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David Germain, 55, has had the threat of HS2 looming over his home and business for more than a decade.
The proposed route goes straight through Windmill Nurseries, the business he has spent 32 years building by selling plants in Knutsford, Cheshire.
During the past 10 years, his family has lost countless hours filling in paperwork and taking part in consultations – earlier this summer, they even travelled to Parliament to make their voice heard.
But all the stress and uncertainty could be for nothing.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is apparently poised to scrap the northern leg of HS2 beyond Birmingham due to spiralling costs, which would mean it never reaches the Germains’ home.
Mr Germain told i he is trying to stay level-headed about the prospect, even though his entire future is on the line.
“We always take the goverment’s actions at face value,” he told i.
“Until we hear any different, I’m taking it that there’s a railway coming through our property.
“And we’re being very, very careful not to get our hopes up.
“Don’t get me wrong, if it gets scrapped, we would jump for joy. We get our livelihood back.
“But we don’t want to build our hopes up.”
Official figures show more than 400 properties along or near the planned route between Birmingham and Manchester have already been bought by HS2 Ltd, the company responsible for delivering the railway for the government, at a cost of about £400m.
The Germains could easily have been among that number if they had been willing to go along with the HS2 compensation scheme and sell up.
But they decided not to commit to a decision, not least because it has always been unclear exactly what was being put on the table.
Back in 2013, the original route for the high-speed rail link connecting London to Manchester passed 27 metres from their property.
In 2016, the route moved to 90 metres away. Then in 2020, it changed again and went directly through their house and the site was earmarked for an important piece of infrastructure called an autotransformer station (ATS).
Since then, Mr Germain and his family have been working under the impression that they will need to relocate Windmill Nurseries.
Having read the latest headlines, Mr Germain said now is the time for people like him to finally have an answer.
“I think it’s got to come to a head 1695706794, it needs to,” Mr Germain added.
“We first heard about this in January 2013, it’s been 10 and a half years and they’ve still got to do ground tests around us.
“They’re still a long way from finalising this route.”
“If HS2 had had a more proactive approach they might have secured the route and the line might have been built by now.
“It’s the timescale that’s brought this.
“If this line was coming through my property they should have come to the door and said ‘Mr Germain we’re going to turn you out but we’re going to do right by you’.
“It’s taken too long.
“We just want it resolved and we will deal with it.”
When questioned by journalists today, Mr Sunak declined to back building HS2 to the North despite growing warnings by senior Tories not to axe the rail project.
The Prime Minister hit out at the “speculation” surrounding its future but did nothing to quell fears he is preparing to either scrap or delay the leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester.
Downing Street said there is precedent to delaying aspects of the high-speed rail scheme because of “affordability pressures”, pointing towards high inflation.
Grant Shapps, recently promoted to Defence Secretary from his transport role, has said it would be “crazy” not to reconsider the project in considering spiralling costs.
But Tory former chancellor George Osborne and ex-Conservative deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine were among senior figures warning that axing the Manchester route would be a “gross act of vandalism” which would mean “abandoning” the North and Midlands.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, where the Tories will hold their annual party conference from Sunday, demanded Mr Sunak does not curtail the project.
The Labour politician argued scrapping it would be a “decision of epic proportions for our part of the world”.
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