HS2 Humbg: Let’s go for judicial review!

Feb 3 2012 By Sally Knowles

Justine Greening’s decision to plough on regardless with HS2 seems to have stirred up more activity in the area than ever!

If the Secretary of State thought that we would accept a flawed proposal that has been undermined by carefully-researched information over the last two years, then she must be disappointed. We have all written to MPs but I have yet to receive or even see a thoughtful or well-argued response. It is as though we can be convinced that the decision is the ‘right thing to do’ by being told so. Where is the respect owed to us, the electorate, by these politicians?

Talking of whom, Cheryl Gillan is unlikely to win any popularity held in the near future! There are those who seem satisfied with her paltry attempts to mitigate the project; she certainly seems to have given up completely on any attempt to fight HS2 and expose the shot-sightedness of the whole idea. On the other hand, the numbers of articles in the national press that now question both the business and the economic arguments put forward by ministers has increased from a trickle to a flood. This, at least, is encouraging.

It seems that judicial review is our only chance to delay the appearance of the bulldozers. This will cost us, both as members of the action groups and as contributors to community tax, but it provides us with one last chance to make the government think again.

Fighting the decision to spend £33 billion on a railway that will be used by only a few and that is more likely to bring business and investment from the North and Midlands to London and the South-East is a no-brainer, whatever the cost!