Early meetings urged for HS2 communities

A meeting of Leeds City Council’s executive board heard HS2 chiefs are not planning to consult with concerned residents until the second half of 2013.

The planned route impacts on the council wards of Rothwell, City and Hunslet, Garforth and Swillington and Kippax and Methley.

Coun Andrew Carter, Leeds City Council’s Conservative group leader, told the meeting: “As somebody who is massively in support of this project, I accept that we can’t have 20 years of uncertainty for people.

“We have to move towards a finalisation of the route as soon as possible and people have to be properly consulted.”

Coun Stewart Golton, the council’s Liberal Democrat group leader, said some people living close to the proposed line are in an “anxious state” .

Coun Golton added: “At the moment there are two decades of uncertainty for them. We already have people whose house sales have fallen through. In Woodlesford alongside the canal, people have saved up to move to this place and the prospect of it being turned in to a major transport corridor is not an attractive one to say the least. Hopefully – through pressure the council can put on HS2 – they can engage communities earlier than they intended, because they do not intend to talk to them until the second half of this year, which is unfair.”

Leeds City Council leader, Coun Keith Wakefield, said: “I totally get the concerns people have...that’s why I have made the offer to see if all parties can get together and meet up with HS2 and say we are not against this project. We are not against the investment or the project, but we would look for a discussion about those communities that may be affected.”