CAMPAIGNERS against HS2 have unexpectedly persuaded parliament to hold a debate on the project.
Less than a month after they were told that they would have to start their petition from scratch because of new rules, a parliamentary committee has agreed to allow a debate anyway.
It is a big boost for local residents who had feared that such a high-profile discussion in the House of Commons would not be possible prior to transport secretary Philip Hammond announcing his final decision in December.
The newly-formed Backbench Business Committee (BBC) has scheduled the HS2 debate for Thursday, October 13. It also decided to carry out a consultation on ways of dealing with e-petitions to consider how the House of Commons might need to adapt.
Hillingdon Against HS2 chairman and Gazette blogger Keri Brennan said: "It is excellent news, we deserve this and residents will feel their voices have contributed to it.
"We just hope our MPs, particularly Nick Hurd and John Randall, have the guts to speak in the debate on our behalf."
The new e-petitions system introduced by the government in August had stated that any subject that receives the backing of 100,000 people through its dedicated website would automatically trigger a parliamentary debate.
But the BBC appears to have used its own discretionary judgement to push for a HS2 debate to take place, as it only has 12,000 names on the site so far. Half of the 104,000 signatures Stop HS2 had gathered previously were through paper petitions.
