Compensation for Midlands land owners affected by the proposed HS2 high speed rail line could in some cases be more than a decade away, an expert has warned.
Alastair Frew, partner in Stratford-upon-Avon based Lodders Solicitors, and an HS2 specialist, said those within the London to Birmingham route corridor and set to have their land compulsory purchased might be around two years off seeing money reach their bank account, whereas for those outside the zone but effectively blighted it could take another 12 years.
And he warned that, for many of those affected, construction work and road alterations could prove more of a headache than the line itself.
His comments followed the Government’s Bill announcements in this month’s Queen’s Speech, bringing the project a step closer.
Legislation paving the way for the £16.3 billion development would, if approved, see Parliamentary permission to build Phase One and the powers to operate it. The Queen’s Speech however also included financial enabling powers to progress the early stages of Phase Two towards Leeds and Manchester, with a projected cost of a further £16.7 billion. Despite recent concerns voiced by the National Audit Office, the Government remains openly committed to the project.
The London to Birmingham section of the high speed line aims to be running by 2025 with work likely to start in 2016. Phase Two is unlikely to open before 2033.
Mr Frew said the moves were little consolation to the firm’s land owner clients worried about the implications.
“The problem is that many are already being impacted by the scheme but are still a long way off receiving compensation or even being able to quantify their position.”
He pointed out there were three potential avenues to compensation.
There was the Government’s hardship scheme but so far the latest figures showed 299 of the 455 applications had been rejected by HS2, the company running the scheme, with just 81 successful.
To succeed applicants have to be both blighted and facing a pressing need to move, for example, ill-health or divorce.
“The rules are indeed very strict,” noted Mr Frew.
The next most likely to receive compensation is the group within the zone whose land will be compulsory purchased.
But they are for the moment in limbo following a High Court judicial review ruling in March rejecting nine out of ten legal challenges to the project brought by protestors, but deciding the Government’s compensation consultation had been flawed.
The Hon Mr Justice Ouseley said further consideration should have been given to other potential compensation models. He decreed that not enough information had been provided to consultees and the criteria by which compensation options were considered were not adequately explained – he also found that the Government had not fully considered HS2 Action Alliance’s detailed consultation response on compensation.
The consultation has since been re-run and an outcome is awaited.
Mr Frew said: “These are the people who will be compensated at the point the authorities compulsorily purchase the land. For most of Phase One that is probably at least a couple of years away.”
But it is those in the third case scenario – blighted but outside the CPO zone – who are likely to come off worst.
They are a decade and more away from compensation.
Mr Frew said: “They will not know where they stand until a year after the new railway has begun operating.
“HS2 will then assess the impact of the line on the property, see whether the concern can be mitigated or addressed, and only if it can’t will they pay out an as yet unspecified amount.
“It is these land and property owners who will have the whole thing hanging over them for years and years.”
During which all sorts of works would be going on around them – new roads, new service roads, bridges, tunnels, flyovers, soil dumps, temporary quarries and much more besides. “Potentially the road works are going to be more of a nuisance than the railway itself. The original promise was that all this would be self-contained within the zone but that no longer seems to be the case.”
And Mr Frew gave as an example the trials of a client caught up in it all.
Originally they were inside the zone but following route changes eventually found themselves just outside. And on top of all the disruption some sort of temporary barrack block for construction workers may now be erected on their doorstep. Another client family will have a new road bridge erected outside their kitchen window.
“Unsurprisingly they are not happy,” added Mr Frew.