Tempting as it is to lapse into a ‘Big Brother’ style spoof (“it’s day two in the Wendover house”) I refrain from succumbing! This is only going to be a short blog anyway as little of interest has happened. The bailiffs and police have the site secured with a literal ring of steel, having it all fenced off. Access was always made difficult by the fact the squatter camp was bounded by the Chiltern railway to the West and the A413 to the East. Sneaking in was never going to be easy and now the remaining occupants are cut off from their tiny bunch of supporters, few of whom turned up today.
This morning less then a dozen of the usual suspects (Keir, Thompson-Smith et al) spent their time in a pointless stunt outside Bucks County Council offices ‘demanding answers’ as to why the CC had leased the land to HS2 to carry out the eviction.
The selection process for the Golgafrincham B Ark – sorry – the HS2Rebellion protesters outside the Bucks CC office this morning. I’ll bet staff were quaking in their boots! As for ‘local’ Mark Keir (one of the 9) lives in West Drayton in the London Borough of Hillingdon. Who knows where some of the others have been drafted in from.
It was the same tired and trite diatribe and bluster about how everyone, HS2, the County Council, the bailiffs, the police, the courts – and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all – were colluding and acting ‘illegally’. In fact, the *only* people who were supposedly acting legally were the protesters! It’s a bit like an unfunny version of ‘Carry on Cleo’ with Keir in the part of Kenneth Williams, shouting “infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy!”
A weary Council Officer was sent out to talk to the protesters and listen to their nonsense. No doubt a reply will be drafted laying out in legal detail the reality of the situation – to which Keir and co will respond in true pantomime fashion with ‘oh no – it isn’t’! – and the curtain will rise on the next farcical act as none of this will change a thing.
A video has appeared on Youtube with Mark Keir, who went full Goebbels on camera to Sky News. His fantastical claims have become more and more unhinged. HS2 will drain the Grand Union Canal and destroy drinking water? He seriously thinks people will fall for this stuff? Keir and Co have got to the stage now where they’ll literally claim anything as they know the game’s up.
Of course, while their pantomime was in Aylesbury there was no-one to bother the bailiffs, who just got on with the job of assessing the site and working out how many protesters might be playing their pointless game of hide and seek. There’s obviously no rush to get them out as they’re not interrupting any construction work in the slightest – which is why this camp (like the Euston one) is utterly pointless. Plus, the longer this drags on the more of the tiny bunch who turn up outside will get bored and drift away. There’s little in the way of boastful livestreams or posts coming from inside the camp either, so the keyboard warrior voyeurs who normally feed off this stuff have little to send ‘love and rage’ about (unless you get off on a 14 sec, close cropped vid of someone eating out of a can). Euston or Denham this ain’t, it’s all going to be a bit boring and tedious. So I won’t be doing daily updates, merely try and keep a tally of how many have been evicted and when it’s all over.
Meanwhile, the fat lady’s in fine voice, even if it’s a comic opera she’s singing in!
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It’s several months seen I’ve done one of these, mainly because there’s so few people left protesting against HS2 now that their campaign’s collapsed. Finally, the tiny bunch of squatters at the risibly named Wendover ‘active resistance’ camp have remembered what their camp’s named and decided they better do something other than sit around bumming money via the internet whilst waiting to be evicted.
Come the hour cometh the man! Step forward ‘Drew Robson’ (not his real name, just the one he uses on Facebook), who, along with another person, decided to repeat their old tactic of blocking the entrance to the nearby HS2 work compound by fastening themselves to a ‘lock-on’ (a barrel filled with concrete that’s meant to make it hard for them to be moved).
There was only one tiny problem. Drew’s useless at this. He once glued his hands together through a gate in another ‘cunning plan’ that was an abject failure as the gate he chose wasn’t actually being used by anyone. Clearly, learning from his mistakes isn’t his forte? Why? Well, the comments to this post on the HS2 Rebellion Facebook page rather give the game away…
When HS2rebellion tried to defend this stunt as bringing attention that a ‘fight’ against HS2 was still happening, Aron went on to explain further..
Yep, ‘Drew’ has got it wrong again! What the protesters fail to explain to their gullible audience is that HS2 compounds usually have far more than one gate and the ‘main’ gates are always staffed 24/7, making these stunts rather difficult.
So, Drew (and his friend) have achieved the sum total of sod-all. Again. Their sole achievement has been to block some poor person’s driveway!
‘Drew’ will possibly get arrested again, but as he’s already got a recent conviction for aggravated trespass and criminal damage at another HS2 site I can’t imagine the Magistrates will be terribly impressed with him reappearing. What a waste of everyone’s time. To put this silly stunt in perspective, there’s currently over 300 active worksites on phase 1 of HS2. Many have several entrances/exits. Blocking one (unused) entrance for a couple of hours is just pis*ing in the wind.
UPDATE.
By early afternoon the whole silly stunt was at an end. Despite the best efforts of HS2rebellion to ‘big up’ the farce more knowledgeable locals kept bursting their bubble.
No doubt their Facebook friends and other ‘keyboard warriors will swallow the ‘main gate’ nonsense hook, line and sinker, but more enquiring minds might look at another of the pictures posted on the Rebellion Facebook page and say “that is a *main* gate? Really, at that width? You’re not going to get any wide loads through there, and where’s the site office?”
I had to laugh when ‘Drew’ posted this on his Facebook page earlier.
‘Disruption’? What disruption – unless you count the poor person who’s driveway was blocked! If today’s farce was a ‘complete success’ I hate to think what failure looks like!
UPDATE.
The farce just gets better. After persistent pointing out from locals HS2 ‘rebellion’ finally admit that they were lying when they claimed this was the ‘main entrance’ and all they’ve done is inconvenience a local old lady! Still, it must be reassuring for her to knew that she ‘wasn’t the point’. Answers on a postcard please as to what the point really was…
2023 Update.
After Wendover was evicted ‘Drew’ pitched up at the ‘bluebell’ camp in Staffordshire where he continued with the same daft publicity stunts that achieved the sum total of naff all, other than gull a few people who continued to donate to crowdfunders under the mistaken belief muppets like ‘Drew’ were actually stopping HS2. The truth was these ‘cupid stunts’ failed to achieve anything other than waste time and money. The ‘rebellion’ collapsed completely in 2022 and now Drew (like all the other professional protesters) has drifted off to other causes. He’s currently achieving nothing in the Manchester area where he’s attached himself to the pro-Palestinian cause. HS2rebellion now exist in name only. A few kids still have access to the social media accounts and publish whatever make-believe or newspaper articles they can find that are critical of HS2, but that’s all they’re doing.
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Remember this list of Hs2rebellion (what ‘rebellion’? Ed) protection camps from last month? Well, you can scratch another one off the list. The barely functional and utterly pointless Wormwood Scrubs camp is no more!
Having been served with an eviction notice the squatters were ordered to demolish the mess of pallet towers and other structures they’d cluttered a corner of the scrubs with. As they didn’t have the numbers to put up any resistance they’ve meekly complied. Of course, they couldn’t have done this without the aid of the local authority who’re having to cart away the mess they’ve made at local taxpayers expense. Here’s a picture from their Facebook live feed today, which was filmed yesterday.
The remains of the Tower they’d spent ages building that was completely useless. I wonder what the Environmental Impact Assessment was for this pile of junk? Here’s how it looked when I visited the site at the end of August.
To say their camp was a complete waste of time is an understatement. They never stopped any of the work that HS2 contractors are undertaking to divert a sewer. You can see what’s actually happening on Wormwood Scrubs here. Here’s a map showing the extent of the area temporarily affected. The squatters camp was in the hatched area at the top right hand side of the map.
Now the new access road has been completed the temporary track matting is being removed, allowing the grassland to recover. The map also puts into perspective the ridiculous claims of the protesters that HS2 is ‘destroying’ Wormwood Scrubs! Only a tiny area is being hoarded off whilst the sewer’s diverted and once the work’s completed this will be returned to nature.
The removal of the Scrubs camp brings an end to the sorry tale of anti HS2 protests in London which have singularly failed to stop anything – just as they’ve failed everywhere else on the route. Now there’s just one (equally useless) camp left on the Phase 1 route, the laughably named ‘active resistance’ camp near Wendover. This has also been served with an eviction notice and the clearance of this final camp is expected anytime. I suspect that – despite the blustering name, there’ll be little resistance when the bailiffs move in! Sadly, local taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill once more for clearing up the mess left by these faux ‘environmentalists’. The one success Hs2Rebellion and the protesters have had is in wasting millions of pounds of other people’s money, both taxpayers and the mugs who’ve coughed up tens of thousands of pounds to support them through crowdfunding, none of which has never ever been accounted for…
It will be interesting to see how HS2Rebellion spin this latest failure in their fortnightly newsletter, which is due out today. I expect it’ll make ‘Comical Ali seem reasoned and objective!
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What a difference a year makes! The summer of 2020 was full of stories of the rag-bag of Anarchists, professional-protesters, Extinction Rebellion supporters and a few local Nimbys who’d rallied to the “HS2Rebellion” banner. So-called ‘protection’ camps were set up in or by woodland and battles ensued with HS2 Ltd staff and security as the protesters boasted of how they were going to stop HS2 ‘in its tracks’. They made grandiose claims about the levels of support they had, none of which ever materialised as most were ‘keyboard warriors’ who’d send ‘love and rage’ (one of their favourite slogans) over the internet as they watched yet another interminable livestream from the protests.
Move on a year and the picture’s very different. Having suffered failure after failure, a series of camp evictions and arrests of most of the hard-core of the protesters, their campaign’s collapsed. Now the surviving ‘protection camps’ are little more than squats, where people are holed-up but doing nothing of any consequence to affect work on HS2, much less stop it. Right now, many of the handful of folk from the remaining camps are pratting around with Extinction Rebellion in Central London, which means they’re nowhere near HS2! Here’s a look at the supposed camp network, taken from HS2Rebellion’s website today. I’ve marked the true situation with the camps on each one.
As you can see, the ‘high profile’ camps like Euston, Harvil Rd and Crackley were cleared some time ago. The only one remaining in London’s the squat at Wormwood Scrubs. This scruffy encampment partly burned down a couple of days ago, prompting the local Council to finally lose patience with the few squatters remaining (who’ve never stopped any HS2 work at the site) and serve them with a 24-hour eviction notice yesterday! The irony? No-one was at the camp at the time as the handful of occupants weren’t trying to stop HS2, they were too busy pratting around with their chums from XR in Central London.
The mess in Euston Gardens back in October 2020 before the protesters started erecting bigger structures to cover their abortive tunneling efforts.
The Wendover camp on the A413 hangs on for now. It too has been served with eviction papers and will be cleared anytime soon. Whether the occupants try and ‘put up a fight’ or go meekly is open to question but the final result isn’t. They’ve been a small thorn in the side of the project (and annoyance to the local population, who got fed up of the thefts and begging) so no-one will be sad to see them go.
Jones’ Hill woods was the last ‘hurrah’ of their campaign. Activists like the serially failed Mark Keir bluffed, blustered and lied about how they were stopping HS2 through strength of numbers and court cases, but Keir’s always written metaphorical cheques he couldn’t cash. The court cases failed and the few protesters on the ground never stood any serious hope of stopping work. Now the woods are deserted as the work HS2 needed to do felling some trees is almost complete. Like most of the original Harvil Rd protesters Keir himself has disappeared, despite having a court case against him from earlier protests dismissed.
The ‘New Poors Piece’ camp is also deserted. It was always an odd one as it’s not on the route of HS2 but on the edge of the E-W Rail line, it’s just that HS2 Ltd are carrying out the work their on behalf of the EW project. So, in fact, the protesters were protesting about the very thing they claimed to support – new E-W railways! Hypocritical, much? The camp was only set up because the land was owned by a sympathetic farmer! Like many of their other locations, the protesters have left the woods in a mess. Abandoned towers choke the trees and the place looks more like a dump than a woods. The hypocrisy of these faux ‘environmentalists was always weapons-grade.
Looking more like a ‘scrapheap challenge’ than an eco-camp, these are the structures the protesters have abandoned in Poors Piece woods – which wasn’t even on the route of HS2!
Lazily, HS2Rebellion show ‘Camp Isla’ as active. Situated on private land, the owners had the camp evicted in May! They went without a struggle and most have now disappeared.
The last on the list is Bluebell Woods, which is located in HS2 phase 2a to Crewe. As usual, the protesters have spent all their time building structures out of pallets and other tat. Not that they’ve got much else to do other than get splinters in their backsides – the main HS2 Civils work isn’t due to start in this area until 2024!
Threats of other camps on Phase 2a remain just that, threats. Mainly because there’s so few of the original activists left. Most have drifted off to other causes or gone back into mainstream education or society. Of course, there’s still many court cases pending which will cramp the ‘style’ of the remaining ‘hard core’ of protesters (most of whom are linked to Extinction Rebellion) but they’re powerless to do anything. Plus, the money tap’s been turned off. People who used to donate to keep the camps alive have finally got fed up of seeing their money wasted. Now, you mostly see ‘activists’ begging for personal funding via Crowdfunders or other means (so that you can’t see how much is actually donated). Here’s good illustration of what I’m talking about. Here’s ‘peaceful’ protester Ross Monaghan throwing in the towel and begging for money at the same time.
Ironically, Ross, who was convicted of two charges of assault and four charges of criminal damage last month was hilariously boasting about putting the ‘final nail’ in HS2’s coffin earlier in the month (whilst begging for money). Now it seems the nail that was driven was into his protest career! Some ‘building’ campaign…
Here’s an example of how the money’s started to dry up. This is a funding page for the soon to be evicted (and laughably named) ‘active’ resistance camp at Wendover. It never got near its target and there’s been one donation of just £5 in a month. Social media is littered with pages like this.
Now the bird-nesting season’s coming to an end and the few remaining trees that HS2 need to remove on Phase 1 will be felled. With no-one around to stop the work it won’t take long. A few locals might still film the work to ‘bare-witness’ as the protesters like to call it, but all their bluster about all the ‘wildlife crimes’ HS2 has allegedly committed hasn’t resulted in a single prosecution – never mind a conviction. It’s funny, despite the amount of camera-phone footage filmed by the protesters they never ever managed to catch any evidence for any of their claims that would actually stand up in court. I suspect all these grandiose but baseless claims are one of the reasons support has dropped away.
I’m sure the posturing around the protests will drag on for a while yet, but already Hs2rebellion seem to be losing interest. With nothing to report, their ‘news’ letter has gone fortnightly. Even then, it’s pretty thin gruel. Like Hs2aa and Stophs2 before them they’re reduced to being a recycling service, punting any critical article about HS2 they can to try and keep flagging interest going.
Stop Hs2 is dead.
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Personally, I preferred the Eurhythmics version myself, but I have to admit the latest caterwauling from the opponents of HS2 in the form of the self-appointed ‘tree-protectors’ who’ve wasted so much time and money getting nowhere when it comes to stopping HS2 is actually quite revealing. This long thread (featuring all the usual suspects) has appeared on the ‘stopHs2’ Facebook page!
It seems that little old me has upset them again and the mask of them being ‘peaceful’ and non-violent’ has well and truly slipped!
I applied to join one of their groups to post a riposte to this abject load of nonsense I blogged about a couple of days ago. I didn’t hide who I was as I thought the reaction might be interesting. After all, they believe in ‘free speech’, don’t they? Obviously not – and a lot more besides. Go get some popcorn before you start reading…
My, what nice people! Oh, but wait, it gets better…For clarification, ‘Carl Woods’ is the pseudonym of one Caroline Thompson Smith, who’s from Steeple Claydon. I’ve blogged about her before, here and here aanndd… here! Caroline has appeared to have deleted her own Facebook account to use the fake one instead. Still, she sounds like a nice woman when she thinks she’s amongst friends and she’s not being all smarmy to HS2 staff in her livestreams, doesn’t she?
Brent Poland is the serially failed Green Party candidate whom I’ve blogged about here. The remarks from Mark Keir (another serially failed Green Party candidate) look curious. “Delete” me? What can he possibly mean? Take a look at this (expanded) explanation. “I want HIM deleted”.
My, that’s very peaceful and non-violent, isn’t it? Mark Keir is one of the leading lights (that’s not saying much: Ed) of the HS2 ‘rebellion’ who’s spent several years lying about HS2, most famously claiming he watched the tree that inspired Roald Dahl to write ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ actually being cut down by HS2 contractors in Jones’ Hill Woods. It was complete cobblers of course, as I revealed in this blog.
Keir has a habit of being very abusive to HS2 staff on camera, then acting all aggrieved if anyone ever answers back. Meanwhile, back at that thread it seems they also want to burn me…
And there’s more…
You have to laugh at them moaning about ‘shutting down opposition’ whilst they’re all saying the opposition to them (me) should be shut down (permanently, according to Keir)! Hypocritical, much? But that’s the protesters for you – free speech only applies to them, apparently…
What a nice bunch of people they sound! Remember that next time you hear someone wanting to donate money to this bunch of anarchists and fantasists, because all they’re doing is harm. Harm to the woods they’re supposedly protecting, and harm to the HS2 contactors who’re merely going about their jobs. They have a habit of stirring up hate wherever they go and this shows what’s beneath the mask they try and wear. Now that their campaign’s collapsed that mask gets dropped more and more often. Soon they’ll be scattered to the four winds – and good riddance…
UPDATE. 1st August.
Some more ‘nice’ people popped in to add their pennorth and support freedom of information and the right to free speech, or not…
They really don’t seem to able to put down that shovel. Here are the latest diatribes from these lovely people! With such erudition and ambition, how could they possibly have failed so dismally to stop HS2?
UPDATE: 2nd August.
Meanwhile, the fantasies and accusations get even more bizarre from these ‘freedom of speech’ loving people! I do chuckle at the ‘accusation’ – otherwise known as ‘let’s just make stuff up’! Plus, what an utterly bizarre accusation Keir’s dreamt up but then the poor chap’s always had a vivid imagination as well as a tenuous grasp on reality!
UPDATE. 7th August 2021.
Talking of ‘non-violent’. I see one of the ‘non-violent’ protesters from Jones’ Hill Woods has been up in court this week. The Bucks Free Press reported that Ross Monaghan, 38, assaulted two HS2 security guards and damaged fences at the ancient woodland site between November last year and February this year. Monaghan was found guilty of two counts of assault and four counts of criminal damage. He was ordered to pay £775 in costs and £50 to each of the guards he assaulted. I believe Monaghan still has other court cases pending…
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Just as you know that night follows day you know that when those who oppose HS2 resort to the courts, it’s only going to end one way – and so it was again yesterday.
Firstly, a bit of background. The group of protesters who’ve remained camped in part of Jones’ Hill woods after being evicted from the part of the woods required to build HS2 managed to raise crowdfunded money to challenge Natural England bat licenses which were granted on March 31st, allowing HS2 contractors to fell trees and clear vegetation under certain conditions (see Natural England’s blog here). Led by serial failure and former Green Party candidate Mark Kier (blogs passim) they applied for a High Court injunction on April 16th. Mrs Justice Lang DBE granted an injunction on only one of the several licenses issued by NE, those defined in License WML-OR58. The rest were allowed to stand.
The injunction said that:
“The application for permission is adjourned to be listed in court as a “rolled up hearing”, on notice to the Defendant and Interested Parties, on a date in the week commencing 24 May 2021 or as soon as possible from 8 June 2021 onwards, having regard to the availability of counsel already instructed at the date of this order. If permission to apply for judicial review is granted at that hearing, the Court will proceed immediately to determine the substantive claim.”
Mrs Justice Lang’s judgement went on to describe her reasoning, which I won’t include here for the sake of brevity (and the fact her judgement was overturned).
Natural England appealed (note, not Hs2 Ltd or the Government as it was NE who granted the licenses and were named as the defendants, HS2 was merely listed as an ‘Interested Party’). The appeal was heard by Mr Justice Holgate on Monday 28th. Holgate discharged the injunction, saying that none of the grounds Mr Keir’s experts and lawyers had put forward against the felling were “arguable”. He reserved his judgement which will be published at a later date. When it is I’ll add it to this blog (it has been, see the end of the blog!).
This leaves the protesters up a proverbial creek without a proverbial paddle. Of course, Keir immediately told the press and his supporters that he would appeal but there’s only one problem – he needs grounds to do so – and from what Mr Justice Holgate has said – he ain’t got any! Besides, by the time he might file his appeal, the remaining work at Jones’ Hill woods could well be completed. HS2 contractors (who’re still working on the site) have four days left on the license (that’s if it’s not extended because of the delays caused by legal shenanigans).
Yet again the protesters have wasted people’s time and money (both theirs and the taxpayers, who’ll pick up the tab one way of the other). It’s noteworthy that these cases are brought under the Aarhus convention, which means the Claimant’s liability for the costs incurred by the Defendant and Interested Parties is limited to £5,000, and the Defendant’s liability for the costs incurred by the Claimant is limited to £35,000. Whilst this convention allows access to the law for people who would otherwise find costs exorbitant I do wonder if their shouldn’t be a threshold of competency and realistic chance of success to prevent hopeless cases and ‘vexatious litigants’ from gumming up the courts, government and any defendants purely as a delaying tactic – especially when Crowdfunding is involved. Mind you, on top of the court fees there’s also the costs of Lawyers, the people who must be rubbing their hands in glee every time they see the words ‘stophs2’ and ‘crowdfunder’…
Of course, this wasn’t the only recent legal ‘success’ for HS2 antis that soon turned to ashes.
Another protester (Sarah Green) has had a long obsession with potential water pollution in the Colne Valley and had launched (yet another crowdfunded) legal appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner to side with HS2 LTd that certain documents relating to piling work in the Colne Valley should be released.
I won’t bore you with the details. It’s a long, arcane argument and a decision that you can read here if you ever find yourself suffering from insomnia!
The Tribunal agreed with Green that certain papers should be released unredacted.
As usual, there was only one problem. Green had so convinced herself that these would prove that HS2 was hiding something all perspective was lost. The papers didn’t even relate to the substantive matter in hand – test piling for HS2’s Colne Valley viaduct. Green started her case in 2019. By the time the appeal was heard the world had well and truly moved on. Not only were the papers not the ‘smoking gun’ Green had imagined but the test piling had been completed. There was worse to come. Not only had the test piling not caused any of the pollution Green has been frightening people with – it also proved that the actual piles for the Colne Valley viaduct didn’t need to be driven as deeply as originally planned – thus saving considerable time, expense and carbon emissions!
The icing on the cake? Hs2 started the actual piling work for the pier foundations of Colne Valley viaduct back in March and has received full planning consent for the structure from Hillingdon Borough Council. Oh Dear!
Having failed in the courts as usual there’s little chance of HS2 being stopped on the ground either. The protest campaign has fallen into complete disarray in the past few weeks. Even HS2Rebellion have had to publish an embarrassing update to their protest camp list!
The reality is even worse than they admit. New Poors Piece at Steeple Claydon is also redundant as is Denham Ford. Neither stopped a thing and are largely abandoned following the pattern established by the Crackley camp. In fact, so many of the last remaining protesters are restricted by bail conditions that they’re left pulling stunts like trying to interfere with people who have a connection (however tenuous) with HS2, which is why a handful of them tried to disrupt a prison construction site in Wellingborough! Many others have drifted off to other Extinction Rebellion stunts like smashing HSBC bank windows at Canary Wharf or suchlike. Once the oxymoronic Wendover ‘Active Resistance’ Camp is evicted their campaign is literally all over bar the shouting (or tweeting)….
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Thank you!
UPDATE.
Since publishing this blog I’ve been sent a link to Mr Justice Holgate’s reasons for his decision, which can be found here. They make interesting reading as they highlight a number of things. Firsly, why Lang made her earlier decision and why Holgate overruled it and also an insight into the tactics of the protesters legal team – and something we’ve seen before. Namely, just bombard the Courts with paperwork and hope (in the words of the old saying) if you can’t blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit! Read this comment.
Point 114: “I accept the evidence in Mr. Dineen’s witness statement as to the impact which delay in felling the trees would have on this part of the HS2 project. If the felling could not take place until October 2021, earthworks could not begin until March or April 2022. Currently those works are scheduled to begin in June 2021. In paragraph 5 of IP2’s submission to the court dated 14 April 2021, a conservative estimate of the costs of the delay was given in the broad order of £25 to £50m. Mr. Dineen now says that those figures have been re-assessed as being in the range of £60.7-£88.8m. His statement dated 19 April 2021 was accompanied by a schedule. Plainly there has not been time for the claimant to consider this in any detail or to raise any questions. The claimant simply says that these costs will not be incurred because the claim could be dealt with at a super-expedited hearing, a point which I have already rejected. I proceed on the basis that the continuation of the injunction would cause additional costs in the region of at least £25m to £50m, and probably substantially more. I attach very considerable weight to this factor”.
Point 115: “I also attach considerable weight to the public interest in the continuation of work on the HS2 project without substantial interruption. Parliament has decided that it is in the public interest for the project to be undertaken and the Government has subsequently confirmed that it continues to agree with that decision (see e.g. Packham). There is no challenge to NE’s decision in this case applying regulation 55(2)(e) to the works which are the subject of this dispute.” Packham again!
Yet again this is a humiliation for the protesters legal representations and arguments “air of unreality”…”fanciful”? Oh dear. Plus, dumping paperwork on a judge in the hope something might stick.
Mind you, you won’t hear the truth from much of the UK media either! Sadly, many journalists lazily recycle whatever the protesters tell them without once bothering to fact-check any of it – which is why this fairy story about a supposed connection between Dahl and Jones’ hill woods has managed to spread.
Who to trust? Was Jones’ Hill woods really the inspiration for Roald Dahl to write ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’?
Well, how about the Roald Dahl museum? If anyone should know about this they should, surely? This is what they say about the inspiration for Dahl’s story on their website.
“Roald Dahl lived with his family in Great Missenden, a village in Buckinghamshire, UK. Their house was surrounded by fields and woods. As a passionate lover of the countryside, there was one particular tree – known locally as “the witches tree” – that sat on the lane near the Dahl home and came to inspire one of Roald’s own favourite stories: Fantastic Mr Fox.
The “witches tree” was a large, 150-year-old beech. Sadly the tree is no longer standing but when his children were growing up Roald always used to tell them that it was where Mr Fox and his family lived, in a hole beneath the trunk, just as the Fox family do in the story.”
So, not only was it NOT Jones’ hill woods – it wasn’t even a woods but a single tree that no longer exists and hasn’t for donkey’s years (hardly surprising as Beech trees have a typical lifespan of 150–200 years). Yet again we find those opposed to HS2 just making stuff up for their own ends (just like the ‘children’s memorial’ and dozens of other ridiculous claims).
The story gets detailed even more in this report called “Finding Fantastic Mr Fox” by the BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ which claims that:
“Beloved children’s author Roald Dahl once lived and worked in rambling Gipsy House, on the edge of the sleepy Chilterns village of Great Missenden, and when stumped for inspiration he would walk in nearby Angling Spring and Hobshill woods. It was among these ancient beeches and carpets of bluebells that Dahl set some of his best-loved stories, including my favourite, the tale of Fantastic Mr Fox. Dahl had a favourite tree, an enormous gnarled specimen in the heart of the wood, which he called The Witches’ Tree“.
Note no mention of Jones’ Hill woods, even if this report slightly contradicts the Roald Dahl museum.
“Angling Spring wood was the inspiration behind one of the writer’s most charismatic characters, Fantastic Mr Fox. The gnarled Witches Tree is said to be where the four-legged family lived.”
Yet again, no mention of Jones’ Hill woods. But there’s more..
The Bucks geology website has an illustrated guide to walks around Great Missenden published by the Chiltern’s Conservation Board (who also might be expected to know the truth) which contains this informative piece.
So that’s another vote for Angling Spring wood – but no mention of Jones’ Hill! Here’s some more perspective courtesy of the Ordnance Survey. I’ve marked the position of Jones’ Hill and Angling Spring woods in relation to Whitefield Lane in Great Missenden, where Dahl lived. As you can see from the map, it backs onto Angling Spring wood. Distance wise, Jones’ Hill is over 3 miles walk from Great Missenden High St. In contrast, Angling Spring woods are right next to Dahl’s home! Now, if you’re going walking with young children, which woods would you chose to take them to – a local one near home or one that’s more than a six mile round trek where you have to walk past loads of other woodland just to get to it?
If I can fact-check this claim by spending just a few minutes on Google, why can’t the BBC or any other journo’s do the same? Because it’s just too easy to swallow whatever the protesters tell them as it makes a nice tear-jerking story and to hell with whatever the truth is! As the old adage goes, never let the facts get in the way of a good story…
Not letting the truth get in the way is exactly what HS2Rebellion and the protesters have done. Yesterday HS2rebellion reposted serially failed Green Party candidate Mark Keir claiming to be pointing out the actual ‘Mr Fox’ tree being felled in Jones’ Hill wood on their laughably entitled and thoroughly dishonest “Save Roald Dahl wood” Facebook page!
How you chop down a tree that fell down in a completely different wood in 2003 is a mystery known only the anti HS2 protesters.
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Those of you of sufficiently advanced years or whom have a penchant for classic comedy may know of the 1960s satirical series ‘Beyond the fringe’ that starred Peter Cook, Jonathon Miller Alan Bennet and Dudley Moore. In one memorable sketch Peter Cook and Johnathon Miller spoofed the British in World War Two. The skit contained these (now famous) lines:
Peter Cook: “I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war. Get up in a crate, Perkins, pop over to Bremen, take a shufti, don’t come back. Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too.”
Parodies beget parodies – albeit sometimes unintentionally, and today – with their ‘war’ going so badly the anti HS2 protesters at Jones’ Hill wood provided their very own ‘futile gesture’!
This morning a handful of them attempted to block a road by the tried, tested (and serially failed) method of a ‘lock-on’. In this case an old oil drum containing concrete that a couple of protesters fastened their arms into. Some even boasted about the barrel used as it had been recovered from a previous camp and nicknamed ‘big boy’. The ‘cunning plan’ being this device would supposedly take ages to break into so they’d cause maximum disruption by preventing HS2 workers getting to work. Only a futile gesture it was…
The protesters and their ‘lock-on’ were in place before contractors arrived for work but they didn’t stop anyone getting there, they merely caused a traffic jam as vehicles were left nearby. The police soon arrived en-masse and shortly after midday the ‘lock-on’ had been cut up and rendered unusable and the pair of protesters taken away, presumably to be charged under S241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for trying to prevent people going about their lawful employment. So, that’ll be two more of the tiny number of protesters left having their wings clipped by bail conditions then! It’s a kamikaze tactic that doesn’t stop a thing, but it gives the protesters something to stick on social media where they’ll get lots of ‘thoughts and prayers’ from useless keyboard warriors – as if that will stop HS2!
Here’s the Facebook post from serially failed Green Party candidate Mark Keir who’s one of the tiny number of regular protesters at Jones’ Hill wood.
The numbers for likes, shares and comments aren’t exactly what you’d call setting the world alight…
At this stage I don’t know if other arrests were made, but the fact there’s only a handful of protesters taking part tells you all you need to know. Meanwhile, what was happening inside Jones’ Hill wood? It was business as usual for HS2 ecologists, contractors and security staff – as this screen-shot of another of Keir’s video posts demonstrates!
So much for stopping people getting to work! In the video Keir hurls insults and expletives at the HS2 workers and security people as they go about their work unhindered.
It was also business as usual at all the other 300+ worksites on the HS2 route too as this was the only protest. Elsewhere there were a few people grumbling as they filmed work going on, but that’s hardly stopping HS2, is it?
I wonder how many more of these futile gestures the protesters can afford to mount before they run out of volunteers? The more the merrier in some ways as it has the effect of stripping the camps and making them easier to evict when the time comes – which will be soon for the remaining few camps. It’s soo tempting to resort to another WW2 parody about ‘for you, the war is over’ – but I’ll resist the temptation – honest!
Of course, the protesters like to claim that they have almost universal local support for their stupid stunts. The reality is rather different. Some residents don’t take very kindly to having these waste of time protests blocking roads – as this illustrates…
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Funny how you never hear real news on the StopHs2 website – especially when it relates to yet another of their failures! Just as there was total radio silence about ‘Campaign Manager’ Joe Rukin’s embarrassing (and expensive) legal fiasco last October, there’s been no public announcement that the man’s finally admitted what the rest of us have known for years – he’s been wasting his time!
This fact has finally dawned on Rukin, who sent an email around to the groups supporters at the end of March – after yet another legal failure when his latest application for a Judicial Review was dismissed. Here’s part of what Rukin has said.
True to the end, Rukin’s not been honest with people. The truth is that he’s been looking for a proper job for several years now and the real reason he’s stayed is because he didn’t get one. Rukin’s retirement means that the only person left is Bournemouth based Penny Gaines, so effectively, it’s game over. I mean, seriously – ‘StopHs2’? based in Bournemouth? As a campaign group StopHS2 have been irrelevant for several years as they never managed to secure what they needed to stop HS2 – political support. The writing’s been on the wall since 2014 when the Phase 1 Hybrid Bill passed with such whopping majorities (both in the Commons and Lords). Cross-party support for HS2’s never wavered (despite some of the nonsense claimed by people like Rukin) and without the political numbers adding up in their favour – they were toast. The demise of StopHs2 puts the final nail in the coffin that already contains the remains of ‘AGAHST’ (Action Groups Against HS2), the High Speed 2 Action Alliance’ (HS2aa) and dozens of local ‘action’ groups up and down the HS2 routes.
Now, the only thing left is the dwindling number of protesters allied to Extinction Rebellion, Hs2Rebellion and the local Nimbys who support them. It’s only a matter of time before the bell tolls for them too. Despite their bombast and bluster they’ve not stopped a thing. Now they’re reduced to boasting of ‘delaying’ pockets of work on HS2 (conveniently ignoring the fact what’s caused the most delays to the project has been the Government shilly-shallying with reviews). The protesters ‘protection camp’ network has been shrinking ever since last summer, with many camps now being redundant as there’s nothing left to ‘protect’! Meanwhile, site clearances and construction on Phase 1 have ramped up massively, completely overwhelming the puddle of protesters. Now, Phase 2 has been given the go-ahead and a contract to create new woods and wetlands as part of early environmental works on the route between the West Midlands and Crewe was signed on April 1st.
The days of the final ‘protection camps’ that have any relevance to the route are numbered and we can expect to see their demise happen soon. No doubt there will still be isolated protests here and there and some people will be left in pointless camps on private land, out of harm’s way, but they’ll be posturing, nothing more.
The campaign to stop Hs2 never stood a chance. Now it’s spluttering to an ignominious end…
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There’s an old philosophical question that’s really rather apt when it comes to the farcical ‘campaign’ against HS2. It’s “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” One could update it to the present day to ask “If an Hs2rebellion protest camp’s evicted and no-one was around to Livestream/video it, did it really happen”?
This question could have been posed today when an eviction took place today of the sole anti HS2 camp north of Warwickshire. Named ‘Camp Isla’ after someone’s canine friend, it really did seem to be a one man and his dog operation! Although it appears on Hs2Rebellion’s dwindling list of ‘protection’ camps, it hasn’t been any trouble for HS2 as nothing much has been happening – until today, when this appeared on the camp’s Facebook page.
This eviction must hold a special place in the annals as since this appeared, not a single video, livestream, photograph or any verifiable record of the event has appeared – despite the appeals for people to turn up to ‘protect’ the camp. This is all the more mysterious when one looks at some more claims made when the camp went from one man and his dog to group of people down a tunnel and folk festooning the trees! .
Needless to say, not of this has been supported by the slightest bit of evidence from anyone. I’ve little doubt an eviction has happened – but the rest strikes me as pure fantasy. Not one of them has a camera-phone? Well, that’s a first. Normally the internet is awash with long and boring livestreams recording every eviction.
Of course, the daft thing about all these Walter Mitty fantasies about tunnels etc, is they soon fall apart in the cold light of day. I suspect (and not for the first time) the ‘camp’ Facebook account will be kept alive to churn out messages of support, fictitious updates and claims of winning – but the reality will be very different. Mind you, the HS2Rebellion website is rather good at that too. Here’s the list of ‘protection’ camps they claim exist, with the reality added…
So, 8 camps. 3 of which no longer exist, 2 more which have been partly evicted and 2 more (Crackley and Denham) which are almost certainly redundant as there’s nothing left to ‘protect’ anymore! Some ‘winning’! Two other camps have never made the list as one (Leather Lane near Jones’ Hill woods) didn’t last a fortnight whilst the other on Wormwood Scrubs has no permanent site and has less than 5 regular occupants! In fact, if you added up the regular occupants of all these camps together I doubt you’d find more than a couple of dozen people.
Pitch this against the largest construction site in Europe with 10s of 1000s of workers over 300 worksites on a 140 mile long route and you can start to see the futility of all this. Mind you, so can many of the protesters, which is why so many of them have wandered off back to other causes to fight yet more lost battles for Extinction Rebellion and other groups – hence some of the Euston tunnel refugees appearing in Lichfield to spray paint on a factory supposedly supplying military equipment to Israel. Obviously, political activism (just like being a SPAD to the PM) makes you immune to Covid or the need to follow lockdown rules! Whilst XR and it’s friends might not think those rules apply they might find the new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill which passed second reading by 359 to 263 votes rather harder to ignore as provisions in it will criminalise some of their activities. Despite my own personal reservations about the bill I will be interested to see how quickly it becomes law and how it’s used in practice against groups like Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion.
Of course, today happened on the same day that HS2 Ltd announced the start of work on what will be one of the most visible civil engineering projects on phase 1 – the 3.5km long Colne viaduct on the edge of London. Unlike ‘Camp Isla’, this won’t be a one man and his dog operation! The world’s moved on even if the remaining protesters haven’t. Poor ‘Isla’ is left barking up the wrong tree – in more ways than one…
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Paul Bigland 