Examination of Witnesses

Part of High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:30 pm on 11 July 2013.

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Terry Morgan: I thank you for the comment about being exemplary—I can show you the scars from when we were not. We learned very quickly that you have to resource it effectively. If you do not, you shortcut the need to look after local interest. We have put a huge amount of effort into that. We have been meeting so many groups of people every night of the week, to explain not just the status of the project, but how we will impact on the local neighbourhood.

Sometimes we have had to do things that, from a project point of view, we could not have imagined we would need to do. We have had to be flexible and have the ability to move quickly when things start to develop into an argument, so we can say, “Why are we arguing about this? Let’s find a solution.” Yes, we can transfer a huge amount of knowledge about just how much effort has to be put into maintaining local support for a project that, by its nature, is going to be intrusive.