===🚆 HELP to STOP HS2 from HOME!  🚆===

This document will be monitored and updated as appropriate during this rapidly evolving situation.

High Speed 2 (HS2) is the proposed new 345 mile high speed railway, planned to be built in England by HS2 Ltd. (a Government-owned corporation) funded by UK taxpayers.

Why is this train line so bad?

🚂 It is likely to cost over £110 billion, when our NHS is struggling under COVID-19. . Rather than putting more money into HS2, let’s protect our communities, public health and nature.

🚂 HS2 work continues, where is is impossible for contractors to adhere to social distancing guidance, putting themselves, their families and the public at risk

🚂 HS2 has admitted that the line would never become carbon neutral over its 120-year projected lifetime. It is high-speed, so uses more energy and more carbon and is enabling mass airport expansion

🚂 The taxpayers alliance estimate HS2 will cost each taxpayer at least £3,375

The ‘enabling’ works have already caused extensive and irreversible damage to the environment

🚂 It will destroy over 100 ancient woodlands, river paths and over 700 special wildlife sites.

🚂 It will pollute an aquifer offering more than 2 million people drinking water.

🚂 The cooperation illegally blocks damning reports on inaccurate forecasting ?.

🚂 HS2 are felling illegally, with false wildlife certification during bat, bird and badger nesting season. They are chipping trees immediately to hide all evidence.

Chris Packham and Leigh Day solicitors are appealing against the High Court ruling.

RethinkHS2 Coalition of environmental organisations stand against HS2:

XR, The Woodland Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, Greenpeace, the Ramblers, National Trust, Butterfly Conservation, WWF, Client Earth, RSPB, Buglife and the Friends of the Earth.

HS2 has begun clearing ancient woodlands (Crackley, Broadwells, Birches and Cubbington In Warwickshire. and Fulfen Wood in Staffordshire)  Poors Piece woods in Steeple Claydon, and Jones hill woods aka Roald Dahl woods face clearance soon.. Work continues along the proposed line tearing out trees and hedgerow to lay roads for ‘enabling’ or ‘preparatory’ works

Whilst we are in lockdown, the focus is elsewhere & the government are in recess, under the radar, they have put through, HS2 notice to proceed. We are in a public health crisis. We need the £110 billion cost of HS2 (£4,000 per household) to be reallocated to prioritise the NHS, funding a green economy, social services and a future safe for everyone. During the Covid-9 pandemic, staff continue normal work, breaking social-distancing and endangering the public. Find out more about all the camps here.

CONTENTS Please click to skip to topic.


                Contact HS2 Ltd directly

Call Contractors

Emails to Politicians

Sign the Petition NOW 

Social Media

Donate

Contact HS2 Ltd. directly

At this moment, those who would like to participate in actions from home can call or email the  HS2 helpline and make the following complaints:

  1. Scotland, Ireland and Wales have now halted all major construction sites to comply with the physical distancing required. In England, Crossrail has also shut down. HS2 bosses should comply as well.

  1. HS2 workers are travelling across the UK to compounds, coughing, using taxis, staying in local hotels, breaching social distancing guidelines.   Whilst healthcare workers are putting their lives at risk to save others HS2 needlessly risking people’s lives for non-essential work

  1. HS2 are felling ancient woodland in bird nesting season, when it is illegal to disturb nesting birds according to Wildlife Countryside Act 1981. HS2 have already been clearing trees and hedgerows and disturbing nests, in full knowledge that what they are doing is illegal.

  1. You may also want to refer to this letter written by Robert Butler MP on 23rd March.

HS2 Helpline: Tel 08081 434 434

Email: HS2enquiries@hs2.org.uk

Contractors

You could consider contacting the organisations listed below to express your concern for their employees and their activities.  There are more contractors on this list and there is a list on this website (the joint-venture organisation running the subcontracts for HS2) with even more, but we would recommend doing some research before engaging with these organisations.

Important note: When contacting contractors, we believe it is potentially more powerful to do so as a ‘concerned citizen’.  Please uphold XR’s Principles and Values and the Rebel Agreement when engaging in these remote actions.  Please also consider that the individuals involved will all be navigating this stressful and emotional period and for some, their livelihoods & futures will be very uncertain.

  • “LM” (Laing O’Rourke and J Murphy & Sons), overseeing contractors operating at the Warwickshire sites -

Email: c.curtis@lm-jv.com Web: http://www.lm-jv.com/contact-us.aspx 

  • Laing O’rourke 

Tel: +44 (0)1322 296200 Web: http://www.laingorourke.com/contact-us/contact-us.aspx

  • J. Murphy & Sons Limited 

Tel: 020 7267 4366 Email: mail@murphygroup.co.uk

  • Coombes Forestry Ltd. Operating around Steeple Claydon

Call 01730 231 761 https://www.coombesuk.com/ and demand they stay away from Steeple Claydon, that they go home NOW, that they cease work IMMEDIATELY. That they do not work today. Their presence in the elderly community in which they are working is placing their employees, their families and residents at risk during the CORVID-19 Global Emergency'. They have been filmed committing wildlife crime

Contracting, consultancy and ecological services - aiming for “the best possible environmental gains on each project”.

Tel: 01722 783041 - Email: office@five-rivers.com

Pest management company safeguarding commercial interests.  “Our unique approach considers all aspects of the industry from ecology to pest control under the broader term of wildlife management”.

Tel: 0333 567 2020 - Email: enquiries@nbcenvironment.co.uk

Security management - “..we intend to produce a positive impact on the environment through the adoption of sustainable and ethical practices.”

Tel: 0800 614 678 - Email: info@servest.co.uk

“Protester, squatter and traveller removal experts”

Tel: 01792 466 771 (option 2) Email: info@nationalevictionteam.co.uk

From their website: “The health, safety and wellbeing of the communities along the route of the new railway, and our staff, remains our absolute priority.” let them know if you think otherwise

Tel: 08081 434 434 Email: HS2complaints@HS2.org.uk  

 Helpful talking / emailing Points

Here's some points that you can bring up when calling the organisation you’ve chosen. It’s probably best to choose the points you feel most comfortable with so that you can talk from the heart. Some of the points might form the basis of an email if you’re taking that approach..

  • (HS2/contractors) have been seen to be breaching distancing rules, set up by the government. It's clear HS2 needs to stop to protect communities from COVID-19 ****Link to video taken yesterday at Broadwells Wood near Kenilworth showing HS2 workers not social distancing , 19sec in, 25sec long: https://twitter.com/SarahLyst/status/1245322547358564352 ****
  • The Midlands is a hotspot for coronavirus deaths, and also where HS2 are continuing their non-essential work clearing ancient woodland.  HS2 workers, their families and local communities are at risk for as long as the government, HS2Ltd and the contractor firms allow this work to carry on
  • HS2 workers are travelling across the UK to compounds, in Crackley Compound there is a staff canteen for 120 workers, some of whom stay overnight, its been reported by locals that staff have been sent home with flu like symptoms. HS2 are breaking HSE guidelines.
  • Since the government announced that we must #StayAtHome to protect the NHS, hundreds of HS2 employees have continued construction work.
  • At this point Scotland, Ireland and Wales have now halted all major construction sites to comply with the physical distancing required. In England, Crossrail has also shut down. HS2 bosses should comply as well.
  • In this current lockdown its been proved people don’t need to travel for work so much, the use of zoom calls and skype prove we don’t need HS2.
  • The work being done in the countryside is irreversible - so stopping now is the right thing to do in case there is a change in policy
  • Recognise that the government has introduced income support for salaried workers as well as self-employed contractors (although this isn’t being implemented yet), so these people almost certainly don’t need to be working.
  • Despite the government announcing a three month ban on evictions due to the coronavirus crisis, many families facing eviction from HS2 have not had formal confirmation that their evictions would be delayed - adding to the stress they have been suffering for years.

Sign this Petition

Sign this petition to Repeal the 2013 and 2017 HS2 Hybrid Bills halting all HS2 works immediately.  More than 10,000 people have already signed, which means the government should respond - help it reach 100,000 so it could be debated in parliament  Share, share, share!

Emails to Politicians

Email the HS2 Minster, Andrew Stephenson: Andrew.Stephenson_MP@dft.gov.uk You could use this letter as your starting point.

  • You can also email the Prime Minister directly to express the above points. As well as Grant Shapps, Transport Minister.

Here is Extinction Rebellion’s letter that they sent this month.

  • Email the minister of state for transport Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative MP for Daventry, responsible for the ongoing enabling works.  Mr. Tom Jackson (Murphy’s project manager at Crackley Woods sites), when asked why he continues to put the health of his staff at risk during the Covid-19 crisis, has said (Mon 30 March) “because he has been instructed by the government to carry on” and - when pressed - that the Dept. of Transport should be contacted regarding these orders.

Stop HS2-related Social Media

Follow, like and support the Facebook pages for the sites: 

Support the camps to defend the land and all life on it! Find out more here: https://stand4trees.uk 

Donate

This is the crowdfunder page to support the Stop HS2 campaign

This is the fundrazr page for the tree defenders

Politicians’ Twitter accounts

Tweet them, all the time, relentlessly, and ask them to stop.

@BorisJohnson

@grantshapps

Secretary of State for Transport

@HS2ltd

Social account for the government owned company

@MattHancock

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

@JeremyWrightPPC

Warwickshire MP

@RishiSunak

British Conservative Party politician serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer

@Andrew4Pendle (Andrew Stephenson)

HS2 Minister

@RobertJenrick

Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government

@MPGeorgeEustice

Secretary of State for the environment, food and rural affairs

50 MPs wrote to the Business Secretary asking for all non-essential construction work to stop

MPs against HS2 http://www.hs2actionalliance.org/what-is-hs2/coalition-against/politicians/

#STOPHS2 #RethinkHS2 #NHSnotHS2 #HS2 #StandForTheTrees

Shorter URL for this Document: https://tinyurl.com/u2dhmhp