‘HS2 has made our beautiful village stink like rotten eggs – my wife wants to leave’
FFourteen years ago, a group of experts (engineers, real estate experts and environmentalists) rolled into A Warwickshire village to submit a plan for a new high-speed line from London to Manchester and Leeds. promise regional economic growth and employment.
“Once in a lifetime” HS2 project I would see trains reach speeds of up to 250 miles per hour, connecting the capital with cities in northern England, finally breaking the historic north-south divide.
But instead the residents of Water Orton, where there is a spur of the line to Birmingham The folds on the southern edge of the villageThey claim their once peaceful community is only disturbed by dust, noise and traffic from construction.
The villagers say they now face another problem; A pungent odor coming from the opening of a 3.5-mile-long double-bore tunnel through Birmingham. It is said to be so powerful that some people in the community of 3,500 people decide to stay inside.
“It stinks of the sky,” says retired economist Feli Freeman, who lives in a four-bedroom house built in the 1930s on Attleboro Lane, where huge cranes and concrete works associated with the HS2 line can be seen.
“Disgusting smell, nauseating, restricts going for walks. I don’t want to take my dog for a walk.”
The 66-year-old claims that the construction of the line has negatively affected his life due to noise, increased traffic and vibration at night.
Two years ago, HS2 offered him £3,500 for damage to his roof, but he refused when the offer came with a non-disclosure agreement, also known as a “grinding order”. HS2 said the deal was added by mistake and the offer without the deal was still valid.
almost every person Independent The person spoken to said they noticed the smell, which was described as “fishy” and “like rotten eggs”.
scent follows cry Mismanagement and overspending on the crisis-hit project was taken down by North Warwickshire and Bedfordshire MP Rachel Taylor, who passed it on to senior executives at the Environment Agency.
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The force assessed the smell but said the investigation was being carried out by North Warwickshire District Council. Independent The odor was caused by mixing quicklime lumps with material discharged from the Bromford Tunnel as part of a “stabilization process”.
The council said stocks continued to emit odors after complaints increased in September and October. [contractor] “Balfour Beatty has told Vinci that current odor control measures are inadequate,” a council spokesman said, adding that HS2 was looking at other ways to deal with the problem.
HS2 said the smell was not dangerous and lime stabilization was a common technique that allowed materials to be reused elsewhere in the project, reducing cost and preventing extra trucks from being loaded onto the roads.
But a spokesman said work had been done to reduce the odor, including putting a layer of soil over the material. They said: “The excavation of the Bromford tunnels was completed last month and we are now looking at options that could help reduce or eliminate odor from the material stockpile.”
Ms Taylor is calling for more urgency on the issue after being told the smell would be gone by March next year. “I know how unpleasant it is because I have recently experienced it myself,” he said. “I have made it clear to HS2 that residents should not be expected to suffer this.”
Originally called Overton, the village is located just outside Birmingham’s urban sprawl and at the northern end of the triangular spur of the HS2 line known as the Delta Junction.
The spur will take trains from Curzon Street Station in Birmingham to Handsacre in Staffordshire, where it will connect with the West Coast Main Line to Manchester after the northern leg of the high-speed line was scrapped two years ago.
Despite initial public uncertainty due to the cancellation of the northern stage and subsequent criticism of the project by transport minister Heidi Alexander earlier this year, work is continuing towards the completion of the Birmingham line.
In Water Orton, the outskirts of the village are experiencing activity, where dozens of construction personnel are working at the intersection where giant concrete columns up to 20 meters high are being raised for the viaducts that will carry the high-speed line.
Outside the new home of the Old Saltleians Rugby Club, moved and paid for by HS2, is a huge mound of earth from the works known to locals as Ayres Rock, after the Australian attraction. Inside the club, about 100 people, mostly retirees, attend a weekly “hot centre” of coffee, cake and exercises.
“It smells like rotting corpses,” says Steve Wahelam, a 74-year-old retired electronics engineer. “It’s like someone dug up a churchyard, everyone is suffering from it. That’s just another thing the village has to deal with.”
Retired lecturer Carol Hatch, 79, said: “You open the back door and when you smell it you think ‘not again’, it smells like fish. I close the windows and you don’t want to sit outside with it.”
The smell is the latest in a catalog of problems for residents. They complain about potholes caused by construction traffic, layers of dust in their homes and cars, and loss of green space.
“This was a neat, beautiful village before HS2,” says Graham Jones, 85. “Now we’re surrounded by construction. Our trees and green spaces are gone, our roads are full of potholes and now this smell.”
And he adds: “It made my wife miserable, she wanted to leave, but I can’t, this is my village, it’s a part of my life, I can’t go even if it turns into ruins.”
However, some families moved away.
A proposal to reduce the intake of the village primary school, which is moving to a new site for work on the HS2 line a stone’s throw from its 141-year-old home, was announced this month.
Warwickshire County Council report Defending the change, he said: [HS2] “It had a significant impact on the village and caused many families to move out of the school.”
Parent Kim Turrell, 41, who has two children at the school, said: “I know friends of my children’s parents who have decided to move because of HS2, which is really sad but not surprising given the disruption that’s been experienced.”
But Carl Smith, 66, a retired IT worker who has lived in the village for 37 years, said the community still wants to move here. “This is an affluent area and people are willing to stick with it,” he says.
An HS2 spokesman said they were “working hard” to reduce traffic disruptions during railway construction. They added: “We have agreements with local authorities to fund road repairs and a number of access roads have been specifically constructed to transport construction traffic from nearby motorways directly to our work sites, avoiding local roads.”
A Warwickshire County Council spokesman said: “Governors and staff [at Water Orton Primary School] They are committed to providing the best possible training and development opportunities for those in their care throughout this process and beyond. “Any proposals to adjust admission numbers will be subject to a full consultation process to gather local views and explore all options.”
At the cafe in the village garden centre, where a cooked breakfast costs £8 and a coffee costs £3, independent councilor Steven Stuart says community spirit has been shaken by ongoing problems with the construction of the HS2 line.
He wants the company to spend more money on youth projects in the village and is unhappy that original plans for the tunnel to reach Water Orton have been extended allowed without a new planning application.
HS2 has it funding provided For the village’s sports facilities including tennis, football and cricket clubs.
“The village of Water Orton is no longer what it used to be,” he says. “It would be great if HS2 recognized this and helped us become stronger going forward – but only time will tell.”
