Campaigners and affected residents are reported to be 'cautiously optimistic' that phase 2b of HS2 will now be scrapped in the wake of recent media reports, but there are still nerves whilst they await specific details of the new Integrated Rail Plan due on Thursday before they can feel sure.
Spokesperson for the local Stop HS2 campaign Brent Poland group welcomed the forthcoming document, even though it appeared, he said, to be not too different to proposals in the National Infrastructure Commission report issued in December last year.
Mr. Poland said: "It has been a long year for those impacted dealing with the constant speculation and lobbying in the media. Lobbying by those politicians and interest groups intent on destroying their homes and communities in defiance of logic, common sense, and the actual evidence that Phase 2b was simply not workable."
He added: "Many residents in towns like Long Eaton in the East Midlands have seen their communities blighted, homes bought, and it now seems all that pain was for nothing. There is seething anger that despite their legitimate concerns, that the authorities at all levels simply ignored the evidence and for political reasons were willing press ahead with HS2 regardless of the economic, social, and environmental costs.
"In communities along the Phase 2b line there is seething anger and resentment for the establishment who too easily abandoned communities like Long Eaton and instead lobbied for HS2."
Mr. Poland claimed that, in 2015, Erewash MP Maggie Throup said that “The time for discussion was over” and to just accept the plans which called for a viaduct thorough the town, and said that there were still some MPs, so called "quangos" and councillors who were still lobbying in favour of HS2 despite what he said was "overwhelming evidence of its failure."
He called for an enquiry to establish how HS2 was allowed to get as far as the current stage, and have such an impact without Royal asset and suggested that the euphoria of its cancellation would inevitably lead to calls for justice and compensation and questions over fixing what was broken in the impacted communities.
He continued: "This cancelling of phase 2b now calls into question the viability of the whole HS2 project and we would like to see the whole project scrapped not just this phase. Considering the weakened business case, the lower demand in a post-Covid world, the rise of hybrid working patterns and the fact that HS2 has proven unable to mitigate the social and environmental impacts, all this should now be enough to call a halt to the whole project and not just phase 2b."
After the removal of the last environmental campaigner from the Wendover camp after 25 days underground, Mr. Poland described "Greenwashing" by HS2 as "environmentally questionable", and referred to the COP26 pledge negotiated in part by Boris Johnson not to chop down forests was hypocritical amid what the campaign group alleged was HS2's "destruction of the UK's ancient woodlands".
He suggested that, given the urgency of climate change, there was no longer time, resources nor the support for HS2 from the environmental community, adding that the controversial rail route was "always a gamble" but one that society could not afford amid a need for solutions to decarbonise our transport.
On behalf of campaigners, he expressed hope that the forthcoming Integrated Rail plan would provide evidence based and workable solutions and not what he said was a "disorganised badly planned mess which will spend years ruining more lives needlessly."
He concluded by stating that Stop HS2 campaigners felt vindicated in their stance, that they were "right all along" and that the local political establishment had failed on the issue. He also said that campaigners were upset that many in the community have had to suffer needlessly including those who have lost their homes and called on those stakeholders to fix the community, compensate those impacted and have the grace to apologise for the distress caused.