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New figures reveal HS2 has cost £37m, accused of being ‘crazy’ taxpayer‘ cash buy a house — long after parts of the high-speed rail line were abandoned.
Two years ago, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scrapped Stage 2 of the HS2 line from West Midlands to Manchester – but independent Bosses have continued to buy properties along the now-cleared route, spending £25.5m on 25 sites until October this year, it can be revealed.
Ten of the properties cost at least £1 million, with three costing more than £2 million. Five of the vehicles were purchased in the affluent Altrincham area outside Manchester.
Figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that HS2 has also spent £11.7m on behalf of the Department for Transport to buy 30 properties on the eastern leg of stage two, from Birmingham to Leeds, following the cancellation of two sections in 2021 and 2023.
Despite the scale-down, HS2, which has long been criticized for repeated delays and soaring costs, said it respected property purchases that started before the line was cancelled, and that the purchases “inevitably take time to complete”. Land protection measures on the original proposed line between Birmingham and Leeds, which are in place until July this year, also mean owners can still sell the line to HS2 despite it being abandoned.
former conservative minister sir Gavin Williamsonwhose Staffordshire constituency has severely affected The embattled project called the spending “crazy”, while Stop HS2 campaigner Joe Rukin described it as “waste and a scandal”.
Sir Gavin said: “This just goes to show the madness of HS2. The reality is that it’s been two years since the cancellation of stage 2 of HS2 was announced.” [Handsacre to Manchester]… Frankly, you know, it’s crazy that they’re still buying properties.
“Even if they had legal agreements in place with people before HS2 stage two was stopped, the issue should have been resolved within six months of the announcement and no new properties should be bought at all now.
“In fact, what you expect to see is actually the sale of properties to be able to repay the money to the Treasury.”
Following the removal of land protection measures in eastern Leeds, the government has announced that 500 properties will be put back on the market from January, many of which are currently being let.
However, no decision has yet been made on properties on land for the HS2 line linking northern Birmingham to Manchester as ministers consider plans Alternative rail routes.
Sir Gavin called the plans “fantasy politics” and urged the government to start “liberating” the land immediately. Sir Gavin said that in a village in his constituency of Hopeton, a third of the houses had been purchased by HS2.
In the Staffordshire village of Whitmore Heath, people told independent Their community has torn apartabout 35 of the 50 homes purchased by HS2, including 1 turned into a marijuana farm when it’s empty.
Lichfield MP Dave Robertson also told independent: “this [the £37m spend] This is yet another example of a serious failure in the regulation of HS2 and people in my area will be outraged. I recently met Mike Brown [the new chair of HS2]I know he wants to do better. But it shows how daunting the task he faces is, and how far HS2 needs to go to rebuild public trust. “
It was reported in August that HS2 said it had spent £633m buying properties for now-defunct sections of the high-speed line, with only the line from London to Birmingham still under construction.
As of May this year, 73% of the 1,475 residential properties held by HS2 were let, but Many properties are vacant because of the cost of bringing them up to a “rentable standard” or because they are soon to be demolished.
Mr Rukin, whose anti-HS2 group supports many communities along the deforested line, said: “Sadly typical of the way HS2 Ltd treats the public, they continue to buy land they know they don’t need. It’s both wasteful and scandalous.”
“The cost of purchasing this land has been a waste of millions of pounds and shockingly HS2 Ltd has not only forced people to sell their land but many of them cannot afford to buy their own homes and land as they have to pay capital gains tax.”
In Staffordshire, Ben Wilkes tells independent He is still waiting for an answer from HS2 on a section of canceled track that would have run through part of his charity’s four-and-a-half-acre site.
Trustees of the Border Collie Trust, which said HS2 had offered to buy the trust’s land for £800,000, said: “It is extraordinary to see such a large spend on these properties at a time when the government says it is under continued pressure, such as the demands of the NHS. It is like HS2 has been handed a blank cheque.”
Part of the reason for the planned replacement of the northern section of HS2 to Manchester is to connect HS2 with the Northern Powerhouse Railway [NPR]the government is expected to announce in the new year.
Henri Murison, NPR CEO independent Future rail plans may still require homes to be purchased on the felled parts of the HS2 line, including a section from Manchester Airport to Manchester Piccadilly.
He said planned HS2 train parking facilities in Scotland were part of the canceled phase two of the project but could still be used.
He said: “HS2 Ltd will never build on sections of HS2, whether it’s the NPR or the potential railway from Manchester to Birmingham, but the government may still choose to build new rail lines.
“The worst thing in the world would be to sell the land back to the original landowner or someone else and then come back a few years later and do the same thing, no matter how traumatic that would be for people buying homes when there’s a risk of new rail.”
HS2 insists that by purchasing the property it is following instructions from the government, which has said it must honor its commitment to purchase the property before it is cancelled.
A spokesman for HS2 Ltd said: “In the interests of fairness and in accordance with our legal obligations, we have made it clear that phase two property transactions commencing before the cancellation of this section of HS2 will be honored. These acquisitions will inevitably take time to complete.”
“This activity forms part of wider work to bring an orderly conclusion to the Phase 2 scheme, taking into account the needs of the local community and ratepayers.”
A Department for Transport spokesman said it would be unfair for owners to cancel the second phase of previously agreed sales.
“We will maximize taxpayer recovery from the sale of properties that are no longer needed,” they said.