Hundreds of homes, including an estate built six years ago, will be demolished to make way for Britain’s new high-speed railway amid mounting criticism over rising costs.
It was confirmed yesterday that part of a housing estate near Sheffield would be levelled for the HS2 line from London to Leeds.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said that the 250mph line would run through the £30 million Shimmer estate where work started on two and three-storey townhouses in 2011.
Ministers insisted that only 16 homes out of 216 would have to be bulldozed to make way for the line, although it is feared that all properties will be blighted by the high-speed trains and years of construction work, forcing many more families to move out.
Fifty-one homes and businesses will be demolished in South Yorkshire alone, the government said. There are fears that the final number of homes knocked down along the line will top 400, with the majority in north London. This came as the government admitted that the economic benefits of the line would be less than promised four years ago.
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There have also been claims that the overall bill will be almost double the current estimate of £55.7 billion.
Yesterday, the DfT published details of the full route for the first time.
Phase 1 will take trains from London Euston to Birmingham, with services running by 2026. A second section will open from Birmingham to Crewe in 2027.
Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, confirmed the full eastern and western legs of the Y-shaped network, which will be completed by 2033.
In one direction, trains will call at a new East Midlands hub station between Nottingham and Derby before reaching Chesterfield, Sheffield and Leeds. The other leg reaches Manchester airport and Manchester Piccadilly, with a spur on to the existing west coast mainline at Wigan, where services will continue along existing tracks to Scotland.
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It was also announced that a new hub station may be built at Crewe and that HS2 services could serve nearby Stoke.
Mr Grayling said the new line would bring “huge economic benefits across the country and help ensure this government delivers on its promise to spread wealth beyond London and the southeast”.
He added: “We will now press ahead with building the line, while continuing to ensure affected communities get appropriate support and are treated with fairness, compassion and respect.”
The transport secretary has faced criticism over the cost of the project. At the weekend, an analysis from Michael Byng, a rail expert, led to estimates that the total cost of the project could be up to £104 billion.
Yesterday, a newly published economic case for the line showed that there would be £2.30 worth of benefits for every £1 spent. However, this is less than the estimate made in 2012, when it was suggested that the figure would be £2.50 of benefits for every £1 spent.
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Joe Rukin, spokesman for the Stop HS2 campaign, said: “The case for HS2 has been invented by the very cheerleaders who intend to rake in billions of taxpayers’ money which is desperately needed elsewhere.”
Ministers originally suggested that HS2 would run to the Meadowhall shopping centre three miles outside Sheffield city centre. In November last year they switched to a route that avoids the area altogether while including a separate spur into the city.
This option includes the demolition of part of the Shimmer estate in Mexborough. The DfT said that all affected householders would receive compensation to “secure a comparable local home”.
Pete and Sue Douglas moved into their four-bedroom house on the estate nearly three years ago, spending £20,000 on renovations because they planned to retire there.
Mr Douglas, 62, said: “We’ve been fobbed off, ignored. And they don’t respond, they tell lies, they ignore you. As we have got older, it’s made us ill — there’s no doubt about it.”
