HS2: what impact will there be on vulnerable residents?

• I LIVE in a building on Hampstead Road that’s going to be demolished next year to make way for HS2 railway.

Unlike social housing, the private tenants that live here won’t get any compensation or have any assistance from either the council or HS2.

We’ve started to get letters from them. The last one started to describe the legal aspects of the notices they will use to evict us. As you can imagine, it’s pretty upsetting.

One of our elderly neighbours, who lived on his own, had rented his flat for 40 years, and was found by police on August 24 hanged in his closet. I’m not claiming he killed himself because he was going to lose his house. Whatever happened in his life, it clearly must have been a factor.

No one from the government seems to have made risk assessments on what the impact of eviction would be on vulnerable residents like him.

Sending us letters with language that’s impossible to understand: facing them with eviction with no real support or counselling; they clearly don’t lack the resources, given that our landlord will get market value for all the flats he owns in this building.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW1