The government has recently approved the plans to build a high speed rail link between Birmingham and London.

At a later date this will be expanded to Leeds and Manchester.

There are obvious commercial benefits and we have seen commuter towns develop and flourish all around the rail links to London. I am sure the same will happen here.

The flipside is that some people will lose their much loved properties under Compulsory purchase orders or be affected by noise from the train itself.

There are statutory schemes in place to compensate for the loss of your property and a “home loss compensation payment” of 10% of the open market value upto £47,000 on top of the open market value of the property.
There are also schemes that compensate for the noise pollution.

However money won’t find you a new house of your dreams or create new school and social networks.

At least we have certainty now in terms of where the line will run and who will be affected by it and to some extent people can look forward again and plan their futures.

Any questions about any of the above issues then please email me at msslade@fidler.co.uk