HS2 noise pollution fears grow louder amid new designs for rail lineVillagers fear their peace will be forever shattered after new plans for HS2 in Warwickshire were submitted. People living in and around Cubbington, near Leamington, are concerned that new plans to raise the track two metres will make the trains far noisier when they begin to run.
They also think the impact of proposed design changes for the 900m South Cubbington Wood section will contravene what was set out in HS2's environmental statement published in 2015. Around 60 people attended a presentation and Q&A session about the proposals, which will reportedly cut construction time locally by up to nine months, at Cubbington Village Hall last week.
Peter Delow, chair of the Cubbington Action Group Against HS2, went to the meeting and said the answers from representatives of contractors Balfour Beatty Vinci were not as "knowledgeable and intelligent" as the questions from local residents and businessmen. He said the issue of increased noise, as a result of the track being higher and more exposed, was a "worry" for many people in the area.
"BBV say they will keep to the noise levels set out in the environmental statement, but they (HS2) are not very good at keeping promises," Mr Delow said. "They have to provide an application to the local authority, which in this case is Warwick District Council, which will give recalculations.
"But we've not been told when we can expect that application. Last year they started work on digging it out so they must have known about the changes for a while, but only now have we been told. There's two elements to this.
"The first is the track going up and the train noise. Second, is the roads that cross the line are also going up so the bridges will be higher. The bridge over Rugby Road, near to where I live, is one of the main concerns.
"The answers (at the Q&A) were not as full as one would have hoped. And in some cases, BBV had to defer because they only have responsibility for certain parts of the project."
HS2 say raising the track will speed up the build and reduce the environmental disruption. "The reason they've changed the design is twofold," Mr Delow added.
"To reduce cost, because the project is under huge cost pressures. And to reduce the environmental impact, in particular the carbon impact. The big question for me is that what they have taken out is more than what they said they would."
The fight to stop the project from going ahead was lost many years ago, but people who live and work close to the route of the track are no less dismayed by the continued disruption. Mr Delow added: "The countryside around here is, or was, pretty nice.
"It's rather been destroyed in areas where they are working and people are upset."