The great HS2 housing crash: Savage toll on home sales caused by high-speed …

High-speed rail links will run from Birmingham to Manchester and to Leeds
Values of properties located near the planned railway lines have plummeted
Homeowners are now forced to wait years for compensation or sell at a loss

By
Martin Beckford, Padraic Flanagan and Ross Slater

PUBLISHED:

00:15 GMT, 3 February 2013

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UPDATED:

00:15 GMT, 3 February 2013

The full horrendous impact on the value of thousands of homes from the HS2 high-speed railway can be revealed today.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that buyers pulled out of deals and house-hunters cancelled viewings within hours of Ministers revealing details of the northern route.

Homeowners living alongside the two new lines – from Birmingham to Manchester and to Leeds – now face being trapped in blighted properties for years while they wait for compensation, or will have to sell at a massive discount.

The toll: Homeowners living alongside the proposed HS2 railway lines face selling their properties at a discounted price or waiting years for compensation for the devaluation of their houses

HS2 by numbers

Some could be plunged into negative equity as their homes become worth less than the cost of their mortgages, while potential buyers could struggle to get home loans.

One man who had spent two years trying to sell his £400,000 cottage in Leicestershire thought it had finally been sold – but came home last week to find a ‘for sale’ sign had gone back up.

And a businessman saw the value of his
eight-bedroom mansion in George Osborne’s Cheshire constituency plummet
overnight from £1.5 million to ‘worthless’.

THE DOOMED £1.5M MANOR

Broom Manor, Peacock lane, High Legh, near Knutsford

Businessman James Hilton spent six years restoring his £1.5 million eight-bedroom dream home.

Now
he claims Broom Manor in High Legh, Cheshire, is worthless after it was
announced the rail link to Manchester will scythe through the village.

‘My
estate agent said the market dropped like a stone the instant HS2 was
announced,’ said the 47-year-old retailer. ‘Who would buy anything
around here now?’

He added
it will have a serious impact on local MP and Chancellor George Osborne,
whose constituency office is in nearby Knutsford. ‘He’ll never get in
again after this.’

Critics also believe the impact of the £33 billion HS2 on the property market will be so great it could damage the economy.

Andrew
Bridgen, Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, said: ‘Benefits
might come after 2026 but the uncertainty and the blight for this area
began with the announcement.

‘Everyone is in limbo. It is completely unhelpful and I am baffled by the need to announce it now.’

Bill Cash, Tory MP for Stone in Staffordshire, yesterday held the first of several constituency meetings to discuss HS2.

He said: ‘It’s bound to affect property values – it’s a very serious blight.’

The
first stage of HS2, running 140 miles from London to Birmingham, was
set out in detail a year ago and has already been blamed for destroying
the value of houses and freezing the market.

On Monday Ministers unveiled the route of the second phase to Manchester and Leeds.

Official estimates uncovered by The Mail on Sunday show up to 453 houses, businesses and community buildings will be demolished to make way for the route, which covers a total of 211 miles.

Many people will be left ‘isolated’
as the line cuts off access roads, and dozens of properties will have
their grounds ‘severed’, including farms that will see their fields cut
in half and their livelihoods ruined.

HS2
believes at least 7,700 residents will face ‘annoyance’ from the noise
of the 225mph trains and 1,800 houses will need to have insulation
fitted. At least 3,000 properties will endure disruption while the
tracks are laid.

A
400-page report reveals that seven major rivers will be diverted, while
eight Grade II listed structures, 17 ancient woodlands and one site of
special scientific interest will be affected.

THE COMEDIAN’S BLIGHTED £2.25 MILLION MANSION

John and Melanie Bishop

Comedian John Bishop’s sense of humour failed him when he discovered the HS2 link will blight his £2.25 million mansion.

The
Liverpudlian attacked plans to spend £33 billion on the controversial
line, claiming the cash could be better spent improving services such as
the NHS.

‘HS2 is the wrong choice,’ Bishop said on Twitter.

‘Other nations with high-speed trains have the space. We don’t. Fast trains vs NHS?’

He took to the social-media site to vent his anger after being alerted to the news by his neighbours in rural Cheshire.

The 46-year-old star – pictured with wife Melanie – bought his Georgian property 18 months ago.

According
to the plans, the line will carry high-speed trains on a raised track a
few hundred yards from his front door, carving a path across the
driveway that leads to the Grade II listed building’s gates.

Speaking at the family home yesterday, Melanie Bishop said: ‘Obviously we’re not happy.’

The proposed routes: A Ministry of Transport map of phase one and phase two of the proposed HS2 high-speed rail project

The lines will cut across huge
swathes of Green Belt land, ancient woods, parks, rivers and canals. Up
to 100,000 trees in the National Forest in the Midlands may have to be
cut down.

The
Government insists HS2 will create jobs and boost the economy. Areas
served by stations for the high-speed trains will eventually become more
attractive to commuters and so house prices may rise.

But
trains will not start running on the northern branches until 2033 and
it is feared noise and traffic created by construction, and uncertainty
over the eventual impact, will have a devastating effect on property
values.

A FAMILY’S AGONISING WAIT

Kaye Head, 35, with her son Oscar

A family living in the path of the proposed route is facing an agonising wait.

Kaye
and Daniel Head recently accepted an offer on their three-bedroom
detached house in the Cheshire village of Lostock Green after putting it
on the market for £210,000 a year ago.

‘Our
buyers are having the searches done now. We’re just waiting for the
phone to ring. It’s absolutely horrendous,’ said mother-of-three Kaye,
38, pictured right with her son Oscar.

‘There’s nothing we can do but wait to hear what the verdict is.’

Within hours of the announcement, estate agents in Cheshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire were inundated with inquiries from worried buyers and sellers.

At Stuart Rushton Co in Knutsford, Cheshire, staff had ‘almost got a hotline set up’ to cope with calls.

‘It was a bit of a bombshell,’ said agent James Higgin. ‘It will be difficult to try to sell something.

By next week this is going to come up on every search.’ Andrew Rogers, of Gascoigne Halman in Knutsford, added: ‘There are many nervous purchasers. We’re going to have major problems.’

Campaigners say 350,000 homes will be within half a mile of an HS2 line.

They believe the Government will have to spend £5 billion on blighted homes, far more than originally set aside.

Anyone who has an urgent need to move because of their job or family can apply to have their home bought immediately under an Exceptional Hardship Scheme (EHS).

Those whose houses are in the path of the line or within 65 yards will receive the full value of the property plus 10 per cent compensation, within a few years as legislation is passed.

But anyone more than 130 yards away may only receive a small amount of compensation for extra noise and disruption, and can claim only a year after the trains start running.

Richard Houghton, of the HS2 Action Alliance, said: ‘If people are not being assisted by the EHS they are being left with houses they can’t sell. This will have a huge knock-on effect.’

THE £400,000 COTTAGE SALE THAT COLLAPSED

Ashby Road, Packington

A deal for a £400,000 cottage collapsed within hours of the Government unveiling the HS2 route.

Stephen Boulton, 53, had been trying for more than two years to sell his three-bedroom detached home, left, in the village of Packington, near Ashby, Leicestershire, and earlier this year was delighted when a sold sign went up outside his property. But on Wednesday the buyers walked away from the deal after it was disclosed the link would pass within 200 yards of the front door.

Mr Boulton, 53, who runs his own business, said: ‘We were just about to exchange contracts. The whole of Packington is going to be blighted by this. I am meeting a solicitor next week to get some legal advice.’

THE THREATENED 500-YEAR-OLD FARMHOUSE

David Garrett outside his 500 year old farmhouse which is within yards of the hs2 line

The tiny hamlet of Tonge in Leicestershire, with its picture-postcard cottages, is set to have the line crash right through it.

Retired farmer David Garrett, who has lived in a 500-year-old farmhouse in Tonge for 27 years, said: ‘I think it is appalling.

The value of our property has gone down at a stroke. There is nothing in this for Leicestershire, not even a stop. It is all pain, no gain.’ The line will be just 200 yards from his farmhouse.

ANDREW BRIDGEN: Two decades of misery – so why announce it now?

The Government’s announcement on Monday of the proposed route for the HS2 rail project left me angry and baffled. It is not just that the new track will go within 100 yards of my own front door in the picturesque village of Appleby Magna in Leicestershire – but the chilling effect the plans will have on the value of thousands of homes along the route.

The advocates of this plan can talk all they like about the alleged economic benefits and I think they are wrong.

But what cannot be disputed is that thousands of householders find themselves blighted and in limbo – the value of their homes depressed for the next two decades by the threat of disruption and noise.
It just makes no sense.

I have spoken to tens of thousands of business people and I have never heard them complain that they could not get to London quickly enough. I would imagine that with technology moving as it is, there will be more video conferences, more working from home and less need for travel in 20 years’ time.

So why announce it? Why trail something now that will not come to fruition for 20 years and, with many General Elections between now and then, could so easily not happen at all?

Controversial: The new HS2 proposed would extend the already-planned London to Birmingham HS2 line as far as Manchester and Leeds

It was, unsurprisingly, a Labour idea. Lord Adonis dreamed it up and, to me, it is reminiscent of those old Soviet Bloc projects that had everything to do with the vanity of politicians and nothing to do with real need in the real world. I suggest that the other reason could be to placate the Liberal Democrats and please Nick Clegg and his constituents up in Sheffield.

My hunch is that this project will never happen.

The history of large, public-sector schemes of this sort is that they end up massively over-budget and there are several issues in my own constituency of North West Leicestershire which make me doubt whether this project will be any different.

Major road links will need realignment in order to accommodate HS2, and the plan to tunnel under East Midlands Airport is fraught with cost issues.

Those designing the route appear to have taken no account of a Strategic Freight Interchange proposed for the area which had been due to create 7,000 jobs in 2015 with private investment of half a billion pounds.

The route ploughs straight through the middle of the development site and there is every chance that the developers will withdraw.

The lack of consultation is also an outrage. Three days before the announcement, East Midlands Airport staff were unaware of the plan to tunnel underneath them.

My constituents, who will struggle to sell their homes for the next 20 years, were just as taken aback.

The genie is now out of the bottle. Those of us objecting are not Nimbys. My constituency is in the top 20 in the country for economic growth.

It already has an airport, a racetrack, two motorways and the prospect of several thousand new homes being built.

We need all of that to help the economic recovery but this futuristic train track will do nothing but spread uncertainty – the enemy of recovery.

And if it should happen it will ravage some of the loveliest villages in England.

Andrew Bridgen is Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

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Whether you agree with new infrastructure or not, it’s very sad this country is now held to ransom by the property market. We need new industry, we can’t all keep selling each other ever increasingly expensive houses. We are cannibalizing our own economy and tying up trillions in property instead of investing in things which can create real growth. I know for those who have seen their proprieties triple in value over the last 15 years it seems amazing, but we are leaving ourselves open to economic disaster of unimaginable scale. This may not be the right project (I would personally chose maglev trains (as they are building in China) combined with a new international airport in the midlands), but we cannot keep protesting and blocking any form of progress. we cannot afford to let the UK turn from a powerhouse and world leader into a backwards little heritage museum of an island. The Victorians forged the modern world and I feel they would be shocked to see we refuse to move forward.

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why
,

midlands,
03/2/2013 02:22

I live in Manchester and regularly use the existing line but this is ridiculous. 2 hours is a perfectly sufficient travel time as it is. I would much prefer better rural and local train services ( that run on time! ), or for the money to be used elsewhere .

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Kiphy
,

Manchester, United Kingdom,
03/2/2013 02:14

My dear fellow Britons – each and every one of you need to grow a backbone and have the determination of the Jerrow Marchers. No to HS2. No to the EU. I can’t believe in a country with the population of the UK it hasn’t happened…….stop being the doormat of the world.

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Britishnurse
,

England, Canada,
03/2/2013 02:14

Completely agree with John Bishop.

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Pearla from the Moon
,

Liverpool, United Kingdom,
03/2/2013 02:13

Reducing the cost of electricity by 75-80% will create many more jobs than HS2 ever will and will also benefit everybody in the country. More people working means a lower benefits bill and increased tax revenue. The damage HS2 will do far outweighs the benefits. Very few people will benefit from HS2 but all commuters will face higher fares. Which option is better for Britain, Cameron?

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iamnotanumber
,

northwest_england,
03/2/2013 02:06

I’m not for it as this country is far too small for this and totally unfair…..and Cameron’s mates can shove the train up their butts.

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Stormy Wolf
,

Help And Get Me Out Of, United Kingdom,
03/2/2013 02:01

Whinging NIMBYs – little wonder that UK infrastructure is in such a bad way.

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GnosticBrian
,

Canterbury, United Kingdom,
03/2/2013 01:59

Such a pitty all those homes will be devalued, countryside destroyed and money spent all for a train that wont be in use for 20 years. Come on government there has to be a better way to do this?

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Hunter Thompson
,

Bournemouth Pier,
03/2/2013 01:58

I don’t know what the big deal is there are plenty of old and new houses next to very active rail lines and they’re fine. A noisy road would be far more intrusive. The whole business is hype and hysteria over nothing.

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ron
,

Cumbria,
03/2/2013 01:55

People are wanting faster and better links but it is a case of not in my back yard.

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helen66
,

London,
03/2/2013 01:47

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