South Warwickshire residents living near HS2 line warned they could encounter noise and vibration when round the clock construction work starts

Residents living near the HS2 line around Southam and Long Itchington have been warned they could encounter issues with noise and vibration when round the clock construction work starts.

A report to today's (Friday's) regulatory committee of Stratford District Council warned: “Twenty-four hour working will soon be starting on the sites with the majority of these works being underground. Noise modelling has indicated that there should be limited noise impact on the local community and we therefore don’t expect to see a significant deterioration in the local soundscape.”

But when asked by Cllr John Fielding (Con, Red Horse) about the effect of the underground machinery on the surface and whether the vibration could affect properties, the council’s environmental health and licensing team manager Paul Reid said: “There is always likely to be an element of vibration related to any device of that nature, depending on the depth that it is, where the properties are and on the soil content.

“With regards to HS2, there is specific legislation and one of the issues with that is that once the boring machine starts, you can’t stop it. It has a path and it has to go down that path once it’s started - you can’t stop it at five o’clock. It is a 24/7 process and we have no control to stop that.

“If there are ancillary issues associated with HS2 which fall within our control then we will exercise any control under the legislation we have available but I emphasise that HS2 has specific legislation and some things are out of our control.”

Mr Reid went on to explain to the committee that the four months to the end of October had seen an increase in the number of temporary event notices issued by his licensing team which coincided with the lifting of Covid restrictions.

He added that the council’s pest control team had been quieter than in recent years when it came to dealing with wasps - the adverse weather in May having killed off a number of the queens - but that the increase in maize crops being grown for biofuel had led to an increase in the rodent population with the harvesting forcing many of them away from the fields.