We have received the following update from the Buckinghamshire County Council HS2 team:
(Note: previous Updates can be found on the Campaigns part of this web site at https://www.amershamsociety.org/topics/hs2/)
Following the general election this e-update reports on the results for each of the previous Select Committee Members and the forward programme for Select Committee hearings.
Select Committee update
Following the general election, 5 of the 6 Select Committee MPs have been re-elected, with only Liberal Democrat, Michael Thornton, losing his seat in the House of Commons. Therefore a new member of the Select Committee will have to be selected.
The majorities these MPs were re-elected with are:
- Robert Syms (Conservative- Poole) – 33.3%
- Sir Peter Bottomley (Conservative- Worthing West) – 33.2%
- Henry Bellingham (Conservative- North West Norfolk) – 29.4%
- Yasmin Qureshi (Labour- Bolton South East) – 26.8%
- Ian Mearns (Labour- Gateshead) – 39.0%
- Mike Thornton (Liberal Democrat- Eastleigh) – Lost seat to Conservative, Mim Davies
It should be noted that at the last hearing of the Select Committee in March, the Chair, Robert Syms, stated that the Committee expected to reconvene in June, subject to the election results. Upon reconvening it is understood that the remaining petitioners from the Colne Valley, including local authorities, will be heard.
Select Committee Visits to Buckinghamshire
The Select Committee Visits to Buckinghamshire were planned for the 20, 21 and 22 May. These have now been postponed. No dates have been put forward to replace these at this time, but they may not be until July. The full statement can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/high-speed-rail-london-west-midlands-bill-select-committee-commons/news/bucks-visit-postponed/
The Select Committee Clerk has published the first draft of the itineraries for the visits. These can be found as follows:
- Cheryl Gillan MP (Amersham constituency, CFAs 8 and 9) – http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/hs2/Visits/Buckinghamshire_visit_20_May_15.pdf
- David Lidington MP (Aylesbury constituency, CFAs 10 and 11) – http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/hs2/Visits/Buckinghamshire_visit_21_May_15%20(3).pdf
- John Bercow MP (Buckingham constituency, CFAs 12, 13 and 14) – http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/hs2/Visits/Buckinghamshire_visit_22_May_15%20(3).pdf
Please note that these itineraries will not yet reflect suggestions which have been sent to BCC and/or the Clerk over the last 3 weeks. A subsequent draft will be published online shortly.
Please be aware that the final decision on these itineraries will be taken by the Select Committee in partnership with local MPs.
Department for Transport Traffic Counts
The Department for Transport provides street-level traffic data for every junction-to-junction link on the ‘A’ road and motorway network of Great Britain. Some of this information may be useful to petitioners with highways issues. The website for these counts can be found at http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/.
Crossrail Chief Engineer joins HS2 ltd
HS2 Ltd has filled the last of the senior client construction team vacancies with Crossrail chief engineer, Chris Dulake. Mr Dulake will join the phase one infrastructure executive as programme director for engineering later this month.
The full senior Infrastructure Executive team is as follows:
- Jim Crawford – Managing Director (also on the HS2 ltd Exec)
- Rob Carr – Programme Director, South
- Mike Hickson – Programme Director, Central
- Mike Lyons – Programme Director, North
- John Bettles – Programme Director, Railway systems
- Steve Hudson – Programme Director, Commercial and Development
- Steve Fink – Programme Director, Health and Safety
- Chris Dulake – Programme Director, Engineering
- Sabina Nizamuddin – Phase One Business Manager
Landscape Report
Buckinghamshire County Council has been working with a number of partners to produce a landscape report on the impacts of HS2. This report sets out the principles we think HS2 Ltd should be adopting in its design of the scheme. We have requested this form to be put up on our website, this may not be for a few days but when available it will be on the petitioning page at http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/environment/hs2/petitioning/. We will link directly to the document in the next update.
Noise update
Chiltern District Council has produced a noise update on how the route wide petitioning on noise is progressing. Thirteen local authorities have combined resources in this area and are sharing the services of a railway noise expert, barrister and Parliamentary Agent. The group is called the local authorities noise consortium or HS2LANC. The full update can be found at http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/3136663/150430-Parish-Councils-Update-on-Route-wide-noise.pdf.
Buckinghamshire Compensation and Mitigation Panel (BCMP)
The Buckinghamshire Mitigation and Compensation Panel (BCMP) met on Wednesday 13 May. This group provides a forum for communities to voice concerns on HS2 issues and for the Council to feedback information to the communities. On the 13th we discussed the suspension of the Select Committee Visit, update on BCC and AVDC meetings with HS2 Ltd and the difficulty in progressing issues.
Each CFA area has a community representative on the panel who should be feeding back discussions had at BCMP. If you would like to know who your representative is, please let us know. Local County Councillors are also invited.
Details of the next meeting will follow in the next update.
Buckinghamshire County Council HS2 team:
Jackie Copcutt jcopcutt@buckscc.gov.ukTel: 01296 383793
Darl Sweetland dsweetland@bucksccc.gov.uk Tel: 01296 383463
HS2 Blueprint Mailbox HS2Blueprint@buckscc.gov.uk
BCC HS2 Webpages: http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/environment/hs2/