IT'S gone from consultation to confrontaCavenagh-Mainwaring, tion,' says Edward landowner and farmer of the Whitmore Hall estate in Staffordshire, 260 acres of which was acquired by HS2 Ltd only days before the intended route of the phase 2a section was axed. 'I feel the compulsory purchase process is blunted,' he explains, and it's bruising. It's never going to be easy, but if I'm going to fall on the sword of national interest, I expect to be paid fairly, and not have to fight for compensation. And it is a constant fight with HS2 for what has been lost.' He is not alone in his concerns, not only about why HS2 went ahead, but what happens now.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's shelving of the second leg of what was billed as Europe's largest infrastructure project, originally intended to connect Birmingham with Manchester via a high-speed railway route, is a big relief for many, but little consolation for others. The aftermath has revealed a patchwork of compound effects-from run-down buildings and redundant land to severed farms and faltering optimism for economic renaissance and the Northern Powerhouse, all at the cost of multi-millions from the public purse. "There isn't compensation for the emotional loss of land you have looked after, adds Mr CavenaghMainwaring, 'or for your future plans for it.' Some are thoroughly dismayed, including Cheshire East Council with its plans for Crewe, intended as a focal point of $750 million worth of regeneration as part of the development. 'The full consequences facing Crewe and the borough following the decision to scrap Phases 2a and 2b of HS2 are unknown and they may not be understood for several years, but the economic opportunity cost alone is unprecedented', says a council spokesperson.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 06, 2023 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 06, 2023 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course