'I sold my home to HS2 - it's been turned into a cannabis factory'

A man who sold his home to HS2 has been horrified to learn it was turned into a cannabis factory after the high-speed rail line between Birmingham and Manchester was cancelled. Alan Wilkinson, 85, bought the four-bedroom home in the rural village of Whitmore Heath in Staffordshire with his wife Gillian in the 1970s - later adding a swimming pool and kitchen to the site. After around three decades of ownership, however, the couple sold the property to HS2 for £1.2 million under a "special circumstances" scheme after developers announced proposals for the now-axed northern route, which would have included twin tunnels built under the hillside hamlet.

Tragically, Gillian would not live to see the handover, as she died from pancreatic cancer just weeks before the couple planned to downsize and move elsewhere in 2019. Six years later, Mr Wilkinson discovered that his beloved home, which had been put up for rental, was being used to grow large quantities of cannabis.

"It's terrible. I feel awful, truthfully, about what's happened," he told The Independent. "I lived there for 30 years; it was a great chunk of my life, a beautiful house, and now it's sitting empty, abandoned."

The 85-year-old learned of the property's new use after a neighbour related an exchange he'd had with two Jehovah's Witnesses who tried and failed to doorstep its occupants.

"My old neighbour saw [them] walking out of my old drive and he told them 'You won't find anyone in there'," Mr Wilkinson said. "They replied, 'No, but there's cannabis'. Turns out there was 184 cannabis plants growing inside. They could smell it."

Staffordshire Police raided the property soon afterwards and found the plants growing in five rooms. A subsequent investigation resulted in a man from Merseyside pleading guilty to production of the class B drug in July.

Mr Wilkinson's former home is just one of hundreds costing HS2 thousands of pounds in security since they were acquired as part of the high-speed railway's now-scrapped northern route - with costs totalling £1.9 million between 2023 and 2024.

The 85-year-old said he had heard rumours the property - which was one of 35 sold to HS2 in Whitmore Heath - was now at risk of being knocked down entirely and rebuilt.

"HS2 destroyed our village," he said. "It was a fine community where people who had made it had gone to live. But the plans for the line tore it apart. More than a dozen people died while waiting to sell their homes.

"I can't bear to go back. So many memories with my wife, all gone."

The scrapped HS2 line between Birmingham and Manchester cost developers £633 million in home purchase costs, with a wider £3.79 billion spent on purchasing properties for the project as a whole. The railway line between London and Staffordshire, with a branch to Birmingham, is still going ahead, although no opening date has been confirmed.

An HS2 spokesperson said the line would have run in a tunnel up to 30 metres below the village and that no homeowners had been required to sell their properties for the development.

"We recognised Mr Wilkinson's difficult situation and he accepted our offer in 2019 to buy his home through HS2's Special Circumstances Scheme, under which we covered moving costs, paid stamp duty and legal fees," they added.

"We utterly condemn the illegal use of property acquired by the project being used as a cannabis farm. It was let on the open rental market, and managed by property agents, to help recoup costs to the taxpayer.

"We have been unable to relet the property since the farm was closed down by police because the costs of returning it to a lettable state are too great. The area is patrolled by our private security teams, who work closely with Staffordshire Constabulary."