HS2 makes a fortune renting out homes bought on the cheap

After families along rail route are pressured into selling up...

HS2 has been making millions of pounds a year in rent from homes it had pressured owners to sell.

The company behind the £56billion high-speed rail plan has made almost £30million this way in the past five years, according to figures obtained by the Daily Mail.

Under a compulsory purchase scheme, residents living within 60 metres of the tracks are entitled to the ‘ unblighted’ value of their property, plus 10 per cent and moving costs. Other schemes exist for those who live slightly farther away and are eager to move.

Some families say they were forced to haggle to get a fair price and have now discovered their homes are being rented out by HS2 to recoup some of the money it paid out. At the start of February the state-owned company was renting out almost 700 properties, making £7.7million for the Treasury over the year – and almost £30million since 2014.

It has bought 1,189 properties, including 229 under compulsory purchase. HS2 said this money is returned to the Department for Transport and helps ensure ‘value for money for the taxpayer’.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, who sold his home to HS2 in 2015 for

‘Cancel this white elephant’

£300,000 less than he paid for it, said the company’s surveyors were under pressure to secure properties for as little as possible in order to get more work.

Describing it as a ‘ race to the bottom’, the North West Leicestershire MP said: ‘ This practice has been repeated throughout my constituency. We need a new prime minister to cancel this white elephant project. These residents who have been forced out of their homes should have first refusal to buy them back.’

He said his eight-bedroom Georgian mansion, set in 18 acres, is being rented for £4,000 a month. It cost him £2.1million in 2011.

More than fifty houses on the Shimmer Estate in Mexborough near Doncaster have also been bought up by HS2.

Greg Brice, a former resident, accused officials of showing a ‘lack of common decency’.

The 33-year- old police officer paid just under £100,000 for his two-bedroom townhouse in May 2015 but was offered only £84,000 for it the following July.

Mr Brice finally sold for £95,000 in March last year after months of negotiation and has now discovered it is being rented out for £550 a month. He said: ‘I was treated with a lack of common decency – no one seemed to care.

‘I was forced to live in limbo for almost ten months. I could not look for other properties as I didn’t know what I’d get for my own. I even had to haggle with them over the price – eventually they offered me £5,000 less than I paid for it and told me to take it or leave it.’

It has also emerged that HS2 is now insisting the location of all the properties it buys up along the line must be kept secret.

It said it feared empty homes could be ‘identified as short term hiding places by criminals or terrorists’ or ‘targeted by vandals or street artists’.

But Chris Matthewman of the Bramley HS2 Action Group said: ‘HS2 is simply seeking to avoid alerting any more homeowners that they have been paid rock bottom for their property, and that a neighbour living just along the road has been paid much more.’

Sean Gibbons, a councillor in Mexborough, described the Shimmer Estate as a ghost town.

Boris Johnson has hinted he may scrap HS2 if he becomes prime minister amid fears the final bill could top £100billion.

A spokesman for HS2 said the prices it paid were available through Land Registry data.

The spokesman added: ‘We have a number of schemes to assist people whose property or land may be affected and property valuations are always conducted fairly and transparently.

‘Where there are disagreements, independent arbitration is available. Many of the properties purchased will not require demolition for a number of years.

‘Leasing them out in the interim period ensures we offer value for money.’