Government consultation on updates made to HS2
The UK Government consultation has updated the Safeguarding Directions (safeguarded zone) and zoned property schemes for the Phase 2b section of the route.
Safeguarding is an established part of the planning process, designed to ensure land which has been identified for major infrastructure projects is protected from conflicting developments.
On 6 June 2019, the Secretary of State issued revised safeguarding directions for Phase 2b which replace all previous versions, to reflect these route changes. All information relating to this announcement can be found in the Government’s dedicated Phase 2b section.
What has changed?
Safeguarding Directions for Phase 2b have been updated for sections of the route where the Government is most confident in the stability of the design.
For these sections, Safeguarding has been updated to reflect the Working Draft Environmental Statement (WDES) design that was refined in October 2018. This includes the removal of Safeguarding from the New Crofton site on route to Leeds that is no longer the proposed location of a depot.
Unlike previous updates, this is not a full route wide update, therefore safeguarding for the remaining sections of the route are unchanged.
The issuing of Directions imposes Town Planning restrictions on property owners, obligations on Local Authorities, has implications for anyone selling a property, and allows affected, eligible property owners to claim full statutory compensation.
The consultation
The Secretary of State for Transport is consulting on 11 proposed design refinements to the HS2 Phase 2b route. This design refinement consultation (DRC) is a key milestone on the path leading up to hybrid bill deposit.
The development of a major engineering project such as HS2 involves a series of design refinements right up until the point of construction. When refining the design, HS2 Ltd looks to make improvements, where possible, on environmental, technical, service and cost aspects of the scheme.
This consultation will be open for 10 weeks and asks for views, based on the information included in the Design refinement consultation document, which will be independently analysed and reported, and then considered by the Secretary of State when making his decision about the final route.
The working draft Environmental Statement gives those affected the chance to review and comment on initial assessments of the environmental impacts from HS2 Phase 2b.
For more information on proposals for Phase 2a of HS2, which will extend the HS2 network from the West Midlands to Crewe, see the Government’s Phase 2a hybrid Bill page.
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