HS2 decision leaves landlords in limbo

Thousands of property owners have been left out of pocket after the prime minister axed the northern leg of HS2 yesterday. HS2 Ltd has to date spent £587m buying land and buildings for the sections that would have run from Birmingham on to Manchester and Leeds, but far more have had their real estate blighted by the scrapping of the route. The future of the properties and contracts worth up to £1.1bn have been left in limbo after the prime minister officially confirmed that the Birmingham to Manchester section of the line would be abandoned in his party conference keynote speech yesterday. Jon Stott, group managing director at property and consents management practice Ardent, and a former chair of the Compulsory Purchase Association, said the decision was a “travesty”. He pointed out that landowners and developers along the proposed line had been left “in a horrible state of limbo” for a decade while their land had been subject to safeguarding directions. Statutory blight provisions are very narrow, and meant that only “owner-occupiers of property in certain circumstances” were able to force the government to acquire their property once it has been identified as potentially being required for a major scheme. The measures have also held up other development. “In addition to being unable to sell, the safeguarding directions have effectively precluded landowners from obtaining their own planning consent for any form of development,” Stott said. “This has impacted huge swathes of land and thousands of landowners for over a decade.” He added that many were now out of pocket after trying to work with HS2 on possible schemes. “These property owners have no route to being reimbursed and, in light of this new announcement, it means they have incurred the costs totally unnecessarily.” One landowner has incurred close to £1m in legal and other fees, he said, trying to work with HS2 to maximise the benefits of the Birmingham to Manchester leg. “It is a scandal that they will have no route to recovering that sum now the project has been scrapped.” In addition to this, he said, thousands of businesses and families had already been displaced because of the scheme. “It’s hard to imagine how they are feeling knowing that it has all been completely unnecessary. The public benefits for their displacement will now never be realised and, instead, we will be left with huge visible scars on the landscape, particularly between Birmingham and Crewe, where massive construction activity has already been undertaken.” See also: Industry outrage as northern leg of HS2 scrapped To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews