HS2 community engagement 1 March 2021
Click here for the latest photos of the work on the Scrubs.
This is a very rough contemporaneous account of this meeting which was called at the request of Sarah Abrahart. FOWWS have been requesting a meeting such as this for 4 months. I wrote down quotes as they happened. There may be inaccuracies which I apologise for in advance.
(I joined at 6 minutes past the start time and it seemed Patricia Thompson had asked everyone to introduce themselves in turn. There were over 21 people on the call and soon after I joined the call Sarah Abrahart requested that it was not necessary for everyone to introduce themselves as there was only an hour allotted for the call.
David Lindo (author and naturalist, The Urban Birder) spoke and was highly critical of hs2 for their apparent lack of background research. He says at no point did HS2 approach him for his bird records (these are now on www.friendsofthescrubs.uk)
Questions were asked about the methodology of scrub clearance and the accountability of the contractors responsible for the clearance.
Caroline, the lead ecologist said 3 ecologists were present, checking every half an hour for nesting birds. “It does look brutal, but they go for a metre then stop and check, and go again. We get into ecology because we care about wildlife”.
She said they were cutting down to 15 cm (6 inches) “unfortunately when you cut down scrub only sticks are left that height, there is no understory vegetation as you’d see with grassland”
Richard Gill (LBHF Parks Manager) says he met LUC ecologist and David Lindo last year on the Scrubs to discuss the ecology. He added that ecologists on the HS2 side are dealing with a separate project from LUC, LUC is comprehensive masterplan for whole scrubs area, not the HS2 related works specifically. David Lindo repeated that he was very displeased he wasn’t approached directly by HS2
Patricia Thompson (HS2 community engagement officer) offered to hold another community engagement meeting on 17 March.
Peter Harms and a number of others asked why tree surveys were not published and why no public consultation had taken place with local residents.
The HS2 ecologists reiterated that 2013, 2017, 2019 series of surveys LWT for LBHF are now in public domain on H&F website.
Patricia Thompson said that consultation was not required for the work being done now. All consultation took place during the process of the passage of the Bill through Parliament. We will engage with the public but this is not consultation. The ACT gives us planning permission to do our work.
Sarah A says she’s observed clearance of scrub was not down to 15 cm, it was right down to the ground. Sarah A: “I stood there and watched while the ecologist stood back looking at his phone while the contractor went mad in the area.”
Sarah A: “we know that HS2 [in other locations] has destroyed much plant life, eg chopping down a 500 year old tree just for access - then deciding it doesn’t need the access after all”
PT: “We have always been very transparent what the work is, we have always been very clear on that, it’s to move a sewer.
Requests from a number of people in the meeting for clear pegging, and for tree surveys for all trees to be felled to be published openly. Patricia Thompson displayed the already well-known arial view of the site with the designated area mapped out and suggested that this was adequate information for the public.
It was pointed out that this was not sufficient as it does not identify specific trees/bushes or species.
Alex Sanderson (Chair of Wormwood Scrubs Charitable Trust) commented: “We have had access to this arial view for a while, we want detailed tree surveys with individual trees identified.”
She asked if pegging out the area had been done and abandoned and if so why.
Richard Gill said that it was a health and safety decision to abandon pegs, because the site is very scrubby, the pegs would be invisible and would “cause a trip hazard”. “the site was going to go into possession of hs2 so they would have health and safety responsibility”.
An early decision was taken to spray the ground to show where the designated area of destruction would be, and Richard G says he walked some of the friends round to see the ground. He offered to meet with some of the FOWWS group tomorrow (2 March) to look at the area.
Jonty, one of the HS2 ecologists, suggested that HS2 should regularly update the community every couple of weeks, explaining the programme as it goes along – evidently they allow for changes of plan.
Jonty – “Tree plans are a moveable feast” because the area we could clear is larger than the area we want to clear, the area we are clearing is shrinking.
Matthew Malins - project manager – “we are marking out the area with spray every week, it’s lime spray, non permanent, it gets washed away, at the same time it’s deep in vegetation and hard to see…we are hoping to finish the vegetation clearance by end week. Then fencing goes up and site will look the way it is going to for the next year or so.”
Sarah A. Please leave the brambles remaining there are birds going in there. Sarah A says witnessed brambles cut down to ground level immediately. “How will we know why individual trees have been cleared, it can turn out they weren’t needed to be cleared at all.” – Sarah A.
PT: hs2 CAN clear the hatched area on the map, all of it, but team are looking to reduce the footprint as much as possible.
FT it’s required by law to have details of tree surveys and we want to see them.
Jonty we haven’t released any tree surveys. “I need to go away and check, I can’t just say I can release them, I can’t see why I can’t put them on commonplace (HS2’s “community engagement” website) , but I’d risk my job saying that.”
Alex Sanderson asks for people to send her questions to pass on.
Jane Abrahart asks project manager Matt Malins if it was possible to keep the bramble screen/perimeter which screens the cleared area. was asked about the “small wall of brambles” remaining: Malins: “we are looking to keep it but no promises, doing a final check on the line of it and we are going to try and keep it if we can. If it’s going to be removed, it will be this week, a surveyor is coming in this week”
Jo Langton - you made a promise to hand clear to protect lizards and you haven’t done that.
Caroline, ecologist: hand clearance means use of hand held strimmers rather than mechanical digger vehicles.
This is a confusion in terminology which wasn’t made clear last year. Some FOWWS members did not expect to see power tools such as strimmers used, but interpreted “hand clearance” as using loppers and shears. Apparently to HS2 the term means “using anything short of a mechanical digger”.