The HS2 line from Euston to Old Oak received a reprieve in the PM’s speech on Wednesday. However, before we all think that’s the book closed on anymore salami slicing to the nation’s flagship infrastructure project, we should reflect carefully on what the Government is actually saying.
Extending HS2 to Euston involves digging a 4.5-mile tunnel from Old Oak Common and building a six-platform station next to the existing West Coast Main Line terminus. This is proving too expensive for the nation. The Government has made a significant investment but at this point, it is not clear whether it thinks the project can be funded to completion and is no longer prepared to foot the full bill.
This is a holding position. The Government wants to work out whether it can perform another Battersea which secured £9bn of private sector investment.
I had some involvement in the Battersea Nine Elms story. It required close collaboration between the private and public sector, strong vision and some difficult but necessary trade-offs to get it going.
This is quite an ask for HS2 Euston to Old Oak Common. With Battersea, it helped that the London Mayor, both Councils and National Government were all on board before a spade went into the ground. It also helped that the Nine Elms was industrial land. There were few if any residents living immediately on its doorstep.
Here in lies the challenge. Raising money from developers means significantly increasing density, reducing affordable housing in the first development cycle and being flexible on tenure to get the best possible value. This is what happened at Nine Elms to help the Northern Line along the way. This is why the Bakerloo Line will not happen anytime soon. You can’t have everything and developers are not going to make investments if they are not allowed to make a return.
The Mayor of London knows this. Over the weekend the Mayor wrote to the Prime Minister making it clear that his office had not been consulted and in simple terms he wouldn’t be supporting a whole load of luxury flats to enable development of the line. Describing flats which are not planning policy affordable as luxury is destructive to development politics and will hurt us all. However, in fairness to the Mayor it doesn’t appear he has been consulted and this is a u-turn from the Government.
To make a gear shift work at Euston there’s going to need to be strong local local political consensus formed. Something which wasn’t apparent when the works were initiated. Government needs to find local leaders willing to sponsor this and critically it needs to offer them something in return. That could be problematic as the Mayor has already staked out his position. If you are levering in the private sector to pay for more in areas which have already significant residential they need certainty and confidence. They’re not going to get that.
There’s a lot to do and there’s still a chance of Euston being delivered. It will be good for London but London’s political community needs to be won over. A development corporation with a strong top team of seasoned London built environment professionals can help get there but without the political voice, the task ahead will be significant.
