Householders must get ready to fight HS2 plans, council leader says

Councillor Adrian Busby said: "This is the biggest single issue to affect Buckinghamshire since the building of the motorways."
Councillor Busby, who also represents Beaconsfield on Buckinghamshire County Council, urged residents to gather as much information as possible and to be ready for the public consultation when it starts in the Autumn.
He said: "I don't know whether there is anything we can do about this or not. When the consultation starts people need to be well organised in terms of groups of people whose property is affected."
On March 11 transport secretary Lord Adonis announced the government's intention to build a high speed rail link from London to the North.
The second route option runs past Seer Green, Beaconsfield and Knotty Green in two viaducts and a deep cutting and would be devastate the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The preferred route runs through Denham, and then in a tunnel under Chalfont St Peter, Chalfont St Giles and Amersham.
The government is due to make a decision on whether to build HS2, which it says will cost £15 to £19 billion, in 2011. The line could carry up to 14 trains per hour at speeds of up to 250mph. Construction would start in 2019.
In the meantime, Councillor Busby said, the County and District councils would be working together to try to persuade the Government that it was wrong to drop the idea of upgrading the West Coast Mainline; Network Rail's preferred option.
The councils have already written to the government expressing their shock and disappointment at the decision.
Councillor Busby said: "If this was a replacement for Heathrow people would find it more acceptable, but the third runway has not been turned down and it looks as though we are going to get both. Bucks is going to get all the hassle of this line but none of the benefit. Trains will not stop here."
The councils will argue that that a new high speed line should not be allowed to rip through the AONB and that the government's economic case for HS2 does not stack up and.
Councillor Busby said: "Fourteen trains per hour with 1100 seats on each, which means 15,400 people per hour travelling from London to Birmingham by train. I don't think so."
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both said they support plans to build a high speed rail link from London to the North. The Conservative party's website currently quotes transport secretary Theresa Villiers as saying that the Tories would build such a link.
More reaction inside.