High-speed compensation
Government will pay out for those who can PROVE the proposal has affected the sale of their property, since being announced back in March.
Homeowners on the proposed route of a new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham are to get Government assistance even before the final go-ahead is given for the multibillion-pound scheme.
The government announced plans to start building a new £30bn high-speed rail link between London and Scotland in 2017 back in March. It could be finished by 2026.
The trains would run out of London to Amersham and then on to Wendover and Aylesbury before moving through the countryside up to Brackley and then on to the West Midlands.
If the project is cleared, the new line will mean journey times between London and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield will come down from around 2 hours 10 minutes now to 75 minutes when the new network is in place. London to Glasgow and Edinburgh journey times would be reduced to just three and a half hours.
The Government will buy homes - as well as agricultural units and smaller commercial properties - at 100% of market price if owners can show that they
need to sell urgently and have suffered blight because of the possibility of the
scheme going ahead.<
But the offer applies only to properties on the preferred route of the
High-Speed 2 (HS2) track - which leaves London via Ruislip and passes near
Amersham, Wendover and Aylesbury before approaching Birmingham between Coventry
and Kenilworth - and not to two alternatives which follow more westerly or
easterly routes.
The scheme will open on August 20 and applicants must show that the property
has been on the market for three months or more and attracted no offers above 85% of its value before the route was announced in March.
An independent estate agent in Brackley has told us he's already been contacted by concerned homeowners. Heart's Michele Cross speaks to George Bridgefield here.
The dark blue line shows the proposed route through Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire:
