Journey Times FOI Information November 2010

Journey time information has been obtained by the Chiltern Countryside Group which shows that IF the case were made that High Speed Rail – and a new line – was needed in order to provide additional capacity, the original remit to HS2 Ltd, the maximum time penalty by using the slowest route (via the Midland Main Line Corridor), would be 9 minutes and for either of the 2 ‘least damaging’ M1 / M40 motorway corridor routes, this would be 5 – 6 minutes.

So this Government is planning to destroy an Area of Outstanding Nation Beauty, decimate the countryside along the entire route – for less than 10 minutes.  The Government is trying to persuade people that the routes through the Chilterns are essential and in the National Interest, whereas this would in fact, be a national disgrace.

If the Government gets away with this, no AONB anywhere in the country would be safe. This situation should be exposed, amplified and used to stop HS2  Full details here

Route Consultation FOI

In July, we asked for clarification of the process to be used if the Government’s consultation ruled out the current preferred Route 3, passing through Amersham, Gt. Missenden and Wendover.  After 42 days (not the 20 days required by the FOI Act) we were told they did not know.  The full response can be seen here.

We complained about this response, and on November 5th, were told that decisions on consultation are ” a matter for Government to decide and instruct HS2 as to how they would like us to proceed”.  We will follow this up with the Department for Transport.  It seems that ‘pass the parcel’  is still alive and well!

This page contains details of the response made to a Freedom of Information request relating to spending levels on HS2 in the short term i.e. before main construction begins.

Please note, we have received total costs through to 2025/6.

The documents below give a detailed breakdown of all associated costs for the project.

A breakdown of the headline figures is shown below

Summary Letter of response from HS2 Ltd            FOI10-047

February 2010 data                                                         February 2010 rev1

January 2010 data                                                           January 2010 (submitted to DfT)

December 2009 data                                                       December 2009

November 2009 data                                                      November 2009 (submitted to DfT)