HS2 Euston link funding announced in Budget

The government is "committing the funding required" to begin tunnelling work to bring HS2 to London Euston station, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced.

Ms Reeves said in her Budget speech this would encourage private investment in the area.

In October last year, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that extending the high-speed rail project from Old Oak Common, in the suburbs of west London, to Euston, near the centre of the capital, was reliant on private investment - aimed at saving £6.5bn of taxpayers' money.

The chancellor's announcement has been welcomed by Camden Council and traders, while HS2 critics called for the whole scheme to be scrapped, calling it a "white elephant".

Major HS2 construction work at a site alongside the existing Euston station has been halted since the previous March due to funding doubts.

Ms Reeves said: "We are committing the funding required to begin tunnelling work to London Euston station.

"This will catalyse private investment into the local area, delivering jobs and growth."

The Commons Public Accounts Committee issued a report in February stating it was "highly sceptical" that the Department for Transport would be able to attract private investment on "the scale and speed required" to make extending HS2 to Euston "a success".

Richard Olszewski, the leader of Camden Council, said the announcement on the Euston HS2 leg was "welcome news".

"It helps to clarify that surrounds this whole area," the Labour councillor said.

"The people who live around here have suffered 14 years of blight, disruption, loss of homes, loss of business income and a huge dislocation to their social and economic lives."

He said he would await the plan's details and look at how to bring the "much-awaited benefits for the people of Camden and the London-wide economy".

London mayor Sadiq Khan said the funding would lead to the "improvement of the public realm around Euston like we've seen around King's Cross and St Pancras".

Oli Uddin, from the Drummond Street Traders Association, also welcomed the tunnelling works but said he was worried there was "no clarity" in the plans.

He told BBC London: "We don't know when it's going to end; when we expect this area to be nice and new again, how it was before."

Before the chancellor took to the dispatch box, protesters who are critical of the HS2 Euston leg demonstrated outside the station.

"I think it should be stopped at Old Oak Common and turn Euston into a decent station for the passengers that want to come here," Lord Tony Berkeley said

The HS2 critic said the Elizabeth line could take passengers to Old Oak Common in good time.

Sarah Green, a Friends of the Earth activist, told BBC London she would like to see HS2 scrapped altogether.

"We're in a climate emergency. This is a white elephant and it doesn't need to be happening," she said.

HS2 was originally meant to connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

The new plan is for it to be a high-speed link between Birmingham and London, with a lot of work having already been completed on this section.

The section of the HS2 railway between Parkway and Hampstead Road in Camden is referred to as the Euston Approaches, and it is designed to connect the line to Euston Station. It is currently a building site.

A lot of the largest excavations needed to construct the Euston Approaches tunnels have been paused.

This includes pausing the construction of a concrete box that was intended to be a covered section along the railway line where trains would enter and exit tunnels.

Other work includes tunnelling and creating a wider and deeper railway called the Euston Throat, which would make room for HS2.

With additional reporting by the PA Media.

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