A CHILDREN’S playground will be transformed into a giant plant used to pump “stinking filth” out of Euston Station if HS2 goes ahead, Frank Dobson has warned.

The Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras raised the threat to the playground in Lancing Street during a packed public meeting at Somers Town Community Centre on Thursday night.

The meeting was called to “welcome Somers Town to the party” and revealed a “new threat” to people living on the east side of Euston Station, ending with calls for direct action and a Camden-wide march against HS2.

Mr Dobson said: “We have to turn our attention now to Somers Town, which wasn’t threatened before. Straight off – anyone who lives in Eversholt Street is going to be living next to the biggest engineering and building project in Europe in a decade, with all the noise and filth and dust and air pollution and all the general mess that they will face. 

“The children’s playground, next to St Pancras Church House, just off Eversholt Street, will be knocked down and there will be a plant there that will pump grouting into the foundations of the station for 10 years. I don’t know what they think the children are going to do.” 

He added that all major gas, electricity, water, telecoms and piping would have to be dug up and moved during works that could continue until 2034. 

The meeting was called because a new “environmental statement” is due to be submitted to the secretary of state for transport in the next few weeks. This is because the design for Euston Station in the HS2 “Hybrid” Bill”, which was approved in a vote by the MPs earlier this year, was different to the one HS2 intend to press ahead with. The new, bigger design will be to completely demolish Euston Station and build a huge housing and commercial centre above it. People will be given a small window to respond, probably just after Christmas, when it is assessed by a select committee in the House of Commons. 

But there are concerns that responding to the threat of HS2 through official channels will not be enough.

Candy Udwin, who lives in Levita House, Somers Town, said: “What are we going to do about it? We have a bit of catching up to do in Somers Town. What about something like a march to show them what we think?”

The suggestion was well received at the meeting, as were calls for the campaign to do more to expose the financial case for HS2, and the astronomical salaries of its bosses.

Joe Shah, of Ampthill Square, said: “What are we doing to raise this issue?”

Mr Dobson said it was important to listen to the “swivel-eyed” Conservative MP John Redwood, who has been suggesting that the project would be scrapped because of costs, and said the House of Lords would soon be probing HS2’s finances. 

l Architects competing for a contract to create 66 homes for tenants forced out of their homes by HS2 will reveal their designs in the Surma Centre. The idea is to squeeze replacement homes into the current Regent’s Park Estate. HS2 has agreed to buy a 70-home private development in Netley Road to house the rest of the tenants. Eleven “sites” in and around the Regent’s Park Estate have been chosen and architects’ designs will be on display for the first time from 2-5pm next Wednesday (September 17) and the following Thursday between 4-8pm.