• CHIEF Secretary to The Treasury Liz Truss has garnered enormous publicity and approbation for her promising new close scrutiny of the hopeless financial case for HS2, with a view to its cancellation.

I fear the soon-to-be-complete land clearance to the west of Euston will mean that the developer Lendlease will get to build more than 4 million sq ft of new commercial space at Euston come what may.

But there could be a silver lining: while HS2 Phase 1 may still get built to Birmingham, there’s billions of public money to be saved, plus obviating much disruption to Camden’s residents, by canning the Euston HS2 station and the twin tunnels through to Old Oak Common.

Millions of cubic metres would no longer need to be transported away on our roads by frighteningly large HGVs. Cancelling HS2’s station at Euston would necessitate bringing forward from the current post-2034 plan to start to rebuild the existing “not-fit-for-purpose” Euston station.

PAUL BRAITHWAITE
NW5