Plans for a redevelopment of Euston as the London end of the HS2 rail link are becoming ‘increasingly untenable’, campaigners have warned.
Writing in City A.M, Sir Tim Lankester, deputy chair of local campaign group HS2 Into London and a former civil servant, said the House of Lords should ‘join Sadiq Khan and many others in insisting on a serious rethink’.
An artist's impression of HS2 at Euston
The Lords are currently debating the enabling bill for the first phase of the project.
Sir Tim wrote: ‘Whether you back HS2 or oppose it as a concept, what's becoming impossible to deny is that the current plans for HS2 need re-thinking, no more so than at the London end, where the Euston redevelopment is looking increasingly untenable.'
He pointed to the cost of works needed to take the rail link to Euston, which he said are estimated at around 10% of the total £56bn cost of the project, and the ‘vast disruption and damage for Londoners during the absurdly long construction period’.
He wrote: ‘For 15 to 20 years and quite possibly more, residents and businesses will be blighted by the building works – noise, air pollution, traffic chaos and loss of homes and public spaces.’
Last month London mayor Mr Khan expressed his concerns over anticipated disruption in the capital and suggested that a station at Old Oak Common in West London could be used temporarily instead.
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