'Madness' of HS2 homes purchased on axed route

Campaigners call scheme a scandal and want land sold back

- ALEX ROSS

HS2 has been accused of “madness” after new figures reveal it has spent £37m of taxpayers’ cash buying up homes - long after parts of the high-speed rail line were scrapped.

Two years ago, the then prime minister Rishi Sunak scrapped phase 2 of the HS2 line from the West Midlands to Manchester - but The Independent can reveal that bosses continued to purchase properties along the now-axed route, shelling out £25.5m on 25 sites until October this year.

At least £1m was spent on 10 of the properties, more than £2m on three of them. Five were bought in the affluent Altrincham area, just outside Manchester.

HS2, on behalf of the Department for Transport, also spent £11.7m on 30 properties along the eastern leg of phase 2, from Birmingham to Leeds, after it was cancelled in two sections in 2021 and 2023, figures obtained via Freedom of Information laws show.

HS2, which has long come under fire for repeated delays and soaring costs despite being scaled back, said it was honouring property purchases started before line cancellations and that the purchases “inevitably take time to complete”. Measures to protect land for the originally proposed line, which were in place between Birmingham and Leeds until July this year, also meant property owners could still sell to HS2 despite that part of the line being scrapped.

Former Tory minister Sir Gavin Williamson, whose Staffordshire constituency has been heavily impacted by the beleaguered project, called the spending “insane”, while Stop HS2 campaigner Joe Rukin described it as “a waste and a scandal”.

Sir Gavin said: “It just goes to show the madness of HS2. The reality is it’s two years on since the announcement of the cancellation of HS2 phase 2 [Handsacre to Manchester]... and frankly, you know, the fact that they’re still buying properties, it is insane.