Frances Cutler, a resident of South Heath, a small village in Buckinghamshire, has never really believed that HS2 would be built. “It’s ludicrous,” she said, sitting in her sunny front room, 700 metres from where the high-speed trains are planned to emerge from a tunnel underneath the Chilterns. “We’ve been saying for years it was going to cost more than £100bn but nobody listened. I’ve always thought that it doesn’t make business sense.”

On Wednesday, the government confirmed there would be a review of the project with a “go or no-go” decision expected at the end of the year. The chances that it could be scrapped increased with the appointment of Lord Berkeley, a Labour peer and critic of the scheme, as the review’s deputy chair.

If the scheme is abandoned, many of the effects it has had on South Heath and the larger neighbouring village of Great Missenden will be irreversible. Cutler and her husband found out about the plans to build the railway line in 2010, eight years after moving in to their home in 2002. “We’d just spent a fair amount of money improving the house and I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frances Cutler: ‘I’ve always thought HS2 doesn’t make business sense.’ Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian

Since then South Heath’s shop, pub and gym have all closed. “The thing that annoys me the most isn’t the effect on the value of the property – yes, it has gone down, but if you moan about that people will just call you a nimby,” said Cutler, who runs a soft furnishings business from home. “What I really resent is the lack of freedom to move. I think that’s far more important.”

HS2 has bought a significant number of properties in South Heath, which Cutler says has had a huge impact on the community. “If you look in the local branch of [the estate agent] Savills, most of the lettings are HS2 properties,” she said. “One property was empty for a year and a half after the people moved out; another was empty for six months.

“If it is cancelled I’ll see it as just another Concorde or another garden bridge or any of those big vanity projects that was never thought through. We’ve already got our nice Chiltern line, thank you very much. They could electrify that and not pollute the atmosphere with diesel trains. That would be useful.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An access road for the tunnel portal where high-speed trains are planned to emerge from below the Chilterns. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian

Ross Pusey, a councillor and local farmer, said farmers who had been forced to sell their land to HS2 – losing their livelihoods – would not be able to start again if the project were scrapped.

“I’m young enough and I can deal with this,” he said. “But I’m seeing old boys who are absolutely devastated by this. They’ve had their land forcibly taken from them and after that they can’t carry on in the industry. The compensation is not sufficient to allow them to relocate and continue.”

Although the Treasury is yet to release the funds for the building of the tunnel, preparatory work has started and a construction site for a haul road can be seen from Great Missenden railway station.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The High Street, Great Missenden. The village will not get an HS2 station. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian

“It’s an eyesore,” said Peter Martin, a Chiltern district councillor and member for planning and economic development, standing at the entrance to the site. “As a council we’ve been trying to get information out of HS2 about the likely traffic impacts because apart from the horror of the visuals, that will be significant.

“This will not benefit the residents here in any way and they are the people I’m here to represent,” he added. “There’s no [HS2] train station here, so they can’t get on the train. If you want to get to Birmingham you either go up the M40 or get on a train to London. As residents we are having to pay for it but not get any tangible benefit.”

Martin’s view is that the north of England is in more need of a high-speed rail line to serve its big cities. “There is an opportunity to spend this money more wisely,” he said. “We need to get value for money and I don’t think London to Birmingham is going to deliver that.”