Has HS2 asked the hedgehogs whether they want to leave their long-term car park home?

• MANY months ago I went to The Pirate Castle about Camden’s schemes to lower air pollution and make Camden more pedestrian friendly.

Crossing Parkway last week the many vehicles simply sat and sat. And the stench of motor fuel was awful.

I would guess percentages of four-wheelers to pedestrians and two wheelers, maybe 95 per cent to 5 per cent – 95 per cent being the cars and trucks. Is their scheme working I ask myself?

Also last week the HS2 Ltd dropped an information circular into my letter box.

“HS2 Ltd will relocate the zebra crossing on Prince Albert Road, as well as plant grass around the access once it is completed and create a tunnel underneath the access through which hedgehogs can safely cross…

“Later this year they will plant about 500m of hedges and other hedgehog-friendly shrubs in Regent’s Park and install extra nesting boxes, wildlife fencing and cameras.”

Have they asked the community of hedgehogs whether they want to leave their long-term car park home? A few years back the hedgehogs clearly showed no will to budge and move out.

Will the hedgehog population survive (this one, above, was saved from the road) while waiting for HS2’s actions to transpire amid all the construction’s side effects?

Maybe I have fallen down the rabbit hole, as two plus two no longer makes four. And again I find myself in Alice’s rabbit hole, as I remember our prime minister giving the green light for HS2, regardless of cost, which is at least £100billion and rising.

Then I hear that the cost of rebuilding the catastrophic damage in Beirut after that major blast, is 11.5 billion GBP.

Not sure I understand Boris Johnson’s need to delve into such debt, while leaving the EU, for a completely obsolete infrastructure project with all of its over-the-top salaries and environmental and human damage.

There must be some point I am completely missing, but I keep thinking that the creation of jobs would be so much more sustainable with an entirely renewable energy infrastructure in the works.

PRIMAVERA BOMAN,
NW1