A Village Derailed by a Train Project
WHITMORE, England — The large villas at Whitmore Heath offer the tranquillity of the countryside within driving distance of urban centers like Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford and Birmingham.
Yet on Heath Road, where some house prices have exceeded a million pounds (about $1.3 million), padlocked gates and signs warn trespassers of video security monitoring. Outside one house stands a dumpster filled with waste. At another home, no furniture can be seen inside.
The scene is a byproduct of a multibillion-dollar rail project that has spanned three decades and six prime ministers — a case study in the problems Britain faces when planning large-scale infrastructure, and of the scarring that remains when projects go awry.
“It’s like a ghost village around here now,” said Deborah Mallender, who lives in nearby Madeley, where several more modest homes also lie empty.
Whitmore was in the path of High Speed 2, a new train line that promised to connect London, Birmingham and two of the biggest cities in northern England at speeds up to about 360 kilometers an hour, spurring economic development and liberating space for more local services on an overburdened mainline rail network.
Houses in the area were sold to the government-financed company responsible for developing the line after some locals, alarmed by the impending construction, campaigned for residents to be bought out. Elsewhere, the company used eminent domain powers.
More than 50 homes have stood empty for two years or more, campaigners say — years during which ambitions for the rail line shrank markedly. Last year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cut a northern section, to Manchester from Birmingham, including the part that would have passed near, and in places under, Whitmore.
Ms. Mallender opposed the rail project. But like many locals, she is incredulous at the confusion over what comes next.
“They should have surveyors coming in to see what state it’s in,” she said. “Where’s the plan to get these houses back
An abandoned plan leaves an abandoned town.
in habitable order?”
Some properties in Whitmore and nearby are now rented. But several attracted squatters in recent years, and in 2019 the police swooped in on two that were being used as cannabis factories.
One of those forced to sell land was Edward Cavenagh-Mainwaring, a farmer whose family owns the local manor house, Whitmore Hall. His forebears are thought to have moved to the area in 1098, and Mr. Cavenagh-Mainwering, 61, has spent a lifetime farming the land.
He now hopes to buy the land back.
“I feel I have failed the family a bit,” Mr. Cavenagh-Mainwering said, “in that I couldn’t stop it.”