Warwickshire country parks 'threatened by HS2'

[dutchman]

Two country parks may be forced to close if the proposed HS2 high speed link is given the green light, a council has said.



Kingsbury Water Park and Pooley Country Park, in Warwickshire "will be terminally affected by the impact of HS2", according to a report by Warwickshire County Council.

The council said it opposed the construction of the line, which would run from London to northern England.

The council's concerns about the parks were contained in a report named Living With The Line.

It said: "Both of these parks... may no longer be viable as public open spaces" as a result of being on the HS2 route.

It added the impact of the rail link on north Warwickshire, where both parks are located, was the biggest in the count because both Phase One of the line - between London and Birmingham - and Phase Two - between Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds - would be built there.

The report said other communities, including the village of Burton Green, near Coventry, would be "devastated" by the rail link, while the village of Gilson would "cease to function as a community".

It called on HS2 Ltd to set up a community benefit fund "to provide our residents and businesses with a lasting legacy of compensation for the many years of disruption caused by the construction of HS2".

Sara Board, the council's HS2 project manager, said: "While we oppose the construction of HS2, we have to accept there are plans to build it which appear to be going ahead and we have to start planning now to mitigate the effects of building the line."