article: The proposed new high-speed rail line, HS2, is due to slice right through Fred Moreton's 550-acre farm near Offchurch, Warwickshire. And last week, he finally had his chance to tell MPs on the High Speed Rail Bill Select Committee just how this titanic building project would upend his life. Fred brought along slides for them to see. The thick black line is his land and all the green will be taken up by the railway. He didn't want the line at all, he told them, but if it had to be built, he wanted it in a tunnel so it didn't destroy his business. We were in the slightly jaded, but still grand, Committee Room Five in the House of Commons. The room is as high as it's wide, all portraits and rickety chairs with the Commons logo on the back. Fred was up against two lawyers from HS2. The cost of such a tunnel, they explained to MPs, would be Â£190m. Fred told me later that the first HS2 estimate he'd been given was for Â£80m. "All the details keep changing," he said. At the back of the room, 20 or so other people, all of them affected by the proposed line, patiently waited their turn. There were plenty of quiet little "good lucks" and "you did wells" as the day wore on. After all the big rows, we're down to the nitty-gritty of how you actually get a gigantic, hugely contentious thing built in Britain. A piece of legislation called a Hybrid Bill is being put before the committee of MPs. Think of it as planning permission for phase one of the line - the route between London and Birmingham. It's an inch-by-inch summary of exactly where it will go and how it will be built. And this is the forensic scrutiny that takes place before the final version of the Bill goes before all MPs for a vote, probably next year. If they say yes, the line seems certain to be built. If they reject it, well.... Forget arguments about economics and rail capacity. This is about ordinary people, often living in peaceful villages, who are worried about how their narrow country lanes will cope with all the HGVs and diggers that could soon be appearing in their backyards. They're worried about the school kids who walk along those lanes every day without a path to keep them safe. They're worried their businesses will go bust. The High Speed Rail Bill Select Committee is made up of six MPs, who'll eventually spend around 18 months listening to 2,000 or so people and groups directly affected by the project. From what I saw, their attention to detail was impressive as they drilled down into the whys and wherefores of moving a path here, a lorry route there. Every so often they go on site visits. At one point they joked with a petitioner about how good her biscuits had been when they visited her. She'd been impressed that she got her tin back afterwards. During my brief dip into the
summary: After four years of battling, it was all over in 10 minutes.