The high-speed rail link will spell disaster for the countryside – and for Cameron
My outing with the Bicester hunt has already taken me over a five-bar iron gate when a lady on a handsome dapple grey pulls up alongside me. ‘You’re visiting, aren’t you?’ she says, as our horses snort and stamp. ‘You need to know that the next bit is called the black run.’ Seconds later we are hurtling through a fine, rainy mist over hedge after hedge. As we approach the first, I let out a tremendous shout which surprises even me. ‘Go on!’
I’m not yelling at my horse, a hireling called Ruben who is terrific; I’m yelling at myself. I find it helps to have a battle cry when you’re approaching something that you are not entirely sure it is feasible to surmount. We get airborne with a lurch, then land the other side safely, thanks to Ruben’s superbly balanced jumping technique. He is barely ruffled. The hounds are still running. We gallop with a dozen other horses like thunder towards the next hedge. God, I love hunting. Like off-piste skiing, it is one of those adrenalin-fuelled sports that makes you feel like you are really alive. Nearing the end, Nancy Mitford said she would give anything for one last day of it. As I fly over those hedges, I know exactly what she means.
We canter alongside a railway line. It is only used occasionally for freight but its presence is sobering and reminds me why I am here. I have come to see for myself where the proposed high-speed rail link — HS2 — will carve up this historic hunt country. For as I do battle with the Oxfordshire hedges, a greater battle is under way. It is yet another battle to save hunting. Having survived the class-driven Labour ban, having found a way to hunt within the law by laying trails, the hunting community now has to contend with an enormous rail line from London to Birmingham carving up their territory.
The Bicester with Whaddon Chase, which can trace its origins back to 1800, will lose an estimated 18 square miles of its territory as a result of HS2. The irony is almost unbearable. Will David Cameron manage to do with his pet rail project what Labour failed to do with the Hunting Act 2004? Will a Conservative Prime Minister who proclaims his love of the countryside finish off some of our oldest hunts by driving a rail line through the middle of them? It seems unthinkable that he should want to do this, and yet with a decision due on HS2 after Christmas, all the signs are that the line will go ahead. Hunts including the Bicester and the Warwickshire are just a few of the many rural businesses that will be affected by the £25 billion project, which many say is unaffordable and of questionable value to the economy anyway. It is meant to shave 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham, but the business case for this doesn’t take account of the fact that, in an era of smart phones and iPads, people work on trains.
It is doubly ironic that the Bicester should be so badly affected. Mr Cameron’s Oxfordshire home is not far from here, and the hunt regularly meets at Thenford, the estate of Lord Heseltine, a close ally of the Prime Minister. Many of the hunt supporters are dyed-in-the-wool Tories who campaigned hard to put Cameron in office.
The line, which will resemble the channel tunnel rail link, will consist of massive cuttings with an exclusion zone around it. It will be too risky to let hounds go within a mile of the 225mph trains. As we gallop up Poundon Hill and on to Twyford Mill, we approach the place where the rail line will make its bisection, carving into the English countryside like a gory surgical scar. The run of hedges where I have such a thrill will disappear forever.
Of course it is not just the hunting community that will be devastated. A nearby racing yard owned by a prominent trainer will be unable to use its gallops because of the noise — 95 decibels at 25 metres. An arable farm that has been in the same family for four generations will be carved in two. A huge swath of some of England’s most picturesque farmland will disappear. As Christopher Hodgson, chairman of the Bicester, points out: ‘The countryside is a precious thing. Once you destroy it, you cannot get it back.’
People here who campaigned for Cameron feel betrayed. They imply that if HS2 goes ahead the Prime Minister can forget about them putting leaflets through doors for him at the next election. Mr Hodgson said: ‘We understood that Cameron couldn’t do repeal (of the hunting ban) after the coalition was formed. But we feel pretty aggrieved that something like this with such an appallingly bad business case should come along. It’s a political gimmick that he’s decided to run with... There is some way to go before there is a Tory majority and he’s going to need his core supporters.’ Belinda Naylor, whose farm would be split in two, goes further: ‘There is a big political black hole in front of David Cameron that he hasn’t realised.’
This is not an empty threat. The Conservative party’s internal analysis suggests that the efforts of hunt supporters in marginal seats at the last election was crucial. The electoral consequences could be dire for Cameron in 2015 if Tory voters up and down the route switch to other candidates to stop HS2. Outside Great Missenden there is a banner spelling out the intention of the local people to withdraw support for the Conservatives. ‘He’s in trouble because people will absolutely vote against this,’ says Mrs Naylor.
While Labour invented the idea of HS2, they now say it is too costly and the proposed route deeply flawed. At least one Bicester member I ride alongside is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. When I ask him how he feels, he snaps back: ‘I’ll vote Labour if I have to.’ You find that sense of betrayal all along the route. HS2 cuts through four hunts, as well as several important race courses and cross-country courses and many rights of way.
The rail line, which would open in 2026, goes through 15 miles of land regularly visited by the Warwickshire hunt. At least 25 square miles of beautiful country would become unusable. Adrian Hopkinson, chair of the Countryside Alliance in Warwickshire, said: ‘Countryside lovers do not want to stand in the way of progress. But we are really irritated this time because we see the countryside blighted for no reason whatsoever.’ Hunting is not the only activity affected. The Aston-le-Walls horse trials, Leamington Spa Polo Club, Whitfield point-to-point course and Stoneleigh Park, headquarters of the Pony Club, will all be devastated. In Buckinghamshire, home to the Chilterns area of outstanding national beauty, HS2 was due to slice through 79 rights of way, including 11 bridleways and 67 footpaths, until Cameron promised a tunnel there. It remains to be seen whether the money to do this will come from skimping on fencing and sound-proofing on other sections of the route.
Many more hunts will be carved up if the rail line continues to the north in a second phase to be built later, as Cameron has promised. At the Grafton hunt in Northamptonshire, hunt follower Lizzie Williams founded the Stop HS2 campaign, which persuaded the Commons transport select committee to undertake an economic review of the project. The committee has just published its report which is deeply critical. It calls for a wider review of transport needs in the UK instead of the focus on HS2, and urges the government to desist from disparaging rural people as ‘Nimbys’. That Cameron should even need to be told this is astonishing.
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