Finally, a decision on HS2 and Euston

It looks like HS2 will terminate in central London after all. Yesterday Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, said making passengers disembark at Old Oak Common station in west London “would never have made sense” before teasing a firm announcement on a London Euston terminus “soon”. This comes after months of uncertainty and lets engineers finally take a breath. A tunnel machine has been waiting on site to bore an underground route, losing the government time and money for every minute the decision went unmade. Without Euston what’s left of HS2, a much delayed high-speed rail link between London and the north, would be the lamest of ducks. Long-distance passengers would be forced to cram onto overcrowded Elizabeth Line trains for the last seven miles of their journey.

With Euston HS2 will have a logical endpoint, works to improve the station can be completed, and the demolition of nearby homes and businesses won’t have been for nothing.

Euston station, which sits in Starmer’s constituency, is much maligned and woefully out of date. Unfit to handle the passengers and services it now receives, Euston has issues with its:

• Flow – as tracks and ticket barriers are closely aligned, most passengers funnel into the same holding pen (the pedestrianised square outside doesn’t work when it’s raining). Late platform announcements and changes lead to “dangerous” overcrowding and surges.
• Connections – links to nearby train stations and underground lines are unclear and cumbersome. Passengers unfamiliar with the area make inefficient travel choices.
• Appearance – the original gorgeous Victorian station was pulled down and replaced with a cold, cubic catastrophe in the 1960s, much of which remains today.

Plans to improve the station in anticipation of transformative HS2 and Crossrail 2 transport projects stalled when those projects were postponed. The embarrassing decision to turn off a new wall-length advertising board is just the latest in a list of sticking plasters administered to hide serious cracks. If Platform 9¾ was at Euston instead of nearby King’s Cross, legions of Harry Potter tourists would be bitterly disappointed.

Questions remain over whether Labour will commit to funding the project in full, or rely on private investment in exchange for development rights above ground (as was the plan during Sunak’s premiership). Building to Euston will cost billions, but Labour has delayed a decision on the Lower Thames road crossing and abandoned plans for other road projects. Public investment isn’t out of the question, given the potential long-term financial benefits.

More details are likely to be unveiled in the budget later this month. In the meantime, disgruntled commuters tortured by West Coast Mainline services and the horrors of Euston will have to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. All eyes are on the next pressure point: Crewe.