16-Jan-2015

Select Committee visit to Denham

Dear All – Committee Members, Petitioners and Supporters alike …

I’ve been roundly admonished for failing to give everyone an update on yesterday’s visit by the Select Committee MPs – well, four of the six MPs, anyway - along with the Right Honourables Grieve and Hurd, various councillors and no fewer than 13 representatives of HS2 Ltd, many of whom were forced to wear hi-vis jackets, just to put them in their place! Some of the councillors present have, to my knowledge, never uttered a word about HS2 on the public record, but perhaps they’ll speak up now that they’ve seen some of the most endangered and beautiful parts of the Colne Valley.

Those who followed the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ all the way from Denham station to Ruislip will know that the turn-out by banner-waving supporters was quite wonderful, and became more intense the longer the tour continued. Harefield village was festooned with STOP HS2 insignia – you should have seen the fishing shop! - and there were signs on every lamp-post along Harvil Road, and on the windscreen of dozens of cars parked at HOAC. On the Grand Union Canal crossing at Widewater Lock, boaters blocked the waterway for a while to make their point as the coach party watched from the bridge:

There was an audible gasp from some of the MPs as they get off the coach outside the Old Orchard pub, and saw the view across the lakes for the first time. In Ickenham, one of them remarked that they hadn’t encountered such passionate local feeling against HS2 on any of their site visits to date.

Those who were there on Thursday will have formed their own opinion, but my impression was that the MPs were interested in the issues, patient and attentive when questioned, and in no way objected to the convoy of vehicles that pulled up at every stop, disgorging campaigners who wished to put their particular point of view, or tell their own story about how HS2 could mess up their lives. As far as I could see, everyone who wanted to speak to them got a hearing – and many of the HS2 Ltd officials got a right old earful!

Thanks to Tom Bankes for travelling a long distance to explain the importance of Savay Lake, and to Robin Allen at the Denham Water Ski Club for pointing out the flaws in the way HS2 Ltd have smuggled in new information – in his case, a proposed access road across his land, which wasn’t mentioned during the consultation period – when they thought we wouldn’t notice. At the Chalfont Lane stopping point, farmer Arthur Sherriff made a mockery of HS2’s plans to move ancient woodland from one site to another it just can’t be done - and at her beloved Savay Farm, Sally Cakebread made an impassioned plea to keep the railway well away from the most venerable building in South Bucks.

At the Old Orchard, as we looked over the sun-dappled lakes, one campaigner told the MPs: “If a railway was planned through the Lake District in Cumbria, it would never stand a chance. But this is our Lake District, and we’ll fight just as hard to preserve it.” Those were just a few of the comments I heard: I’m sure you’ll have a few more of your own. It was a morning thoroughly well spent.

But will it make any difference? Only time will tell, but I’m convinced that this was a worthwhile exercise in which some important gains were made:

The MPs and the influential clerk of the Select Committee, Neil Caulfield, have stated their intention to return to the Colne Valley for another visit in the spring or after the election in May, to take a closer look at the bits they saw, and take in the bits they didn’t. We hope to occupy one of the three days
Seeing something for real, like the glorious Broadwater Lake in the sunshine, is 100 times more powerful than studying computer graphics prepared by HS2, with all the parts they don’t want us to see ‘greyed out’. The glossy pictures of their beautiful railways and viaduct will no longer fool anyone.
Meeting passionate householders, business people, farmers and lovers of the countryside – seeing the emotion in their faces and, in some cases, the tears in their eyes as they explained their predicament - is 100 times more powerful than receiving a letter or an email. Having said that, please don’t stop writing to them!

It’s impossible to predict, but we’re fairly sure that we won’t be called to present our petitions until after the General Election on 7th May. If that changes – not the election date, the petitioning dates - we’ll let you know ASAP and organise a local seminar to get everyone into shape for their half-hour of fame and notoriety! Now that we’ve met two-thirds of the committee, we know there’s nothing to worry about. We must regard it as an opportunity to be grasped, rather than the equivalent of a visit to the dentist or the leg-waxing parlour!

If you’d like to see a few more pictures of the day, click on this link:
http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/pictures-hs2-committee-visits-hillingdon-8455304

Further coverage can be found here:
http://www.getbucks.co.uk/news/local-news/hs2-committee-visits-denham-look-8452386

Frank Partridge