Following the Government’s HS2 annoucement, North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry has sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Transport regarding compensation.

Campaigners have vowed to fight on as the government prepares to give a £32bn high speed rail project the go-ahead – and MPs continue to question if tracks will ever be laid down.

In the play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead” there are early scenes of the two courtiers ruminating on why they are on their way to see Hamlet and they recall that it was as a consequence of someone early one morning banging on their shutters demanding their attention. Likewise for a number of us as Members of Parliament we had to start to pay attention to this issue as a consequence of a line being drawn in a map across our constituencies.

I think it may be helpful to comment on where I see the situation with respect to HS2, in particular following the publication of the Transport Select Committee’s Report on High Speed Rail.

Proposals for an alternative route for the planned £33bn High Speed Rail link (HS2) which would run closer to Oxfordshire towns have been attacked by MP Tony Baldry.

North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry has written to Shadow Transport Minister, Maria Eagle, MP attacking Labour’s most recent proposal for the route for HS2 as “unworkable” and “impractical”.

Time is short, and I do not intend to repeat what I have said in previous debates on High Speed 2. If hon. Members or others are interested, they can find what I have said previously on my website—I am not one of the Twitterati, but I am catching up with websites—at www.tonybaldry.co.uk/tag/hs2.

I represent North Oxfordshire. The proposed route of HS2 goes through a part of my constituency.

Please click on the link provided to access a copy of a letter Tony has received from Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP regarding the consultation on HS2: HS2 Letter from Philip Hammond 27 July re consultation.

Please click on the link provided to access a copy of a letter Tony has received from Philip Hammond regarding railway noise: HS2 Letter from Philip Hammond 260511 re Railway Noise.