How do you feel about HS2 in Old Oak?

Negative

Your comment

Hi ... how do I get updates. I get them for Camden but can't find the link on the Old Oak Commonplace site. I'm probably being really stupid. Thanks. Amanda

How do you feel about HS2 in Old Oak?

Mostly positive

Your comment

Hi, i'm a worker for HS2 in the Old Oak area. I feel that both residents and workers need to start working together to make the next few years more bearable for all parties involved. I understand the frustrations of the public and how when they feel that they are not being listened to can make things a lot worse than they should be. But residents also need to understand that in any industry or project as big as HS2 there are a lot of holes to go through even to achieve the smallest of tasks. This is also very frustrating to us as employees who are residents in other communities so do to an extent understand what residents in Old Old feel at times. But Amanda has made some valid points in her previous comments and i feel there does need to be better communication not just between HS2 and residents.

How do you feel about HS2 in Old Oak?

Positive

Your comment

Look good to me

How do you feel about HS2 in Old Oak?

Negative

Your comment

Dear Julie, John and David, Thank you for your time last night. As the meeting ran over, there are a number of questions that we were not able to ask/issues that could not be raised. These are as follows: Sustaining wall: A rather abrupt letter had been sent a few weeks ago to residents on my side of the street informing them that HS2 would be entering their gardens before the end of October. Although I don’t have the letter at hand, I remember there being little explanation of why this was needed. It thus irritated and distressed residents. Therefore, Matthew Botelle and I spoke after the meeting last night and agreed that more explanation is required to persuade residents to cooperate Obviously it is to our advantage if HS2 rebuilds the wall. Matthew will forward the survey results once he received them next week, and has kindly offered to create a more informative letter to engage residents, to communicate simply what is happening and why and to encourage them to cooperate. We are also happy to support this with our own communications from the WHRRA if necessary. Can you please confirm that this will be sent out net week and at the same time, could you also explain exactly what the work is along Old Oak Common Lane is about. Overall, what HS2 are doing in terms of the work on the wall is an advantage of the community, but the lack of communication leads to misunderstandings, frustrations and further reinforces the sour relationship HS2 has with its impacted communities. It is such an easy win for HS2, it’s baffling why you don’t take advantage of it and deliver some good news for once. 1b Works on Old Oak Common Lane: Mary Attwood asks "If the recent disruption on Old Oak Common Lane when a small part of the pavement was closed is anything to go by, how are HS2 going to be monitoring the accessibility issues to and from the road, the children and elderly people who live here and general accessibility. I witnessed elderly and young children literally making a run for it last week when part of the pavement was closed- there was no additional pavement added around the barriers (ie a makeshift walkway). I can guarantee you if this was happening in K and C borough or Westminster, this would NOT have happened. It is bad town and road planning and needs to be monitored properly. It was also unreasonable to expect people the cross that treacherous road twice and near the bridge because traffic goes at well over 40 mph up and down that hill when they should be doing 20 mph.” Overall, how are HS2 going to make Old Oak Common Lane safe during the works? We have been asking Ealing for years to calm the traffic and they have so far not responded. How will you work with Ealing and OPDC to resolve these issues? Similarly, how can you work with TFL to resolve the issues of the bus stop closures and lack of notifications? Again, this is probably being approved by Ealing who make no attempt at notifying residents. 1c We have asked for sound insulation on both sides of homes at the mouth of the road. HS2 keeps telling us that they are considering this but again there has been no response. Can you please let us know the outcome of this request? Sound insulation: as you heard last night, many residents (including myself and Mobin @ 45 WHR who informed me today that he has had no response from Patricia 3 months after a hour-long talk with her after the PDS workshop a few months ago) are still awaiting offer letters for sound insulation. In addition, HS2 still hasn’t made approaches to vulnerable residents who have not responded to the initial letters. There are others, who by some rumour spreading throughout the community, believe that the HS2 sound insulation is inferior and these people require more information to reassure them. I have sent out a positive email from residents in Camden reassuring people that HS2 is offering the best solution. However, there are still people not online who have not received this. Myself, Councillor Crawford and other residents have offered to help with communications to/engagement with the more marginalised residents. However, Patricia has told us that due to the new data regulations, this is not possible. I am happy to do a WHR Residents Association door drop encouraging people to take advantage of the offer but would ask that HS2 helps with the time and cost of this: just paper, printing ink and time going round delivering a letter of support from WHRRA. Can you please speed up responses/offer letters and let us know how you are engaging with the hard-to-engage? 2b) Mary Attwood asks: "2. Window insulation for sound- are these full fire safety tested and what happens if, during the course of the work, we want to sell our house - not only is the character affected by the look of the sound insulation ( and I have wooden sash windows not pvc) but the disruption in the area will also devalue my home. How is HS2 compensating us for that?" Question: why doesn’t HS2 extend the invitation to meetings to the wider community? Why are we no longer having 2nd dedicated meetings for each community? You have agreed to do a door drop with details of the drop-ins, when will this go out? However, broader community meetings have more benefit. Do you want to run a meeting out of my home for WHR residents as we used to do in the past? It generally generates a better turn-out. Station consultation. Can you confirm the timing of the station consultation. Status of the viaduct, Crossrail turn back and electrical substation to the south of Wells House road - will these still be going ahead? Can you please update us on the latest plans. Ongoing maintenance of the road surfaces and markings around the area: since the work so far as already taken its toll on the road surfaces, road markings, pavements, build up of litter and new trees in the areas, can you let us know how and who is responsible for the maintenance going forward. We already know that Ealing totally neglects the area and doesn’t even attend meetings. So once again, we need a body to take responsibility for all of this 7. Trees between WHR & the GWR depot: can you confirm in writing the fate of these trees and also provide a schedule of any interim planting that can take place 8. Ralf Scully from Kildun Court asks: "What I wouldn’t mind being asked/requested is if we could have a programme of works that will be affecting WHR/Kildun Court. Something that has timelines and structure as to what to expect and when?” He also says in his email to me "Ps. I haven’t been included in any emails since Hellen Brutto changed her position within HS2. She was very good at communicating with us about when things were occurring (i.e. meetings). I have emailed David Silvey on the 26/06/2018 and Patricia Thompson on the 06/09/2018, whilst copying in Hellen and have not received a response.” I have copied Ralf on this email so that you can include him in the future. 9. Communications: Overall, you have heard how frustrated residents are in not receiving responses to questions or requests and, indeed, the reason for the overrun of the meeting is because we are asking the same questions over and over again with no resolution. As Trudy mentioned, there is a need for a ticketing system or an official response mechanism to enable all questions to be answered in a timely manner. This will need to take into account that some questions will need urgent responses, e.g. when noise or pollution is an immediate issue. Since many people have similar questions, these general Q&As should be published on the Commonplace site. In addition, in the communications age, there are commercial collaborative platforms whereby we wouldn’t need to plough through hundreds of time-consuming emails. Can you start to adopt these and then, to ensure no-one is excluded, send out Q&A newsletter door drops to all members of the community. This is really not a big deal as there are only a few hundred homes that will need this. I seem to remember that this was discussed at the last meeting and hasn’t been followed up. 9b) Your mailing list. We noticed that the emails sent by Patricia to residents often use corrupted addresses and are incomplete lists. Sometimes they are addressed to people who have left organisations, e.g. Nick O’Donnell from Ealing or Monica Kaur from OPDC. They also exclude people that are essential to meeting, e.g. Chris Cole and the transport experts or current community engagement team at OPDC. We were given less than two week’s notice for last night’s meeting and was probably the reason that no-one from Ealing was able to attend. Can we find a way to put these dates in the calendar in advance and to ensure you use a consistent mailing list of local residents? Ewa, Mark and I forward your information on to our databases but after 7 years surely you should have a comprehensive list of contacts and be capable of sending out emails to all these people. 10. Behind the Collective there is a car park with spaces for over 240 cars. There is a Quattro sign in the car park but this is HS2 land. Can you let us know what this car park is for and why so many people are using their cars to come to work in a borough that supports the decrease in car usage? I’ve attached a picture of this. 11. Parking on Old Oak Common Lane: for the past week, there have been around 12 cars and vans parked on the East side of Old Oak Common Lane from below Nadi to the blind bend opposite the WHR entrance. This is causing traffic jams, bus delays and is a hazard for people coming around the bend, particularly when cars use the road as a racetrack, despite the non-enforced 20 mph speed limit. Interestingly, we asked Ealing if they could suspend the double yellow lines for a week or two when Thames Water took around 50% of the residents parking bays recently. Ealing was adamant that parking on Old Oak Common Lane was dangerous and increased traffic. However, they have now turned a blind eye to illegal parking during the day. Could you let us know who is parking there and how they can be stopped? We have suggested to Ealing that they put some res bays/paid for spaces on the west side of OOCL opposite Nadi below the bus stop. This would allow visitors to park on the road and would also slow down the speeding cars. However, again they have dismissed this. Can you look at a solution for this? It is unfortunate that Ealing officers do not attend these important meetings as we could benefit from their expertise and on-the-spot decisions. 12. Prolonged Disturbance Scheme: Can you give us an update on this? Bearing in mind that the offer of a £30k cap per household, rather than the £100k cap recommended by the Lords Select Committee is unacceptable to the community, we would like to understand the next steps.\ Overall, would it be helpful for a small group of residents to sit down with the community engagement team and agree a way of working and a strategy for communications and an on-going dialogue that works for our community? After seven years, we feel that there remains a high level of friction, and that you as a team, even under Julie King, has made little progress in forming relationships and resolving deeply entrenched conflicts with residents and community leaders/influencers. At these meetings, the tension is intolerable: HS2 are closed and defensive and the perception is that HS2 views residents as an irritation and a roadblock to 'getting the job down’; personally, I feel that I’m loathed by your team (I was described as a ‘*****’ by one of your team a few years ago!) just for trying to help our community get a better deal. Residents are angry, confused, frustrated, distressed and sometimes this translates into being rude. They are gobsmacked by HS2’s lack of empathy, accountability and responsiveness. We have at least seven more years of having to work together and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling it's time to cure this headache and put this relationship on a smoother track. (This paragraph could also be extended to Ealing who have been largely absent in the process since the Lords Select Committee.) Would it work to bring in a professional mediator to help the HS2 team understand how people feel whose lives have been turned upside down by HS2? Likewise, a mediator might also help residents understand the limitations of what your team can provide to us. Anything that can bridge the gulf between the parties and make this process more tolerable and less time-wasting, has to be an advantage to us all. I look forward to a prompt response. Many thanks. Amanda

How do you feel about HS2 in Old Oak?

Negative

Your comment

Is it HS2 that has woken up Wells House Road at 1.30 am with something that sounds like a chainsaw? The sound is penetrating the fronts of our homes and that is the side of our properties you refuse to provide sound proofing. It’s a stifling hot night and you expect us to keep our windows closed. Is it your aim to make our lives a misery?