The ‘sugar cube’ topping- out ceremony

• OCTOBER 5 CNJ announced Rishi Sunak had made HS2 at Euston, and its tunnels, dependent on future private finance, (Who wants to get rich? PM to trigger HS2 gold rush at Euston).

Surely a pipe dream. With Tottenham Court Road only 10 minutes on the Elizabeth line from Old Oak Common (second biggest station in the country) who will need Euston?

Meanwhile the achievement of a major milestone for HS2’s now abandoned plans went unreported. This was the topping-out ceremony (pictured above) for the first HS2 building at Euston, the gigantic “sugar cube” intended to replace facilities in the historic Euston tube station earmarked for demolition to permit construction of their hapless 10 platforms.

The tube station currently houses vital Northern line ventilation plant and sub-station as well as staff accommodation. It is the only building left standing on HS2’s site.

Thanks to the prime minister there is now no need to demolish the old station. So the sugar cube will be redundant.

For sad cases like this, not to mention what to do with the rest of the HS2’s Euston site, this week the Euston Authority launches its “meanwhile uses” consultation. “Meanwhile uses” is the term for repurposing HS2’s mothballed assets, they insist, for “community benefit”.

So what to do with the sugar cube, a giant white box of perforated porcelain panels, intended to express its ventilation function as the first of a series of boxy HS2 (so-called) tunnel “vent shafts”? This was an expensive lie however as it housed a Transport for London staff penthouse, with the “vent” reduced to a small duct to the roof.

Maybe its “meanwhile use” could be as a pub, to replace the Bree Louise demolished across the road, while the pub is rebuilt.

Regarding your headline two weeks ago about the “flattened” Bree Louise, I was ex-publican Craig Douglas’s witness for his petition to the Lords select committee, to whom I argued the pub was being compulsorily purchased for tower block foundations and not for HS2 platforms which were four metres away, (Still no compensation for landlord who saw his pub flattened for HS2 works that now aren’t even in needed, October 12).

Subsequently HS2 revealed they had greatly exaggerated the thickness of the platform retaining wall, their CPO only being valid for railway work.

I won’t forget the sunny afternoon I sat with Craig outside his pub to discuss the CPO with three HS2 surveyors. They warned him of adverse personal consequences if he did not agree. I was shocked.

HS2 had claimed this area was “run down” (and would be revitalised by their “iconic” structures like the sugar cube). This was another lie.

The next time I sat outside Craig’s pub-of-the-year, the street was alive with Morris dancers. It was throbbing. Shortly afterwards it was demolished by HS2’s army of orange zombies.

Perhaps a more appropriate “meanwhile use” for the sugar cube would be as a cenotaph… an apology to Craig and all the other bullied residents evicted by HS2… and inside could be a permanent exhibition of the community’s stand against HS2’s falsehoods and government intransigence.

This would truly revitalise the area and be of international importance. Unlike the station.

JEFF TRAVERS
Camden HS2 Association of Residents’ Groups for Engagement