Stop HS2 hits back at Graham Evans

Following Southam News' exclusive publication of Graham Evans' letter of complaint to the Audit Commission and its accompanying report [available here - contains PDF] Stop HS2 have responded:

Stop HS2 has hit back at Graham Evans MP who has claimed that nine local councils might have acted illegally by earmarking £1,175,000 to spend in the battle against HS2. Despite Evans’ claim, less then half the money has been spent so far, on expert reviews and technical evidence, with the rest earmarked for potential legal challenges. This is averages to about £26,000 per member of the 51M group. Evans has also claimed that the decision of Warwickshire County Council to let Stop HS2 use a derelict building in Kenilworth as the campaign headquarters might also be illegal.

Evans, the MP for Weaver Vale in Cheshire who is best known for playing ‘air guitar’ in the House of Commons Chamber has previously stated that those opposing HS2 are an ‘alliance of luddites and nimbies’ and now claims; “This is a disgraceful misuse of public money. High-speed rail is the biggest step forward any Government has taken to tackle the problem of the North-South divide. My constituents need jobs and growth above all else. They are deeply disturbed that southern councils are paying to keep the North poorer.”

Stop HS2 chair, Penny Gaines said: “Graham Evans has already attacked Stop HS2 in the House of Commons in February, where Parliamentary privilege means we have no right of reply.

HS2 was not developed as part of a plan to heal the north-south divide. However, it will take jobs and investment away from other regions like Wales, as shown in evidence to the Transport Select Committee earlier this week by witnesses from Kent and Cardiff. Philip Hammond is only claiming it will help the north-south divide because they have run out of other arguments for this vanity project, which will cost the country £33 billion, and take over 20 years to reach Manchester.”

Stop HS2 Campaign Coordinator Joe Rukin, whose premises appears on page 8 of the Evans report, said: “All the councils involved took democratic decisions, they actually voted, unanimously in most cases, to oppose HS2 because of the economic and environmental damage it will do. They haven’t spent their money on publicity, they have sadly had to spend their money checking the incomplete and incorrect data which HS2 Ltd have produced. If HS2 Ltd had done their work properly and not treated people and councils with utter contempt during the public consultation with what was at best a back-of-a-fag-packet analysis, they would not have had to spend this money. As far as I am aware, the only council which has actually spent money on publicity regarding HS2 is Birmingham, where there are banners plastered all around saying the city of Birmingham supports HS2. The other thing of course is that the Government plan to spend £817 million on HS2 this parliament, before a single brick has been laid. This is completely anti-democratic as there has never been any vote at a national level on HS2.”

  Joe Rukin continued; “The other thing is that Mr Evans has just five campaigns listed on his website. Four of those are; fighting a wind farm, fighting an incinerator, campaigning against the noise of the M56 and campaigning against travellers sites. He then has the bare faced cheek to call us nimbies! This is just typical of the hypocrisy we have seen from the supporters of HS2. When it suits them, this sort of campaign is ‘localism’ and ‘community involvement’, when it doesn’t it is nimbyism, and Secretary of State for transport Philip Hammond is the biggest nimby of the lot. The fact of the matter is that because HS2 is coming through our locality, we have read the plans. Because we have read the plans, we can see that HS2 has no business case, no environmental case and there is no money to pay for it. I would suggest Mr Evans might try actually reading and trying to understand the documents instead of simply listening to the affluent business leaders in his constituency. To claim that HS2 will create jobs in Weaver Vale is absolutely ludicrous, as all HS2 will do is suck economic activity to the places which get stations, which most definitely will not be Runcorn or Northwich, and he should realise that if he really cared about the majority of his constituents. HS2 will only make the North-South divide worse, as it will lead to more and more things being dragged to London, but there is clearly a significant lobby from rich businessmen in his constituency who see no problem with that. Even the reports commissioned by groups supporting HS2 state that HS2 will cost jobs for the areas without stations, as was pointed out to the Transport Select Committee just this week by Mark Barry of the Cardiff Business Partnership. 

  Evans is also completely misinformed about the Stop HS2 HQ, claiming that Warwickshire County Council have financially supported the campaign by letting us use the building in Kenilworth. That’s odd because they have just sent us the bill for the recent work to reconnect the electricity. The Council bought the former builders merchant site as part of a land swap deal with the other builders merchant in town, which is in the way of building a railway station in Kenilworth, but the Government did not come through with the funding for that project. The Council believes they will secure the funding in the future, so they were stuck with a building they couldn’t use, they couldn’t let it to a commercial tenant as they could be told to get out at any minute and they couldn’t sell it as it is part of a long term project. The Council had a simple choice, leave a derelict building rotting in the middle of town, or let us, an organisation which is advocating having a normal train station in Kenilworth, use it. 

  We are absolutely astounded by this outburst from Graham Evans, it is both hypocritical and ill-informed. A man with such evident contempt for democracy has no business being an MP, he should stick to what he is good at, playing air guitar.*”

The air guitar reference refers to an appearance in the Commons by Mr Evans: see here.

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