Today's entry relates to the 'safeguarding' of land required for HS2, with a special focus on Northolt (London) and Bromford (Birmingham).
Way back in blog entry 9 (10 July 2013) we reported on the Government's safeguarding directions for phase one of HS2. These are legal instruments issued by the Secretary of State for Transport under the snappily titled Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2010. They place restrictions on planning authorities, requiring them to consult HS2 Ltd before granting planning permission for any development on land near the planned route (roughly 60m to either side) before granting planning permission. This gives the Government the chance to block or modify plans that might interfere with the building of the new railway.
The Secretary of State first made the directions in July (hence blog 9), but the directions were incomplete - hence the Government's recent issue of new draft directions to replace the old ones, and hence this blog entry to keep you appraised of developments. The new directions and accompanying guidance are available on the relevant page of the HS2 website (click on the link that reads 'Safeguarding Guidance' - it opens a PDF that contains both the directions and guidance for local authorities).
The new directions are exactly the same as the July directions except that they contain some new detailed information. So for most people its a case of move on, nothing to see here - although of course if you missed them the first time round, now might be a good time to view the documents to see in detail how your area is affected.
If you are in the Northolt or Bromford area, however, the news on the new directions is indeed new news. Details on those areas were not included with the original directions as the Secretary of State had not yet made a decision on whether tunnels should be constructed there. Consultation on those tunnel proposals has now been completed, and the Secretary of State has decided that there will indeed be tunnels (see paragraphs 4 and 5).
Perhaps of most interest given the context is the maps section. The directions refer to the maps so the maps are crucial in determining exactly what areas are legally affected.
There are six volumes of maps and accompanying notes. The notes, though, are the July version, so if you search for 'Northolt' (map 12) the notes say the map is left out (its the same for Bromford - map 112). But the maps themselves are now available - map 12 is in volume 1 and map 112 is in volume 5. So parties interested in these areas are no longer in the dark. They can now see that for both these areas the safeguarding is largely 'subsurface' - in other words, development affecting the surface only of the marked areas will not be subject to the same safeguarding restrictions.
For more on safeguarding in general, see our blog entry 9.
BDB HS2 seminar on how the hybrid bill process will work for HS2- 27 November 2013
We are holding a seminar on how the hybrid bill process will work for HS2 on 27 November. The details (including how to register) can be found here.
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