Property owners face up to HS2 go-ahead
Tuesday, 10 January 2012 1:27 PM
Transport secretary Justine Greening has approved plans for the controversial HS2 train line with extra help for owners of homes along the route.
The new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham will unlock development opportunities in both cities but owners could be facing years of blight while it is built, with a completion date target of 2026.
HS2 could eventually be part of a £33 billion high-speed network stretching as far as Manchester, Leeds and Scotland and will reduce the journey time between London and Birmingham to just 49 minutes.
Greening had last-minute concessions for protestors in counties like Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire that lie along the route. She said plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on new stretches of tunnel would halve the number of homes affected.
But that seems unlikely to placate owners of homes nearby who face years of disruption from construction work and a repeat of the blight suffered by people with homes near HS1 – the line from London to the Channel Tunnel.
Council homes in Camden in north London will also have to be demolished, although the council has pledged to replace them within the borough.
However, the decision was good news for developers eyeing up land around the proposed new interchange at Old Oak Common in west London. Hammersmith and Fulham council is backing a scheme that could see the construction of 12,000 new homes.
Justine Greening said the scheme was the largest transport infrastructure investment for a generation and would help deliver economic growth.
But she added: "The revised route offers considerable improvements to communities, with the number of dwellings at risk of land take almost halving and the number experiencing increased noise levels reducing by a third."
Jonathan Bramwell, partner and head of the central region at The Buying Solution, said: “In North Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire, we expect that the HS2 announcement will make the countryside around Banbury and Bicester more popular especially for the school driven buyers who want easy access to the Chiltern Line.
"Sadly, many homeowners along the route of the line will be faced with years of battling over compensation. On the flip side, it could provide an opportunity for savvy buyers to pick up a good deal.”
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