An alliance of campaign groups has announced it is launching another legal challenge to high-speed rail, a day after councils in London and the home counties filed for a judicial review of the transport secretary's decision to build the HS2 route from London to Birmingham.
The HS2 Action Alliance is seeking separate judicial reviews of the £33bn scheme on environmental grounds and querying the compensation proposed for those affected. The alliance said its appeals for funds for legal action had met with a "brilliant response".
It said: "In a matter of a few weeks, thousands of ordinary people in communities from London to Staffordshire and beyond have responded to the appeals, giving most generously, and raising the six-figure sum that was needed. We have two strong legal teams who are specialists in their fields and believe we have two powerful cases that the government must now answer."
The government said it was pressing ahead with work and was confident of defeating any legal challenge. Supporters of the project warned the legal objections were a "colossal waste" of time and money – in some cases, taxpayers' money.
One of the signatories to the 51m opposition group, an alliance of 18 mainly Conservative councils, is Camden, which contains the vast majority of homes that will be affected or destroyed by the new high-speed route.
Camden councillor Sarah Hayward said: "We hope to get the government to reconsider lock stock the whole plan. If not, we need them to consider how they will replace lost housing, how we'll relocate businesses, and how to ensure construction work doesn't close down Camden Town's economy for many years."
She said that joining other councils reduced their exposure to legal costs. "But we're talking about homes for hundreds of families and untold negative impacts. With tens of thousands of pounds' potential legal costs against hundreds of millions we could offset in detrimental impacts on our communities, we think it's entirely justifiable."
The government has 21 days to lodge its response to the various claims submitted this week.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "We believe we have struck the right balance between the reasonable concerns of people living on or near the line (who will be offered a package of compensation measures), the environment and the need to keep Britain moving.
"The secretary of state's decisions on high-speed rail remain as set out in January and work on HS2 is continuing as planned. We are confident that the process by which she reached those decisions was lawful, appropriate and fair, and we will be vigorously defending any legal challenge."
Lucy James, director of the Campaign for High Speed Rail, said: "Going down the route of a judicial review is a colossal waste of time and money. And if local councils along the route foot some of the bill, then in some instances this money could be coming directly from the taxpayer.
"The Department for Transport received and considered nearly 60,000 submissions during the course of their public consultation, and as a result they implemented changes to their original plans which are clearly visible in the alterations they made to the final route. Something has to be done or we risk the rapid deterioration of the backbone of our railway network.
"Instead of a long drawn-out process through the courts, people from both sides should be working together to minimise the impacts and ensure that we build the best high-speed railway possible."
The first phase of HS2, the line from London to Birmingham, is expected to be completed in 2026. A second phase, incorporating a Y-shaped fork further north to Manchester and Leeds, is scheduled for completion by 2032-33.
