Great stuff here, Shame That's Life isn't still on the air.
- This new railway line then. We need to sort out the groundwater
- No can do. There's only a little farm track.
- Can we build an access road, just while we do the works?
- No.
- OK, can we build a smaller thing? Not ideal, but reasonable compromise, eh?
- No.
The company behind the HS2 rail project said taxpayers could face a bill running into "tens of millions of pounds" after a key phase of the scheme was blocked.
Permission for an underground chamber and ditch in Wendover, designed to manage groundwater as part of the high-speed rail line, was refused by Buckinghamshire Council.
Planning officers recommended approval, but the council said the proposed access track would cause harm to the "sensitive and protected Chilterns National Landscape".
HS2 said the decision could cause major delays and additional costs to the nearby construction of the Wendover Green Tunnel.
An early visualisation of a white HS2 train with blue door seen speeding along a track.
The proposed ditch and underground chamber would have managed groundwater on a stretch of the line
The plans, external followed advice from the Environment Agency and were intended to help regulate the flow of naturally occurring springs in the area.
It would have involved upgrading an existing access track to facilitate construction and allow for future maintenance.
The project had already been scaled back in response to residents' fears over proposed construction traffic for the works, including down the narrow Dobbins Lane, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Councillors also opposed HS2's planned upgrades and extension of a farmer's access track and used the "harm" this would cause as their basis of their refusal.
- By satnav