

Stop HS2 are holding a national convention on 29th June at Stafford County Showground, bringing together groups from across phase 1 and 2. A couple of representatives will be attending and we’ll provide an update after the event.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading.

Newsletter 1 – February 2013

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Following our meeting on Wednesday 20th February, there have been a number of developments in our campaign which you may be interested in.

Meetings & Communication with Alec Shelbrooke MP

Hopefully many of you took the opportunity to meet with Mr Shelbrooke when he visited residents at two meetings on Saturday 16th February.  We believe that most residents have also now received a 3 page letter from him, in which he states that he is meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport to attempt to move the proposed route slightly further across the valley (to mitigate its impact) and to express our concerns in relation to fair compensation.  We wait with interest to see what response he receives.

Whilst Mr Shelbrooke has indicated that he supports HS2 and believes it will be coming into Leeds down the Aire Valley, we would encourage everyone to continue writing to him to express your doubts and concerns.  Continuous lobbying, pressure and communication from his constituents will help to keep the issue firmly on his agenda.

Media Coverage

We were contacted by the Yorkshire Evening Post at the beginning of last week for input into an article they ran on 19th February about the impact of HS2 on residents in south east Leeds.  Councillor Golton raised our concerns with the Council’s Executive Board and the YEP interviewed him in its piece.

We also got coverage on Radio Leeds throughout the day on Thursday 21st February when they discussed the impact of HS2 on residents and broadcast interviews with James Lynch, Jo Smith and other local residents.  They balanced this with interviews with directors of HS2 and railway pressure groups and supporters.

Leeds University Radio interviewed James Lynch on Thursday 21st February and broadcast a news report on the local impact of HS2.

Finally, the Rothwell Record will be running a 3 page special feature on HS2 in their next issue which will be available at local stores from Friday 1st March.

Swillington Organic Farm & Parish Council

We were delighted to welcome Ed Cartwright from Swillington Organic Farm to the committee meeting.  Ed is also involved with Swillington Parish Council and we are hoping that we can all join forces to work together on the campaign against HS2.  The Parish Council is holding a meeting on Sunday 3rd March and someone from the SOWHAT committee will be attending.

Committee Plans

At the most recent committee meeting, we began to share out tasks and focus on a plan for moving the campaign forward.  We will be communicating an action plan to committee members very soon which will allocate specific tasks to volunteers and help share the workload amongst everyone who has agreed to get actively involved.  Tasks will include further research, contacting other affected organisations/pressure groups,  organising special events and lobbying politicians.

Communication Plans

Stephen Blackburn came up with a great idea for a logo for SOWHAT, which can now be seen on the homepage of the website (and this newsletter’s header) and should shortly appear on our Twitter and Facebook pages.  We will also be using it on any printed promotional material we produce.

Louise Drake has kindly agreed (in addition to setting up our Twitter account @hs2sowhat) to put together a communication plan for the group which will bring together all our marketing and promotional activity on a project timeline.

The communication plan is going to include the production of some leaflets/postcards which we hope will include an artist’s impression of how the proposed line will look running alongside the canal, highlight the risks of house prices falling across the wider area, and ask people to join the Facebook group and write to our MP Alec Shelbrooke.  With this in mind – we are keen to find out if anyone in communication group is a printer, or knows anyone who could help us get the leaflets/postcards produced.

Deputation to full Council

Dayle and James are in the process of applying to present a deputation to a meeting of all Leeds City Councillors.  We hope to confirm a date soon for this to happen in April or May, but must submit an outline of the speech first.  Once confirmed, this will give us the opportunity to speak to at Full Council for 5 minutes, highlighting the blight and impact we have all suffered as a result of the project which the Council have been so supportive of.  We intend to ask the Council to provide assurances that they will only support HS2 when the government will guarantee that no citizen of Leeds will be expected to suffer a personal financial loss as a result of the project.

Bank Account for Campaign Funds

We will shortly be able to provide details of the bank account we are opening to gather small contributions from residents to help with the ongoing expenses of running the campaign.  Unfortunately, there are costs associated with producing surveys and leaflets, hiring meeting venues and speakers etc, and we would be very grateful for small contributions.  More details will follow once the account is open.

Sustainability Reports & Freedom of Information

Bernard Dixon had made progress reading the sustainability reports into the proposed route of Phase 2 of HS2, (a document which runs to over 400 pages!) and raised a number of ambiguities within the findings which we believe present opportunities to submit Freedom of Information requests for further information.  For example, the report mentions properties it believes will be impacted by noise, or which fall within specific distances from the proposed route, but it doesn’t say which properties these are.  The report also makes the distinction between rural and urban areas, but doesn’t say what areas fall into which classification.  We intend to submit FOI requests to clarify these issues over the next few weeks.

Responding to Exceptional Hardship Scheme Consultation

On 28 January 2013, the Secretary of State for Transport, announced the launch of the Exceptional Hardship Scheme consultation for properties affected by Phase Two of HS2 between West Midlands and Manchester and Leeds.  We would encourage everyone to submit a response to this consultation.  The more people who respond, the more chance the government may actually listen to what people are saying.  Full details are available here, where the consultation instruction and response documents can be downloaded.

http://www.hs2.org.uk/have-your-say/consultations/phase-two/exceptional-hardship-scheme

As well as individual responses it has been agreed by the Committee that a group response will be submitted to the consultation.  Once a draft has been produced we will circulate for comment before finalising.

Lastly date for your diary….

We would like to invite residents to a second open meeting on Monday 18th March , 8pm at Blackburn Hall, Rothwell.  Apologies for the venue not being in the village(s) but due to availability and given we were bursting at the seams at the Two Pointers we thought it prudent to book as large a room as possible, plus under the Council’s lettings policy we’ve got the main hall for free!  The main focus of the meeting will be a presentation given Andrew Bodman from AGAHST – the umbrella group for organisations fighting HS2 (including STOP HS2).  He will talk about campaigning, providing advice to us in relation to fighting the proposals and protecting our interests and will answer questions from residents, as he has significant experience from phase 1 of the project.  Should you have any specific issues/questions you’d like Andrew to address please forward them to woodlesfordhs2@gmail so that we can provide some pre-meeting notification to him.

That’s all for now, thanks.