HS2. The Wrecking Begins

Reverend Anne Stevens and local resident Jo Hurford, Euston Square Gardens

On Friday the Reverend Anne Stevens, vicar of St.Pancras Church, spent two hours chained to a 100 year-old plane tree outside Euston station, whilst local residents handed out leaflets to passing commuters. Work has already started around the planned London end of the HS2 high speed rail link to Birmingham, but the protest marked a significant escalation in the disruption which will turn the area into a building site for an estimated 17 years. On Monday Euston Square Gardens will be fenced off, and the felling of its century-old trees will begin, clearing the park to make way for construction vehicles, expected to average 650 trucks a day.

As many have pointed out, HS2 as planned is seriously flawed. It is extremely expensive (and getting pricier by the week), poorly integrated with the existing network, and its London terminal is in the wrong place, a densely populated area already home to three of the capital's principal railway stations. To cap it all comes news that Carillion, one of the major contractors involved in construction of the new line, is in serious financial difficulty.

Whilst all taxpayers will be forking out the cash for this, local residents have the added nightmare of living through it, windows closed, day in day out for almost two decades.  More pictures here.  More words and pictures here and here.