CHERYL Gillan said in a Parliamentary debate this week the vast majority of people affected by HS2 building work "will not be compensated fairly".

The Chesham and Amersham MP said the current compensation scheme being offered to residents was "grossly unfair" to the owners of homes close to the route of the planned line.

She was speaking during an adjournment debate on the controversial multi billion pound project she had tabled herself.

Mrs Gillan said: "Despite six public consultations and four years of anxiety for my constituents in Chesham and Amersham and for other colleagues’ constituents, the current proposals for compensation remain as inadequate as ever.

"Some properties have been on the market for years, and people are trapped and unable to move on with their lives.

"Despite widespread evidence of blight, the vast majority of people affected by HS2 will not be compensated fairly, because the government have consistently linked the scheme to distance from the line and have ignored the wider effects.

"It is grossly unfair that they should be expected to endure the disturbance of construction and operation as well as putting up with a loss of value to their properties unless they can prove an exceptional need to sell."

The former Welsh Secretary added: "There has been little transparency in this process. The latest proposals - the alternative cash offer and the home owner payment - offer poor value to the taxpayer and involve arbitrary sums that bear little relation to the actual loss suffered by the individual."

Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve backed Mrs Gillan's viewpoint, telling the Commons: "The fact is that many people in my constituency have homes of very high value, but the compensation bears absolutely no relationship to the investment that they have made in purchasing the home, or to the fact that in many cases the properties are heavily mortgaged and that their losses will be colossal - running into millions of pounds in many cases."

Robert Goodwill, under secretary of state for transport, said: "Fairness is at the heart of our approach - fairness to those who have to move because their properties are being demolished or are so close to the line; and fairness to those who want to stay in their communities and maintain community cohesion.

"Measures to assist property owners and occupiers affected by new infrastructure have developed over the years through a mixture of statute, case law and established practice and are referred to as the compensation code.

"Although the government remain confident that reliance on the existing compensation code is appropriate for the majority of infrastructure schemes, we believe that the exceptional nature of the HS2 project justifies a different approach and the government have long been committed to introducing measures for those directly affected by HS2 that go beyond what is required by law."

He added the government had, according to the most recent available figures, spent £110.3 million purchasing 162 properties affected by the first phase of HS2 between London and Birmingham.