Minister urged to resign after selling home weeks before rail link go-ahead



Cheryl Gillan has sold her property

Cabinet Minister Cheryl Gillan faced calls to resign last night after it emerged she decided to sell her home 500 yards from the planned high-speed rail line 20 months ago.



Her 17th century townhouse in picturesque Amersham, Buckinghamshire, would have been blighted by the much-criticised HS2.



It was eventually sold in November – just weeks before HS2 got the go-ahead from the Government.



Labour last night demanded an inquiry into whether she had breached the Ministerial Code by selling a property whose value was likely to be directly affected by Government policy.



The code requires ministers to avoid any ‘actual or perceived conflict of interest’ between their government position and their private financial interests.



Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jon Trickett said Miss Gillan had ‘cut and run’ in what amounted to a ‘shocking abuse of her ministerial position’. But her aides dismissed his claim as a ‘stunt’.



Voters in the Welsh Secretary’s Chesham and Amersham constituency reacted angrily following the news that she had sold up.



In the run-up to the 2010 election, Miss Gillan, 59, pledged to resign rather than support the £33billion rail line. But last week she appeared to backtrack after Transport Secretary Justine Greening announced that much of the route across Miss Gillan’s constituency would go through a tunnel.



Miss Gillan’s constituents – many of whom will see their own property values slashed by HS2 – are furious that she decided to sell up while arguments over the line still raged. Banners and posters have appeared in the constituency saying: ‘Cheryl, you let us down. Go now.’ The two-bedroom home was sold to a developer and is available to let for £1,350 a month.



Anti-HS2 campaigner Marilyn Fletcher, from nearby Great Missenden, said: ‘People are furious and have a deep sense of betrayal. She told us she would defy the party whip over this scheme. She promised so much, but now she is leaving the area. She should resign.’



Hilary Wharf, of the HS2 Action Alliance, said: ‘We’re disappointed. One can only wonder if she sold her home because she had resigned herself to the line being built and did not want to live near it.’



Former neighbour Penny Wilson, 59, said: ‘She won’t get away from the wrath of residents.’



George Allison, 71, of the HS2 Amersham group, said: ‘Cheryl Gillan should not be selling her house and she should be fighting HS2. She has let us down very badly.’



A spokesman for Miss Gillan last night rejected accusations that she had betrayed constituents and breached the code. He said Miss Gillan and her 84-year-old husband Jack Leeming had mobility problems that meant they had not been using the three-storey house.



MP Gillan's home in Amersham which was sold in November 2011

Plans: Ministers are accused of dragging their feet over the controversial high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham

He said it had been on the market for 18 months and fetched £320,000, 20 per cent below the asking price – a loss of £80,000. The spokesman added: ‘The house was sold because it wasn’t being used. No one could have done more on behalf of constituents to mitigate the impact of the rail project.



‘It is categorically untrue that Cheryl Gillan was party to the final decision on the exact alignment of the route. She has always complied with the Ministerial Code.’



HS2 was a Labour project that was taken over by the Coalition.

Ministers claim it will slash journey times between London, the Midlands and the North. But the Government’s own advisers warn it represents poor value for money.

