HS2 Wendover Rebellion
Our thanks to Wendover Active Resistance (W.A.R.) for this press release.
On Saturday 6 November between 4pm and 8pm, a vigil was held in support of the incredibly brave tunnellers in Wendover. Local Photographer Michelle Storm of ‘Storm Fresh’ visited the vigil to record the event and has kindly shared her photos with us.
1. Land opposite the roadside camp that has been fenced off and is patrolled by guards; 2. Guards listening to the protesters on the other side of the fenced off land. One of the guards said he had the utmost respect for the protesters and they all got on well; 3, 4. Local Wendover residents gathered to show their support for the protesters at the roadside camp on London Road; 5. Banners are placed in view of passing traffic on London Road to raise awareness; 6. Wendover residents and protesters line up to face the guards and police for a silent vigil
Sadly, since the vigil, the tunnel at Wendover Active Resistance (W.A.R.) has finally succumbed to the onslaught of HS2 battalions. After 35 days (28 in the tunnel) holding out against the National Eviction Team (NET), the eviction of the protest camp is done.
The camp, set up almost 2 years ago set a formidable task for the National Eviction Team who started eviction on 10 October. Their first challenge was The Cage where lofty lock-ons provided a spectacle for two days.
This was followed by the Temple, a magnificent puzzling 40ft tall structure which, try as NET might to demolish, seemed to regrow nightly, and held out for a further 5 days.
But beneath the Temple, a tunnel snaked underground, its entrance impenetrable until the removal of the structure above. The last five residents of the Temple slipped underground and committed to the long chambers and long hours of dark below to foil the NET and the dread of HS2 development for a further 28 days.
HS2 has never been mandated by the British public, and is an intensely unpopular project, not least in the Wendover Area. The horrors promised by HS2 far outweigh the few dreary hours of darkness below.
HS2 threatens untold damage to the Mid Chiltern Chalk Aquifer by excavation, tunnelling, and pile driving all accompanied by a cocktail of toxins and pollutants. That damage will be reflected in local chalk streams, springs, wells, boreholes and water that supplies to up to 3.2 million people.
Above ground the Chilterns AONB status counts for nothing, being razed before bulldozer and chainsaw. The essence of the sublime Chiltern bucolic lifestyle is being ruptured and contorted into a freak show of unwanted engineering madness. Communities, businesses, individuals and an age-old culture are all being grievously assaulted, broken and discarded. This is a pattern repeated over and over along the whole route, a promised 350 mile-long open wound and barrier to nature and sustainability.
HS2 only once faced public opinion, in 2013 in a public consultation issued by the Government, to which 80% of respondents declared HS2 to be an awful impending mistake, yet they were ignored.
Even the hollow declarations from COP26 seem sweet and wholesome compared to the contorted fraudulent confusion of HS2.
W.A.R. is evicted. The tunnel is empty. The resistance is not. We will tirelessly continue till our work is done.
For more information on W.A.R., please contact Mark Keir 07591 924983.