Watch out for an increase in hostilities from anti-HS2 campaigners in the next few weeks. One of the more concerted backbench campaigners against the new route is planning to strengthen the cause by bringing together all the groups that are against HS2 under one umbrella. Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP who has a track record of causing serious problems for the government on issues such as Syria, tells me that he and Cheryl Gillan are setting up the group in May ‘so we can speak as one voice’. Bridgen hopes the campaign will include organisations who have set their faces against high speed rail such as the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and the Woodland Trust, describing the current campaign as a ‘bit like the People’s Front of Judea’.
Bridgen is particularly concerned about the impact on homes in other parts of his constituency that are not supposed to be affected by HS2 after conversation he had with the chair of HS2 Sir David Higgins.
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