HS2 Rebellion demonstrators say they are determined to stay on Euston Garden site

• FROM about 5am last Wednesday a huge contingent of police arrived and assembled round the Euston Garden’s railings and two brand new cherry-picker cranes arrived on a huge articulated lorry, (HS2 protesters: We’ll stay in tunnel for weeks, January 28).

The outer slip road serving the bus stop became suspended by police vans being parked across it. What is the cost of this operation?

Officers told me that most of the officers are on overtime for this task. Why do trees have to be cut down for the simple construction of a temporary taxi rank?

Is it beyond HS2 road design engineers’ understanding that taxi ranks don’t have to be set down on straight “avenues” over trees and gardens, like had been done for the first, and currently in-use, taxi rank on the western side of the same garden, about two years ago?

Or is the reason that the design engineers were “dictated” to use the same metal works supply contractor who provided the straight-shaped roofs for the first?

Straight avenues only, that’s what we do! We don’t do curved ones or linked together shapes to form a continuation of a hoody, swiggly, covered, walkway. London is not a design city, or what?

The other question is: Why does there have to be a roof over every waiting taxi and not only over taxis in the pick-up and set-down apron? Would that save money in construction and devastation?

Are London taxi drivers seen as not being capable of inching forward to the pick-up point on a bit of asphalt or concrete which can meander round tree trunks and greenery of which the historic gardens are made up – and have been since 1837? I don’t think so!

What is the turning circle of a London cab? I think we all know that it can go round corners. Why doesn’t HS2 know that and still insisting on having straight avenues?

The other main question refers to the status of the garden. It is a public open space where people can enjoy themselves, or walk through it to and from the station, buses, and shops?

Has there been a closing order of this public highway? Footpaths are classified “highways”.

The garden is not a construction or building site, so why are the police, the national enforcement team (NET) and security companies allowed to be in breach of the lockdown regulations? Hundreds of them deployed in three shifts!

Construction work is exempt from lockdown but not land clearance. Lawyers where are you?

HERMAN TRIBELNIG
Camden Town
Urban Design
Improvement Society