HS2 reveals the cost to the public purse of protests

摘要

HS2 Ltd Chief Executive Mark Thurston has called for more government support to tackle the "increasingly violent and disruptive" protests being mounted against the mega-project. Speaking to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on June 24, Thurston revealed that dealing with direct action from opponents of the scheme has cost some £75 million to date. Meanwhile, more than 300 arrests have been made with nine prosecutions against people disrupting construction of Phase 1 of the line between London and Birmingham, and of Phase 2a from the West Midlands to Crewe. HS2 has faced a rising tide of direct action which included the removal of activists in February from tunnels dug at Euston to hold up contractors (RAIL 924). Around the same time, a long-running protest camp was shut down near to HS2's largest construction site in the Colne Valley, while there were also well- publicised clashes with bailiffs and police in April as protestors were removed from Jones' Hill Wood in Buckinghamshire (a 4.1- acre woodland believed to have inspired Roald Dahl).