High Speed 2
Click on the video to see HS2's potential impacts on tranquillity in the countryside
Click here to see a static map highlighting some of the scheme's impacts.
The lines are drawn
The High Speed 2 (HS2) reports published by the previous Government on 11 March 2010 are as weighty as they are controversial, whether for rural communities the new line might pass through, or the cities it could miss out.
Besides a main route between London and Birmingham, connections to Heathrow and also to the north have been sketched out. The key issues to consider in order to see if HS2 could live up to expectations are:
- Speed the route is designed for
- Station location
- Cost to the countryside
- Community engagement
- Carbon calculations
HS2 Ltd, the company set up by the Government to produce detailed proposals, has not yet worked out detailed mitigation, noise maps or photomontages of the likely visual impact. In terms of the bigger picture, the new Government has yet to set out its wider road, rail and aviation policy.
Without this information we cannot weight the costs and benefits of HS2. We are in the process of drawing up an interim statement, identifying what we support, what we are concerned about and where the gaps in information are that need filling. Public consultation on HS2 is not due now until the start of 2011, while a hybrid bill, which would give formal consent to the project, would not be considered by Parliament until 2014 .
> New Government gives new remit to HS2 (June 2010, opens in new window)
> HS2's preferred route overlaid on our tranquillity map and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (opens in new window)
How high is high?
While High Speed 1, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, was designed for 300km/h (186mph), HS2 is proposed to cater for very high speeds of 400km/h (250mph). No services in Europe currently operate faster than 330km/h, while some of the new Chinese HSR lines have services at 350km/h. 400km/h was chosen as the maximum track speed – without any consultation – as it was believed to the maximum speed possible for track based trains. Initially HS2 would operate at 360km/h though only after passing through the Chilterns, as the Amersham tunnel would be permanently restricted to 320km/h.
Lines designed for very high speeds have to be very straight, making it harder to fit them in with the landscape and avoid sensitive areas. In addition a bigger gap between tracks is needed, while tunnels must be wider to allow trains to pass safely. So very high speed lines are considerably more expensive to construct and have a greater impact on the local environment.
While speeding up trains helps rail compete against road and air, very high speeds mean much more noise, especially 'sonic boom' around tunnels, and much more energy is needed for propulsion. For example, a train travelling at 360km/h requires 50% more energy than one travelling at 300km/h. Very high speed rail would only save a couple of minutes for most trips at huge cost financially and to the local environment. If the aim is to catch up quickly with other European countries, a more affordable and less controversial choice should be made.
Station location
Experiences from HSR elsewhere show the importance of good planning of stations. Some new high speed lines stop short of urban centres, forcing passengers to change transport or rely on Parkway stations on greenfield sites linked into motorways. This should be avoided in the case of HS2.
Location can be crucial, as the benefits of HSR can quickly be eroded by reliance on out of town stations, which like out of town supermarkets generate new car trips and sprawling surrounding development. Increased congestion on local roads would eat into journey time savings for passengers and increased traffic would consume any carbon savings. Traffic to East Midlands Parkway station, feted at its opening in 2009 as ‘one of the greenest ever built’, is now being used to justify expanding the road it is on into a dual carriageway. Not only would this cut through Green Belt but the cost of the road would leave no regional funding left for long awaited improvements to local rail services. A year after opening, the plug was pulled on the station's bus service as almost all station users were taking advantage of the ample car parking.
Upgrading existing stations, such as the world class London St Pancras, and siting new stations in rundown areas to create new urban centres, such as Lyon Part-Dieu in France, are positive examples of how joining up the planning of transport and land use can deliver impressive results. With extensive integration into local public transport systems, the benefits from these urban HSR stations are spread over wide areas. Well planned rail expansion can create high quality, high density places, reducing development pressure on the countryside.
HS2 proposes an upgrade of the tired looking Euston station, a new interchange at Old Oak Common that would regenerate north west London and a new central station in Birmingham that would regenerate its east side. But a new interchange in the Green Belt near Heathrow is under consideration and a new Parkway in the West Midlands Green Belt is proposed with a 7,000 space multi-storey car park. Both of these would fuel car use, carbon emissions and congestion not to mention road expansion.
Cost to the countryside
Strenuous efforts should be made during construction to minimise noise and lorry movements, for example by reusing soil locally as noise barriers. Besides short-term impacts, new HSR lines can have a number of longer term impacts.
‘Nature abhors the straight line’ wrote William Kent, an 18th century landscape gardener and architect who inspired Capability Brown. So fitting a straight railway into the rolling hills and patchwork fields of English countryside can be challenging, particularly as sensitive heritage and biodiversity sites will need to be avoided as well as existing settlements.
It would be difficult for HS2 to avoid the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which stretches from Reading to Luton, a quarter the way round London. HS2 follows transport corridors to limit impact on landscape and tranquillity. Despite this there will be sections where more extensive tunnelling and screening would be required than are currently planned. HS2 is aiming for world record speeds. Surely it should strive for world record environmental standards, particularly if it passes through designated landscapes?
Landscaped section of HS1 in Kent. Photo © CPRE
HS1, formerly the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, runs through the Kent Downs AONB along the M20 and M2. Noise from trains is barely noticeable compared to the background noise of traffic, while earth mounds and wooden barriers help conceal the line itself. Road and foot bridges over the line are often the most visible feature, as their modern angular design and white concrete does not fit in with the landscape or local vernacular.
Part of HS2 is proposed to run along the route of the Great Central Railway, which has been out of use since 1966. While reusing this alignment would help minimise HS2’s impacts, at the turn of the century there was local opposition to proposals by the Central Railway to reuse this route as a new freight line.
No stations are proposed for HS2 between London and Birmingham, so like the Central Railway proposal it would not offer local benefits. HS2's trains are likely to whoosh past in seconds unlike noisy diesel freight trains proposed to trundle along the Central Railway, so the noise impacts should be less but this still would mean 'something for nothing' for the communities it would pass through.
Yet there are many ways that HS2 could give something back to the areas it would pass through:
- Electricity pylons run along much of the route including in the Chilterns AONB and these could be undergrounded next to the track;
- Low noise surfaces could be installed on local roads to improve tranquillity;
- New and improved Rights of Way and Open Access Land could improve outdoor opportunities around the path of the route;
- Improved local rail services, including electrification of the Chiltern Lines and new services on existing and disused lines such as Maidenhead-High Wycombe-Aylesbury-Northampton would provide local transport benefits; and
- Green bridges across the route and new habitat creation to compensate for the impact of the route and its construction.
Community engagement
With expertise in planning policy, branches in every county and a quarter of parish councils signed up as members, CPRE has a unique combination of national experience and local knowledge. It used this to help communities take the front seat in planning for HS1 in the 1990s, helping bring together different interests and changing the routing and detailed design to minimise impact on their local area.
Providing a real opportunity for local people to influence not just the route but also the specifications it is being designed to – in particular its design speed – will be crucial for HS2, if it is to win community support and reduce the risk of delay from major opposition. Engagement can be a time-consuming and expensive process. Funding of third party groups to seek expert advice and involve the local community is needed to secure fairness and legitimacy.
Front-loading the process could save valuable time later on during the Hybrid Bill procedure, through which HS2 like HS1 and Crossrail before it would proceed. This procedure will offer much more scope for community involvement than the new Planning Act 2008 procedure for major projects.
Carbon calculations
HSR has been promoted as a valuable means to tackle climate change. Yet it has a limited effect in reducing carbon emissions compared to the high cost of construction, which itself would cause significant emissions. Only with demand management measures, such as increasing the cost of flying and driving and limiting road and runway capacity, can HSR be part of a sustainable solution.
Carbon emissions, in terms of grams per seat per kilometre travelled, are higher than for HSR that of conventional rail due to the extra energy needed to travel faster. Promoters of HSR argue, however, that per passenger emissions are lower as HSR tends to have fewer empty seats than average rail services. Yet Intercity services in the UK are already packed, while the planned roll out of smart ticketing over the next decade could help improve passenger loadings on conventional rail services.
The major problem with justifying HSR on the basis of carbon savings is that experience shows new HSR services generate new travel, such as by making long distance commuting an option. Even if HSR has significantly lower emissions than flying or driving per kilometre travelled, by stimulating new demand it could increase total carbon emissions or at best lead to no overall change. By 2026, when HS2 could first open, UK carbon emissions need to be reduced by 40%. HS2 needs to help meet that level of reduction. Yet HS2's research shows that it could increase or decrease UK transport emissions by -0.3% to +0.3%, depending on other transport and energy policies.
HSR may reduce flights at airports and traffic on the roads but without policies to lock in the reduction in demand, additional traffic and flights will fill the space freed up at Heathrow or on the M40. Research published in 2009 by the Committee on Climate Change, the Government’s statutory advisors, made clear that road traffic needs to be capped and aviation severely limited if 2050 targets to tackle climate change are to be met. The measures needed to do that would be likely to lead to a massive increase in rail travel, including between London and the North.
The reports on HS2 have been published before National Policy Statements on National Networks (covering trunk road and rail), which has been delayed twice now, and Aviation, due next year. So while the Government’s policy remains unclear on other forms of transport, the jury may have to stay out on the potential carbon savings from HS2 and whether it should be part of a sustainable transport system.
Internet links
> Department for Transport: High Speed Rail
> High Speed Rail regulations - UK law defining 'high speed'
> New Line Programme - Network Rail's study to look at the need for new rail capacity
> Greengauge21 - a public interest company promoting HSR
> 2M Group & High Speed North - alternative routing along M1 put forward by group of local authorities opposing Heathrow expansion
> HSR UK - group of local authorities promoting a wider HSR network
> On the Right Track (pdf) - recent report by centre-right think tank the Bow Group that welcomes CPRE's five tests for HSR
> Rail reservations - critical report on HSR by the RAC Foundation
> Chilterns Conservation Board comments on HS2
> Chiltern Society comments on HS2 - the society is affiliated to CPRE
> HS2 Action Alliance - includes list of action groups along the route
> Great Central Railway - wikipedia
