Keep trains out of my 5,000-acre back yard-Lord Rothschild

April 11, 2010

Keep trains out of my 5,000-acre back yard
Lord Rothschild in his 5,000-acre back yard
Steven Swinford and Jonathan Oliver 19 Comments
Recommend? (4) LORD ROTHSCHILD, the financier and a friend of Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, is leading a revolt against government plans for a 250mph railway line that will cut through swathes of the countryside.

The £30 billion scheme from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds — the biggest rail project in Britain for more than 100 years — will crash through the Chilterns, passing via the back yards of a string of rich and famous residents.

Thousands of homeowners have already registered protests at the first leg of the proposed route to Birmingham, which they say will ruin the area’s natural beauty and calm.

When the line is complete there will be 18 trains an hour, running from 5am until midnight. Journey times between London and Birmingham will be reduced to 49 minutes from 1 hour 24 minutes.

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Campaigners are enlisting the support of celebrities living along the planned route, who include Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, the music personalities, Sophie Dahl, the former model turned television chef, and Sir David Jason, the actor. Rothschild, whose fortune is valued at £360m, is likely to prove a formidable opponent. The proposed line will run within a mile of Waddesdon Manor and its 120-acre estate, in Buckinghamshire, the Rothschild family seat that was donated to the National Trust, and will cut directly through the neighbouring 5,700-acre estate where he lives. Plans show that a 3,281ft viaduct will have to be built on his land.

“I have serious concerns about the route which has been selected and its impact on Waddesdon Manor,” said Rothschild. “We will carefully watch the progression of the consultation process and its eventual outcome.”

His opposition puts him at odds with Mandelson, who has stayed at Rothschild’s villa in Corfu and last year attended a shooting party at Waddesdon.

Rothschild is working with an independent planning consultant to mount objections to the high-speed line, which will be submitted to the government’s consultation. He and the National Trust want the route to bypass the area altogether and follow the M1 corridor. “It makes more sense to follow a route which has already been developed than to ruin the tranquillity of the Chilterns,” said a source close to Rothschild.

However, engineers involved in the project believe that building the line alongside the M1 would require extensive tunnelling under Luton in Bedfordshire and other towns, adding billions to the bill. It would also increase journey times by 10 minutes.

The developer of High Speed 2, as the project is called, says it will mitigate its impact on the countryside by using tunnels and cuttings. But residents remain unimpressed.

A Facebook protest group has almost 9,000 members, while a petition on the Downing Street website has 6,800 signatures.

Liz Williams, a member of the South Northamptonshire Action Group, plans to walk the length of the line from Birmingham to London this summer to raise further awareness.

Her protest has the support of Geoffrey Palmer, the actor, who lives just a quarter of a mile from the proposed route.

Fern Britton, the television presenter, is also interested in Williams’s protest walk, as is Rupert Heseltine, the son of Lord Heseltine, the Tory former deputy prime minister.

While his father is in favour of the line, Rupert Heseltine is an outspoken opponent. His home near Banbury in Oxfordshire will be within two miles of the route.

He said: “This train line is going to leave a scar from London to Birmingham across the countryside. It will leave broken communities, distraught families and destroyed businesses. I have friends whose farms will be destroyed. This is not about me, it’s about communities that will see no benefit.”

If it goes ahead, the government will have to buy up hundreds of homes in the Chilterns through compulsory purchase orders before the project is finished in 2026. Until then, many homeowners are in limbo.

Adam Thomas, who is disabled, and his wife, Agnes, have spent £150,000 making their home near Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, wheelchair-friendly. Thomas said: “I’d like Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, to come down and meet us. I think he would have a lot of sleepless nights if he knew the damage this has caused.”