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Ah, HS2. One of the great will-they-won’t-theys of its time. Will High Speed 2 be built in line with its original time frame and budget? No, it won’t. Will it go all the way to Manchester, Crewe and Leeds as initially planned? Nope, that neither. Will it even go all the way into central London and Euston station? Well, after months of uncertainty, now it just might.
Last March, the previous Conservative government paused construction on Euston’s HS2 station in the face of rising costs. Previous transport secretary Mark Harper announced that the terminus would be redesigned to feature six platforms (rather than the original 10) and that the project wouldn’t move forward until it received private funding.
In recent days, however, it’s been reported that the new(ish) Labour government is preparing to sign off running HS2 to Euston. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is being tipped to give the project the green light during the autumn budget.
A government source reportedly told the Sunday Times: ‘HS2 just wouldn’t work if the terminus was not at Euston. The station is also well overdue for investment and has become a dystopian mess and stain on London.’
The latter part certainly seems to be widely-held sentiment. In recent days Euston has been dubbed ‘the worst mainline station in western Europe’ and crowned ‘worst station in Britain’. The central London hub isn’t in a lot of people’s good books.
The previous plans would have seen HS2 terminate at Old Oak Common in west London instead, with travellers then forced to get the Elizabeth line into central London. You can have a look at Old Oak Common’s glitzy new station here.
Ballooning costs, extensive cutbacks and increasing delays aren’t the only reasons HS2 has been controversial. Notably, construction on the new station involved ripping up much of beloved London culinary spot Drummond Street – a move which was divisive enough without it all having been for nothing.
So, what next? The government’s plans for Euston haven’t yet been officially confirmed. We’ll likely have to wait for the autumn budget on October 30 before anything is set in stone.
Did you see that south London will be massively disrupted by train station closures this Halloween and half term?
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