Latest news with #Gillian Wilkinson
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Man who sold family home to HS2 for £1.2m discovers it was being used as cannabis farm
A widower who sold his home to HS2 shortly after his wife died from pancreatic cancer has discovered it was turned into a cannabis farm. Alan Wilkinson, 85, bought Ravenswood in the late 1970s and settled there with his wife Gillian. The couple enjoyed the four-bedroomed property, adding a swimming pool and new kitchen to it, for roughly four decades before deciding to sell in the wake of HS2 plans. By 2019 bosses at HS2 planned to build a tunnel underneath Whitmore Heath in Staffordshire, the hillside village where the property lay. Mr and Mrs Wilkinson were considering moving to a smaller home at the time, and when they learnt of the proposed developments entered negotiations to sell up. But in a double tragedy Mrs Wilkinson died two weeks before the sale was finalised and the planned stretch of HS2 line connecting Birmingham to Manchester was cancelled. After buying the property from the Wilkinsons for £1.2 million, HS2 executives decided to use an external agency to let the property out. Darren Pinnington, 32, from Liverpool rented the property but by November 2022 was using it to grow cannabis. Pinnington was caught when two Jehovah witnesses approached the property hoping to find a convert and smelt the aroma of cannabis wafting in the air. He now awaits sentence at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court later this year after pleading guilty to being concerned in the production of cannabis. Mr Wilkinson, who is too distressed to return to his old home after learning what became of it, told the Independent: 'It's terrible. 'I feel awful, truthfully, about what's happened. I lived there for 30 years; it was a great chunk of my life, a beautiful house, and now it's sitting empty, abandoned. 'I can't bear to go back, so many memories there with my wife, all gone. I hear rumours it's going to be knocked flat and rebuilt.' Though he was not required to sell to make way for the HS2 development under a compulsory purchase scheme, Mr Wilkinson feels the project ruined the village. He added: 'HS2 destroyed our village. 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.' HS2's plans would have seen a tunnel built roughly 100 feet or 30 metres beneath Whitmore Heath. The plans would not have forced anyone out of their homes, but Mr Wilkinson and his late wife felt the project would detract from their enjoyment of the area. Owing to the damage caused to the property by Pinnington's cannabis farm HS2 cannot relet the property because repair works would cost too much. In a statement, a spokeswoman for HS2 said: '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. '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.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
‘I sold my home to HS2 for scrapped line for £1.2m – only for it to be turned into a cannabis factory'
A man who sold his home to HS2 says he was left distraught after discovering it had been turned into a cannabis factory. Alan Wilkinson bought the four-bedroom luxury home in the leafy hillside village of Whitmore Heath in Staffordshire with his wife, Gillian, in the late 1970s. The couple added a swimming pool and new kitchen to the plush property – but when proposals emerged for the now-axed HS2 line beneath the hamlet, they pushed forward with plans to downsize and sell. It triggered a battle to sell the home to HS2, a fight Gillian would not see the end of, as she died from pancreatic cancer two weeks before the scheduled move-out in 2019. The detached property was not required to make way for the line, but the couple settled on a £1.2m deal with HS2,which purchased it under a 'special circumstances' purchase scheme. But Mr Wilkinson was left shocked when he discovered his old home, which had subsequently been rented out, was being used to grow cannabis plants. 'My old neighbour saw two Jehovah's Witnesses walking out of my old drive and he told them 'you won't find anyone in there',' the 85-year-old said. 'They replied 'no, but there's cannabis'. Turns out there was 184 cannabis plants growing inside. They could smell it.' Soon after, Staffordshire Police raided the house and found the drugs growing across five rooms inside. A man from Merseyside pleaded guilty to the production of a class B drug in July. The property, which Mr Wilkinson said was re-roofed and had its swimming pool removed before being rented out, has now been left empty – one of hundreds of properties requiring security, costing HS2 £1.9m in 2023/24. 'It's terrible,' he said. 'I feel awful, truthfully, about what's happened. I lived there for 30 years; it was a great chunk of my life, a beautiful house, and now it's sitting empty, abandoned. 'I hear rumours it's going to be knocked flat and rebuilt.' The Wilkinsons' home was one of 35 sold to HS2 under a number of selling schemes as HS2 planned twin tunnels beneath the hill-top village. Some are now rented out, while a number sit empty, judged not to be suitable for the letting market. The community's strain over the situation was exacerbated by the then-Tory government's decision in 2023 to scrap the section of line that would have run from Birmingham to Manchester. Mr Wilkinson said: 'HS2 destroyed our village. It was a fine community where people who had made it and 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 there with my wife, all gone.' Mr Wilkinson, who also served as the chairman of Whitmore Parish Council, was central to the community's dispute with HS2 as locals sought deals to sell their homes. With his wife's condition worsening, he travelled to London to deliver a petition for HS2 over the selling of homes at the High Speed Rail Bill Committee in 2018. Asked on the impact of the HS2 plans on his family's health, Mr Wilkinson said: 'Yes, of course it did [have an impact]. HS2 was the worst thing that could have happened to Whitmore Heath.' It's understood that homes purchased by HS2 in Whitmore Heath, and along the stretch of axed line to Manchester, remain under Department for Transport ownership despite the route being scrapped almost two years ago. In total, HS2 spent £3.79bn purchasing properties for the overall line, including £633m on the now-scrapped sections of the route. An HS2 spokesperson said the line would have run in a tunnel up to 30 metres beneath Whitmore Heath, and that no homeowner was compelled to sell their property for the railway to be built. They continued: '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. '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.' On the cannabis farm discovered at Mr Wilkinson's former home, Staffordshire Police said Darren Pinnington, 32 of Gomville Road, Liverpool, was charged with being concerned in the production of a controlled drug of class B in May. He pleaded guilty to the charge at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in July and is awaiting sentencing. The HS2 section still going ahead will run from London to Handacre in Staffordshire with a spur to Birmingham, but delays and spiralling costs mean no target date has yet been announced for opening.
