Presentation from 19 November 2024
On the back of a meeting at the Primrose Hill Community Centre on 19 November 2024, Martin Sheppard and Paul Braithwaite Summarise the posistion as they see it.
Martin Sheppard
It is unnecessary to recite the failings of HS2 at length. It is a clear case of government’s inability to plan and implement large projects. It is overdesigned and misrouted. The public consultation on it was a disgrace and it was given the go ahead by Parliament, with the backing of all parties except UKIP and the Greens, without proper political debate. The extreme flimsiness of its business case was airily ignored. It failed at an early point to link up with HS1 and Eurostar, as HS2’s proposed pathway through Camden Lock was completely unworkable. Following massive overspending and delay, both of its northern legs have been cancelled. It is financially and morally bankrupt, treating those whose lives it has ruined with disdain. It has failed completely to achieve the ends for which it was intended, in the meantime monopolising funds which could have solved many other local transport needs. Above all, HS2 constitutes a literal and financial black hole into which successive governments seem determined to pour huge quantities of good money after bad.
Amongst HS2’s many disastrous fixations, a conspicuous one has been its determination that the line should reach Euston, combined with an inability to solve the complex engineering and planning problems involved. It has failed conspicuously to address the urgent need to replace the current station. Despite a strong case being made for Old Oak Common, connected by the Elizabeth Line to Central London, Euston is still heralded as HS2’s London terminus, most recently in Rachel Reeves’ budget. This has led, since 2018, to the devastation of the area around Euston itself, destroying both businesses and people’s lives. An unrealistic vision of profitable development, combined with an unwillingness to return property taken for a station that may never be built, has prevented government from admitting that Euston is the wrong terminus.
Compared to the areas worst affected, Primrose Hill has been extremely fortunate. HS2’s original scheme had tunnels going under the centre of Primrose Hill Village, with a vent shaft between Oppidans Road and King Henry’s Road. Partly due to local opposition, the final scheme now has the nearer (western) tunnel running on the east side of Primrose Hill Village. The two tunnels, however, will be relatively deep as they pass underneath.
The impact of the scheme on Primrose Hill so far has mainly been that of road closures, notably of Gloucester Avenue, Gloucester Gate and Adelaide Road, where the construction of the vent shaft has destroyed a considerable area of green corridor. Most of the enabling works in the area, however, have now been completed. HS2’s lorry depot, between Prince Albert Road and Gloucester Gate, has been largely unused but, if the extension to Euston goes ahead, may see increased haulage for years. In the process of its construction, one of the last strongholds of the hedgehog in central London was destroyed.
The area of Primrose Hill threatened with direct damage has always been a limited one. Uncertainty about its local effect has been HS2’s worst impact. HS2 has been a monster lurking immediately next to Primrose Hill for more than ten years. Now, however, it is possible to be reasonably certain about HS2’s final tunnelling plans for the area and to calculate the worst-case scenario.
Despite HS2’s ingrained secrecy, Jeff Travers has managed to discover the final plans for the tunnels from SCS, the engineers with the contract to design and build the tunnels. From these it is possible to calculate what damage will or may be done. As can be seen on the plans Jeff has acquired, HS2’s nearer tunnel will run beneath Foxton’s, under most of Darwin Court and the electricity substation at 36 Gloucester Avenue, before crossing under Fitzroy Bridge to near the corner of Waterside Place. It will then go under 42-50 Gloucester Avenue, Sunny Mews, Whittlebury Mews East and West, 110 Gloucester Avenue, and 134 and 136 Gloucester Avenue before crossing under the road. The tunnel continues under 196 Regent’s Park Road and the Chesterfields, then 1 and 6 King Henry’s Road, before crossing railway land to the Adelaide Road vent shaft. HS2’s other (eastern) tunnel will only affect the back of No. 42 Gloucester Avenue and the beer garden of the Pembroke Castle. The depth at which the tunnel will be dug will be 28 metres at the beginning of Darwin Court, 29.4 metres at Dumpton Place and 36.38 metres at the Chesterfields. These measurements are all to the bottom of the tunnel, which will be 7.3 metres in diameter.
What will be the effect of the nearer (western) tunnel, if it is dug? The tunnel-boring machines are already in place at Old Oak Common. They are capable of boring through clay at a remarkable rate, lining the bore with concrete segments and grouting any small gaps behind the lining as they go, leaving a stable tunnel behind them. The walls of the tunnel are only liable to deterioration during the very short period while the clay dries. There is, however, some uncertainty about the quality of the earth through which they will be bored. Much of the Camden Railway Yard had spoil from the Chalk Farm Tunnel and railway cuttings spread upon it in the 1830s, which may cause instability. Secondly, there may be boggy pockets along the course of the tunnelling. There is an additional settlement risk from the cross passages. One of these is under the electricity substation next to the north-western end of Darwin Court; the other is behind 136 Gloucester Avenue. These will be dug not by the tunnel-boring machines but by robots.
The big question, for all those in or near the line of the tunnel, is what immediate or future damage the boring of the tunnels will have on their properties. The answer to this is not very much. The digging of the tunnels themselves will probably be imperceptible on the surface.
With modern systems of insulation, it is also unlikely that HS2’s trains, which at this point will not be travelling fast, will themselves be heard. The noise of trains on the surface, and indeed of cars in Gloucester Avenue, is likely to remain much greater.
HS2’s plans show various contours. The values of these contours are unclear at present but, by assuming their values, it is possible to predict the pattern of settlement. This is insufficient to cause major damage but may cause minor settlement. Clarification is currently being sought from SCS and HS2.
Many of the buildings under which HS2’s nearer (western) tunnel goes, including Darwin Court, Sunny Mews and Whittlebury Mews East and West, are modern constructions and have foundations able to withstand minor settlement. This should of course be checked. The early housing in Gloucester Avenue, in contrast, was built without foundations. Many of the houses have experienced a lesser or greater degree of settlement over the years. Although HS2’s tunnelling may cause a small degree of extra settlement, this is likely to be minor or very minor. The special cases of 44 Gloucester Avenue, 196 Regent’s Park Road, the Chesterfields and 1 and 6 King Henry’s Road, under which the tunnel will go directly, need individual monitoring. There is, however, no expectation that the settlement caused will have a major effect on them.
HS2 (or its contractor) have a legal duty to survey properties. Their surveys will be carried out selectively in formal phases. The initial survey phase is a desk survey to identify the properties for which second phase physical surveys are needed. For Primrose Hill, HS may be inclined to generalise, notably regarding terraced property, without checking whether structural modifications have been made, such as rear extensions which may be prone to differential settlement.
This survey process has already been completed at Park Village East, where settlement is predicted to be excessive and damaging. HS2 is currently carrying out preparatory mitigation (underpinning), causing great disruption. Information has been released to Park Village East residents (both individually via settlement deeds and collectively) in the form of long analytical reports on each property. PVE residents needed repeatedly to request this. Some of these documents include Primrose Hill properties, though without publishing this for Primrose Hill or notifying the property owners.
I recommend that Primrose Hill property owners should prepare for possible tunnelling by collectively pressing HS2 for information about Primrose Hill, initially to explain its survey programme.
Property owners have a number of rights and other potential guarantees at their disposal. They can also take a precautionary measures if it looks as if the tunnels are about to be bored. Two elements which may have their performance affected are doors and drains. As most of the doors in the affected properties are likely to be in flats, they may be fire doors which need to meet strict tolerances. A careful record of the current state of these should be considered. We plan to provide a detailed guide to what property-owners can and should do if they consider themselves at danger from HS2’s tunnelling. This will be available on the Primrose Hill Community Association website.
The necessity for property-owners to take precautions depends of course on whether HS2 goes ahead with its tunnelling. As with most things to do with HS2, where incompetence is the only constant, what is planned is very seldom what happens. HS2 faces a host of obstacles before it reaches Euston. Even if the tunnels are excavated as far as Parkway, because HS2’s contract with SCS cannot be cancelled, there is no guarantee that they will actually reach Euston. The engineering challenges, and associated risks, of designing the enormous ‘Burrow’ in the throat of the Euston cutting have not to date been resolved to the point where the proposals can be signed off officially.
To these problems must be added the relatively small space available to developers on the west side of Euston. They are most unlikely to be willing to finance the tunnels, despite the government’s hopes. Finally, none of the plans currently on offer address the glaring failure to replace the pitifully outdated existing Euston Station.
Notes on Euston – It’s Complicated!
Paul Braithwaite
The government imposed the Australian company Lendlease on Camden as the Master Developer of Euston half a dozen years ago. That development company has spent some millions on preliminary planning Euston but against the shifting sands of multiple changes to the extent of HS2’s network. It’s been like the Monty Python sketch on King Arthur in the duel in which Michael Palin has limb after limb cut off!
In March 2019 HS2 Ltd appointed Mace/Dragondas as construction partner to build Euston’s new HS2 station and they continue working on the preparations south from the portal south of Parkway.
On 9th March 2023 Euston development work was (theoretically) paused by government for two years, until April 2025, and HS2 Ltd was formally dismissed from being responsible for Euston. However, construction works in what is euphemistically described as ‘No Regrets Works’ has continued ‘at pace’ ever since.
Thirteen months ago, in October 2023, Rishi Sunak decreed that funding for both Euston and the tunnelling from OOC, if the leg was to proceed at all – would be paid for by private investment. He specified that the HS2 station design should be reduced from 11 platforms to just six – reflecting the cancellation of the routes to both Leeds and Manchester. This removed at a stroke £6.5bn from the public purse commitment which was then re-allocated to infrastructure schemes across the country. The HS2 phase one costing was last estimated to be a total of £76bn at 2019 prices, excluding Euston and the 4.7 miles of tunnels from Old Oak Common. But Louise Haigh has recently called for a revised costing.
Camden and HS2 Ltd have conspired since October 2023 to continue unchecked with the preparations towards the original 11 platform HS2 spec. It is significant that the approved six platform station authorise could be achieved with much a much more modest rebuilding of the Hampstead Road bridge and without any need at all for excavation to a lower level, since the six platforms could have been added at ground level in the space already vacated by Euston’s platforms 15 to 18.
The development of Euston has been the focus of The Euston Partnership, set up post The Oakervee Review, by the Department for Transport in July 2020. Its stakeholder members are HS2 Ltd, Lendlease, Network Rail, West Coast Partnership (Avanti), Camden, TfL and the GLA. It was chaired by Network Rail’s chair, Peter Hendy, until he was elevated to the House of Lords and made Rails Minister in June 2024. The Partnership’s remit is within a strictly designated HS2 boundary. Extraordinarily, the Partnership’s own website has not been updated since the general election. It still states Peter Hendy as chair and the last addition is its board minutes from April.
It appears that responsibility within government is shifting away from the DfT towards the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This is supervised by minister Matthew Pennycook, who reports into Cabinet via Angela Rayner. It has spawned a newly formed body named The Euston Housing Delivery Group, with ex-Lendlease’s European Managing Director for Development Bek Seeley as its chair. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/leading-expert-appointed-to-turbocharge-euston-housebuilding.
Note that despite Lendlease having announced back in June that they were totally pulling out of the UK as project developers, they are seeking to sell on their individual design schemes – despite there not being anything agreed as a design plan at Euston.
The Euston Housing Delivery Group’s remit appears to have a much wider footprint than that of The Euston Partnership. For example, it is believed to now include the homes being planned in Camley Street – not even remotely close to Euston.
The new Leader of Camden Council, Cllr Richard Olszrwski, endorsed the 30 October Budget announcement that HS2 is now authorised to come to Euston and he seeks to gain overall control of Euston’s planning – replacing Lendlease. This would also side-step the Tory governments plan to create a new Development Corporation – which would have required an act of Parliament.
His press release included: ‘We are ready to lead a development that delivers this for our community and the country. We don’t simply want a seat at the table,…’
Essentially, Camden Council is currently espousing its cheapo £85,000 report from Metro Dynamics – The Euston Economic Impact Assessment (EIA). This reported to the Council in February 2024 and envisaged an array of benefits – dressed up as ‘The Euston Knowledge Quarter’.
It appears to be the basis of what Camden seeks to progress, under the title of ‘Work-stream 2’.
It envisages 470,000 square metres of offices (!), 33,000 square metres of retailing and at least 2,100 new homes, of which only at least 750 would be affordable. All this could apparently bring £41bn of benefit to the UK economy by 2053! And it would be funded at least two thirds (£2.7bn) by foreign investment capital. But foreign funding isn’t happening (yet) and it certainly won’t be forthcoming without the public purse paying for the tunnels to Euston.
Latest news: At the first meeting of the new Transport Select Committee on 13 November, permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly stated that ‘the opportunities that now exists is to look at Euston in a much more integrated way—to look at the high-speed station, the conventional station and the underground station as a whole and think about what is needed to meet future demand’. This is welcome news and probably reflects the influence of Peter Hendy.
Last Updated on 22nd November 2024 by Jason