HS2 compensation

Its in the news, those living within 60 metres of the HS2 line will have their houses bought off them at 'full market value plus 10%'.

Those within 120 metres that want to stay will get compo at 10% of their house value.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26952238

So, lets see. Lets say your house is one of those that will be within 60 metres. Before the HS2 proposal it might have been say £200k. Nobody wants it because its going to go, so now its market value is maybe £100k if you're lucky. Add on 10% and there's £110k for your £200k house.

And who decides the value? Will all estate agents along the route suddenly start charging extra for a 'generous valuation'? Will the government have a mechanism in place to challenge the valuations? Or perhaps more likely, will they look at past sales data for the general area and then do some formula that links the value to the lowest common denominator? What if someone bought a run down house for £60k and then over a few years spent another £100k turning it into a proper posh gaff?

And why? So that its 20 minutes quicker, assuming no leaves fall in autumn, and there are no strikes, to get from Birmingham to London?

 

Not sure how they did it down here when they built the tunnel link, but it would, I guess, be done the same way.

 

My only experience of compulsory purchase orders is seeing entire well established communities quite literally destroyed. They demolished several streets round here just a few years ago to make way for Morrisons and the new 'retail complex' which now comprises pound shops, Greasy Greggs, and a small Argos. Before the scheme was even planned, houses in those streets (small terraced houses) were going for around £80k. Once the scheme was announced, 'full market value' was deemed to be £27,500. Many hundreds of people were left with worse than nothing. No home, no money to set up a new home, and a mortgage deficit being the difference between what they still owed and the meagre 'market value' payment they got. Loads of people I knew personally just went, who knows where, just dispersed to wherever they could find I guess. Some that I knew personally had full blown mental breakdowns over it, including one woman who had to take her entire family to pitch up in her mother's house.