Dream home's value ruined by cancellation of HS2 line

A mother-of-three says she could be forced to sell her home at a cut-price because of the “devastating” impact of an axed HS2 line on her village.

- ALEX ROSS

Steph Wilkin and her ex-husband splashed out £1.175m on the Grade II-listed three-bedroom house in the leafy parish of Whitmore in Staffordshire in 2009, following success for the pair in running a local electronics assembly company.

But despite her love for the “wonderful home”, which sat on nine acres of land and featured two large lakes, the 56-year-old signed a financial settlement for Lake House to be sold, and for her to receive 62 per cent of the proceeds, after the couple divorced in 2020.

Having got the house valued at £1.2m the year before, Ms Wilkin, a topographical surveyor, hoped to take around £600,000 from the sale, which would have paid for a new home in West Sussex, where she wants to work part-time while being close to her grandson.

Money left over, she said, would have gone to a private pension. Meanwhile, the house she bought after moving out of Lake House would be rented out to help with her monthly income.

However, Ms Wilkin said her future plans were thrown into the air by the impact of the expected arrival of the second leg of the high-speed HS2 line through a tunnel west of her village, which triggered panic among local residents unable to sell up.