New, revised consultation on the Adelaide Road vent shaft – do hedgehogs fly?

CAMDEN Council are requesting comments on revised designs for the Adelaide Road vent shaft which HS2 slipped in for planning approval just before Christmas.

The consultation deadline is midnight Tuesday January10 but Camden haven’t advertised it. The planning reference to view the drawings is 2022/1680/HS2. See link below to Camden’s consultation web page.

Following HS2s’ initial planning submission, my May 12 letter in the CNJ (Do hedgehogs fly, High Speed 2?) explained that Camden Council’s authority is restricted to determining the appropriateness to the locality of the building’s appearance and its impact on the nature reserve site (concerning nature conservation).

Camden cannot affect the engineering or its delivery. Government guidance is that Camden should “collaborate” with HS2 to agree design changes to mitigate local impact. And Camden advise that they will be influenced by our consultation comments.

Most previous comments rejected the design of this gigantic, unscreened, neo-brutalist, building and asked for screening by trees and green-walling.

But despite this, only minor design changes to the north façade (facing Adelaide Road) have been submitted to Camden. And Camden have advised me that the prominent south and east façades are unchanged.

These unmitigated façades were explained by HS2s’ lead architect in September. He said they will not be visible from Primrose Hill to the south and east.

So, without visual impact, Camden cannot request mitigation (for example, to hundreds of residents and tourists on Primrose Hill’s painted bridge). The lead architect said these façades will only be visible from the adjacent railway tracks, for which they will therefore be an appropriate engineering landmark.

Regarding “invisible” to Primrose Hill… HS2s’ advice was completely misleading.  Looking from the bridge, the previous green woodland backdrop of two nature reserves will be replaced by an almost treeless engineering hinterland. Replanting will be hardly visible. Even the four-storey villas on Adelaide Road (currently fully revealed by HS2s’ felling of 500 trees) will be concealed behind the gigantic blank façades.

But the revised planning submission contains no visualisation to justify HS2s’ “mistaken” claim that the vent shaft will not be seen from Primrose Hill (and therefore needs no mitigation).

Regarding “greenwash” of impact on Camden’s biodiversity… the HS2 act explicitly requires that HS2 provide a wildlife corridor. The previous design’s green corridor was much less than minimal… a narrow path and a green roof indicated by an arrow in the sky representing “ecological connectivity” (hence “do hedgehogs fly?”).

But HS2s’ revised drawings, increase the building’s footprint and reduce the green corridor to a narrow gap between wall and security fence, hardly wide enough for a badger.

And the revised drawings show the hedgehogs’ green roof largely replaced by engineering equipment. Greenwash or what?

HS2s’ motives are clear: They say their “design vision” is to provide Camden with an engineering “landmark” in the style of its other vent shafts to “celebrate this outstanding infrastructure project” but (in contrast with other vent shafts) HS2s’ independent design panel decreed it should be unscreened by vegetation to “reveal the machine”.

Regarding consultation, readers may question the lack of accurate computer visualisations in the revised submission from Primrose Hill streets that demonstrate the “invisible” landmark.

Readers may also question whether the neo-brutalist vent shaft headhouse (matching Euston station’s trainshed) is in a style and scale appropriate to the domestic scale of Primrose Hill Conservation Area and to the nature reserve (invisibility to Primrose Hill not being demonstrable).

Readers can also ask why Camden haven’t required mitigation appropriate to Primrose Hill… and why they haven’t requested detailed feasibility studies (for example, concerning options for green walling).

And if readers want more time to consider the revised drawings they can request a time extension… reminding Camden that last year’s similarly unadvertised consultation was eventually extended by six weeks for Camden to post adverts.

• Link to Camden’s Planning Consultation web page to make your comments: https://planningrecords.camden.gov.uk/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/PLComments.aspx?pk=589231

• Link to the HS2 Vent Shaft planning submission drawings and documents:
http://camdocs.camden.gov.uk/HPRMWebDrawer/PlanRec?q=recContainer:%222022/1680/HS2%22

JEFF TRAVERS
HS2 Euston Community Representatives Group