HS2 was “not honest” and created a “serious injustice” regarding an £848,000 purchase of a family’s property, a parliamentary investigation has found.
Over a four-year period, HS2 Ltd misled a couple whose property the project needed to acquire near Lichfield, according to the Parliamentary Health and Service Ombudsman (PHSO). The owners, referred to as Mr and Mrs D, subsequently suffered physical and mental health problems, which were partly attributed to the stress from dealing with HS2, according to the report.
Ombudsman Rob Behrens said HS2 had left the family “in limbo for years” regarding the deal and continuously let them down by “misleading them and not following the proper process”. The property purchase was completed in November 2018.
He said HS2 had not shown enough improvement handling the situation at that time following previous failings: “HS2 should have been repairing an already fractured relationship following [a] 2015 report. However, when the complainant asked questions, HS2 failed to respond fully and promptly, sometimes giving incorrect information,” he added.
The ombudsman’s 2015 report focused on how six families in the same hamlet near Lichfield had tried to engage with HS2 to either move the line away from their community, or to relocate all the families to the same place to preserve the community. The ombudsman found HS2 had failed to respond to them “fully and promptly”, leaving them in an uncertain position for two years.
Mr and Mrs D have not requested financial compensation. The ombudsman has called on HS2 to:
- Apologise in an appropriate manner to the family;
- Publish its “learnings” from the case to promote transparency;
- Review and report if the “learnings” have wider implications for how it handles complaints.
Responding to publication of the report, a HS2 spokesperson said: “Whilst we accept the report recommendations, this report focuses on historic issues relating to an individual property case from 2017. In the four years since this review commenced, there have been significant changes to HS2 Ltd, our responsiveness, and the complaints-handling approach.”
The spokesperson added that the project now employs more than 100 people in its community stakeholder engagement team. HS2 has also established a new 24-hour helpdesk to deal with enquiries and complaints.
The case of Mr and Mrs D focuses on HS2’s acquisition of their property over a period between 2015 and 2019. HS2 had agreed to a unique conditional contract for the sale of the property in exchange for Mr and Mrs D withdrawing a petition to parliament regarding the hybrid bill to approve the line. The unique nature of the contract was designed to enable the family to build a new home near to their old one once HS2 had taken possession of it.
The ombudsman found that HS2 had not been honest about the involvement of the first property manager to work on the case; failed to engage with the family about the price they would pay for the property in spring and summer 2016; initially tried to stop Mr D submitting a business loss claim in summer 2017; and did not tell the contractor about the family’s mitigations request – to lower the height of the line in their area – when they started work in April 2018.
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