Fast track to folly

The next step in the Government’s dream of a high-speed rail network across Britain is reaching a head, with the proposed London-to-Birmingham link facing widespread opposition for the damage it will cause to local countryside. Mark Rowe investigates the impact it will have on walkers, the Ramblers’ campaign to challenge the scheme and what can be done to improve it

Old British Rail adverts entreated us to let the train take the strain. But plans for the 225km/140-mile high-speed rail line between London and the West Midlands, known as HS2, increasingly look like placing the burden of rail travel squarely on the broad shoulders of rural England’s tranquil countryside – the very areas that walkers so love to explore. Few people object in principle to high-speed rail, and many readers will have admired high-speed networks in France and Germany, only to feel, on return to the British transport system, like Dawn Man stepping back into his time machine. But the proposed high-speed line through cherished countryside, with implications for footpaths and walkers, as well as local people, does not lend itself to easy answers. The Government’s case is that HS2 would provide a £44bn boost to the UK economy and cut the journey time to Birmingham to 49 minutes. The route will run through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, along with rural stretches of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire. It will dramatically traverse a purpose-built viaduct through the Colne Valley SSSI just outside London. And it will also cut across ancient monuments, such as Grim’s Ditch in the Chilterns, a prehistoric boundary bank, and encroach upon up to 69 wildlife sites.

Mixed grassroots opinions
So far, the Ramblers has identified 150 footpaths that could be affected. In Buckinghamshire, 56 paths require alteration by diversion, bridges or tunnels. In Oxfordshire, seven footpaths will be crossed, including the Westbury Circular Ride. Mike Overall, vice-chairman of the Chiltern Society, claims 14 of the 20 affected footpaths in the AONB will be permanently lost. “We’re concerned for the special value of the ancient countryside in which this line would carve out huge scars,” he says. “The Chilterns escaped the changes to field structures you get elsewhere, and you still have the ancient hedgerows.” A key criticism of the high-speed route is that it shows little evidence of joined-up thinking as to how it might feed into regional and local routes, and that it overlooks the increasing trend for passengers to use trains as mobile offices rather than ‘dead time’ between workplaces. The fear is that HS2 may even drain resources from improvements to rail in the hinterland. “Public transport needs to be massively improved,” says Rachel Alcock, a Ramblers campaigns officer. “We would prefer much better and more local rail links, so that people were able to reach their walking destinations more quickly.”

The Ramblers’ grassroots membership echoes this point. “We’d normally back green, environmentally friendly rail transport,” says John Case, the countryside secretary of Oxfordshire Ramblers. “We’d also back local links into it, but we don’t see anything of that nature in these plans.” These inherent tensions over HS2 have not passed the Ramblers by. “There’s a range of opinions among our members,” admits Rachel, “and as an organisation led by our members, we need to reflect this in our stance.” That process of reflection began with a passionate debate about HS2 at the Ramblers’ annual general council meeting in Oxford last April. A motion put forward by Warwickshire Ramblers – and seconded by a volunteer from the Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes and West Middlesex Ramblers (BMKWM) – called for a Ramblers campaign against HS2. However, after much debate, this stance was softened and the council passed a motion to ‘campaign vigorously to reduce the effects on the rights of way and footpaths and on the beauty of the countryside’. It also sent a clear message to the charity’s executive to join a wider coalition of environmental organisations by signing up to the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) Right Lines Charter, which calls for a more co-ordinated national rail policy.

Overall, it means the Ramblers has adopted a more nuanced opposition to HS2. John Esslemont, chair of BMKWM, argued successfully for the wording of the motion to support the charter – rather than rejecting high- speed rail outright – and says it makes clear that the Ramblers is not abandoning its traditional support for improved public transport. “The timing was good in that the CPRE’s charter for high-speed rail came out a couple of weeks earlier,” he says. “I would have liked to have gone with the Warwickshire motion. But from conversations with other affected Ramblers areas and my experience of General Councils, I didn’t think this was likely to get through. There were different views across areas, but I think we’ve got a reasonable position that should satisfy those who are anti-HS2 but will still be sufficiently pro-rail.”

The Right Lines Charter sets out four core principles ‘for doing high-speed rail well’: consulting the public; ensuring genuine long-term sustainable development; fitting this into a national transport strategy; and minimising adverse impacts. The Ramblers joins 10 other organisations’ signatures, including the Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth and the RSPB. The last is perhaps mindful of the fraught battle it fought – and won in the House of Lords – to stop HS1, Britain’s first high-speed rail route used by Eurostar and Javelin services, from draining wetlands at its Rainham Marshes reserve in Essex. “The Government has not made the case yet for the route it is proposing,” says Ralph Smyth, transport campaigner for CPRE. “It is not just a question of improving mitigation; officials need to do more to show that alternative lower-speed routes would not be a better choice. There should be a great overall emphasis on shifting trips from road and air to rail, too.” Oxfordshire Ramblers’ John Case also questions why the Government has offered no details on how much time a slightly slower route would take. “The nature of a 250mph train demands that it has fewer bends, which is why this takes the route it does. We just don’t know what route a slightly slower train could take.”

HS2: both sides of the story
A nagging sense that the wider picture has not been thought through was reinforced when the Ramblers, having identified the figure of 150 footpaths to be affected, learnt that HS2 Ltd (the company behind the project) had a tally of just 27. Roadshows staged by HS2 Ltd toured the countryside recently and have been more encouraging. “Ramblers have fed back to us that the people they spoke to were quite knowledgeable about rights of way and footpaths,” says Rachel Alcock. “But perhaps this consultation is too ad hoc rather than HS2 seeking out the best people to talk to.” For its part, HS2 Ltd argues that the potential environmental damage has been overstated. The width of the line would be 22 metres, around a third that of a motorway, says David Meechan, a spokesman for HS2 Ltd, and public consultations have already led to changes to around 50% of the original route. The company argues that if the line gets the go-ahead (a decision is expected in December) then the implications for footpaths would be scrutinised in greater detail. “We would work with local people and councils to identify the best way of maintaining rights of way,” David says. “We would seek to do this with as little disruption as possible, by constructing bridges over cuttings or underpasses through embankments and seek to maintain all existing rights of way. In some areas we’ve already designed green tunnels to maintain access across the line.” HS2 is also at risk of becoming a polarised, north-south debate. A campaign backing the line has support from industry and many northern councils, and recently launched an advertising campaign that depicted a well-heeled man in a pinstripe suit outside his large country pile, with the words: ‘Their lawns or our jobs’.

That campaign has one eye on the distant horizon, where the second phase of the HS2 project – linking Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds – awaits. The potential route is already being planned out by consultants, and opponents of the entire scheme have misgivings at how quickly this is being conducted. “The consultation for phase one is really done and dusted before it started – it’s take it or leave it,” says CPRE’s Ralph Smyth. “We don’t want the same thing to happen again.” So will the HS2 scheme in its current form go ahead? The Chiltern Society, like others, is uncertain. “It’s very hard to call,” says Mike Overall. “There’s so much opposition stacking up. Whatever angle the opposition comes from, the common denominator is that this has not been thought through properly.” The reality, though, Rachel Alcock admits, is that HS2 looks almost certain to proceed in some form. “The Ramblers is realistic about the prospect of HS2 going ahead,” she says. “But we need to ensure that it forms part of a national transport strategy and we get the best deal for footpaths.” The Ramblers’ view is that any permanent diversions must follow desire-lines away from the railway: they should not simply be routes within the limits of deviation which run as unnatural, ‘dog-leg’ diversions. “If a footpath closes then it is very difficult to re-open it,” says Rachel. “We accept we may not be able to save all footpaths, but we need to make sure they are not left at the point they meet the railway line and go no further. They need to join up with other paths, and diversions must be appropriate.”

For full details of the Ramblers’ campaign and a map of all footpaths that will be affected by HS2’s proposed route, visit www.ramblers.org.uk/campaigns+policy/HS2

Illustration by Kate Miller @ Central Illustration Agency.

Support our campaign…
• Email details of paths you think will be affected by HS2 to rachel.alcock@ramblers.org.uk
• Upload your photos of affected areas to our Flickr site, www.flickr.com/groups/hs2_paths
• Have your say: What do you think of the proposed plan and the opposition against it? Let us know in the comments field below!