HS2: Rail minister reveals new plans for Euston terminus
Ministers has “moved a long way” on plans to open a Euston terminus for HS2 and have torn up “nonsense” plans for two platforms with the same number, the rail minister has said.
Addressing MPs on the Commons’ transport committee, Lord Peter Hendy described prior proposals, which would have seen two platform ones in close proximity, as “nonsense.”
“People turn up there to go wherever they are going to go by train, they don’t want that sort of organisation,” he said.
Euston will instead have a single concourse for passengers, as part of a “comprehensive” new plan being drawn up by the government,” Hendy explained.
The complexity of the Euston section has long plagued developers, who have had to manage competing interests from a number of parties.
The project involves building the HS2 terminus while redeveloping the conventional station, upgrading the Underground and creating opportunities for the wider community in the form of jobs and housing.
Hendy told MPs he had recently met with the global chief executive of Lendlease, which has been a partner at Euston for some time, who confirmed they were willing to go-ahead with developments on and around the station.
The issues have been compounded by ever-rising costs on the troubled national rail project, which are estimated to have risen to over £7.5bn, according to a Financial Times report on Tuesday. Total cost estimates for the entire HS2 project have varied, but are currently upwards of £65bn.
‘We will have a suitably sized Euston’
“We will have a suitably sized HS2 [Euston] station and will also produce the scale of development on and around the station, which it deserves,” Hendy insisted.
Alan Over, director general of major rail projects at the Department for Transport (DfT), said strong progress had been made on producing a more cost effective design and tying together competing interests.
The DfT is currently reviewing proposals for the HS2 station following the change in government over the summer. The prior 2023 plans would have reduced the size of the HS2 station, tacked onto the mainline hub, from 10 platforms to six.
Rachel Reeves confirmed in the Autumn Budget that HS2 would run to Euston instead of Old Oak Common, in London’s Western suburbs.