HS2 Fair Deal for London - Compensation Charter

Closed 8 Mar 2015

Opened 23 Feb 2015

Contact

Kathryn Stewart

(HS2 Communications and Engagement Manager)

020 7974 8551

kathryn.stewart@camden.gov.uk

Feedback updated 17 Mar 2015

We asked

What you thought of the Fair Deal for London Alliance's proposed Compensation Charter.

You said

• Urban areas should receive fair compensation and not be disadvantaged • The Charter was broadly on the right lines but that it downplayed the scale of disruption in Camden • An independent body should be established to assess compensation, design the scheme and adjudicated on disputes and bids for compensation. • That the Property Bond should not be the focal point of the Charter. • The criteria for compensation should not be the same as for rural areas, (i.e. 120m from the line for the Rural Support zone or 120m to 300m from the line for the Homeowner payment), but should be tailored to reflect the different nature of urban areas. • Businesses should be eligible for all of the compensation that is offered to residents and also receive compensation for the costs they incur directly because of HS2, including disruption to trade, managing employees worse working conditions, costs caused by blight and uncertainty. • Home-owner payments and the Cash Offer should be available to tenants and owner-occupiers in urban areas.

We did

• Added a foreword to the document that sets the scene and provides a sharper description of the level of disruption. • We added a request for an independent body to be established to assess compensation, design the scheme and adjudicated on disputes and bids for compensation. • We've re-ordered the Charter so that the property bond is our last request. • We've asked for the eligibility criteria to be based on the impact of construction felt by people as this is more relevant in urban areas where construction sites will be very close to residents. • Based on people's feedback we've made suggestions of changes that should be made to the compensation schemes that are currently available to make them fairer, and asked for these to be available to all tenants, owner-occupiers and businesses in urban areas.

Results updated 17 Mar 2015

Everyone who took part agreed that urban areas should receive fair compensation and made suggestions for how the Charter could be improved. We took this feedback back to the Fair Deal for London Alliance to agree a final version of the Charter. Where some  of the points made were more Camden specific we’ve fed these back to the team to see how these relate to our mitigation requests in our petition.
 
Below you can read a summary of the specific feedback received and what changes were made to the Charter. 
 
The final version of the Charter will be presented to the Secretary of State for Transport on Tuesday 17 March.
 
You can read the final version of the Charter here. 
 
You can find out more about the Fair Deal for London Alliance here.
 

Overview

The Fair Deal for London Alliance is a group of the capital’s MPs and councils brought together by Camden Council to call on the Government to grant “A Fair Deal for London” on HS2 compensation.

In January the Department for Transport announced their final Property Compensation scheme for HS2 phase 1. Of the five compensation measures only two apply to urban areas and yet if High Speed 2 goes ahead it is residents in urban areas that will bear the brunt of the scheme - Camden residents face over a decade of disruption caused by construction.

We are concerned that the Government has presented the latest package of measures as the final outcome of its consultations when no London authority has yet appeared before the Select Committee to give its views on the compensation proposals.

Why your views matter

What compensation do you think Camden’s businesses and residents should receive?

We are working with the other members of the Fair Deal for London Alliance to develop a Compensation Charter that will set out what we believe to be fair compensation for Londoners. We want to involve our residents and businesses in developing the Compensation Charter.

You can get tell us what you think by reading the Alliance's Draft Compensation Charter and then completing this online survey.

Or you can come along to our Compensation Charter Workshop on Wednesday 4 March, 7-8.30pm, Surma Centre, 1 Robert Street, London, NW1 3JU

What happens next

Once we’ve got people’s feedback we will take this back to the other members of the Fair Deal for London Alliance. It will be considered along with feedback they've gathered from the people they represent and any changes will be agreed by the Alliance.

We aim to present a final version of the Charter to government in March 2015. It will also be published on our website at camden.gov.uk/hs2

Areas

  • All Areas

Audiences

  • Anyone from any background

Interests

  • Business and local economy
  • Community and living
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Leisure
  • Transport and streets