Uncertainty around high speed rail link causing 'planning blight', Dominic Grieve and Nick Hurd tell Justine Greening

Ms Greening has been holding private meetings with MPs in a bid to head off opposition. Minutes of a meeting in the House of Commons on Nov 21 – seen by The Daily Telegraph - lay bare the degree of concern among ministers.

At the meeting, Mr Grieve said there was “great uncertainty as to what the future might hold” for locals near the line and warned of long term “planning blight” from suggestions that a later a feeder route or “spur” could be built linking the line to Heathrow airport.

He told Ms Greening: “We have a situation where we have three of four alternative routes on various maps, which can be Googled by individuals, showing where the Heathrow spur might run through what is a fairly densely built-up area of village communities, but pretty closely packed together, and there is therefore great uncertainty as to what the future might hold.

“I think that that is an unfortunate aspect of this matter, because it is likely to generate planning blight over a prolonged period, with no certainty of compensation, no certainty that the spur is in fact going to be built, and people finding it difficult to sell their homes or indeed to decide how to plan their future.”

Mr Grieve said that the proposed route of the line to Birmingham cuts through the corner of the north-eastern corner of his Beaconsfield constituency, adding that the “objections to it are far more widespread than those people that are directly affected”.

He said: “The majority of letters I have received on the subject have been from people who will not be directly affected by the construction of this line at all. It is a fact that the Secretary is going to want to consider carefully when looking at the business case for the line.”

The concerns were echoed by Nick Hurd, a Cabinet Office minister, who told Ms Greening warned of a “much wider groundswell of opposition” against HS2 than previously thought.

Mr Hurd also gave warning that councils were preparing to launch judicial reviews into the route. He said: “It is about blight. It is also about choice of route and impact on the Chilterns which aren’t that far away and which people care about.”

His concerns about the plans were “multi-dimensional and it goes very wide – it’s absolutely the single biggest problem for me in the constituency”, he said.

The minutes also detail the concerns of Welsh secretary Cheryl Gillan, who is also MP for Chesham and Amersham, who claimed that only three out of 700 responses from her constituents to a consultation on HS2 were in favour.

She told Ms Greening: “I have never encountered an issue which has summoned up such opposition and caused so much distress as the proposed route for High Speed 2.”

The meeting was chaired by Lahour MP Natascha Engel, and attended by around 20 MPs. Ms Greening wrapped it up by telling the MPs: "It has been very helpful to hear what you have had to say.

"I think I achieved what I wanted to with the meeting, which was to have an open meeting for you to represent your communities to me."

The Department for Transport said that had received 55,000 responses to a consultation on the HS2 plans.