FORMER Mayor of London Ken Livingstone says there would be no need for a massive redevelopment in Euston to pay for HS2 if the Bank of England simply printed more money to pay for the project.

In an interview with the New Journal on Monday, he repeated his suggestion to cut out the demolition plans at Euston and around Regent's Park by sending a deep tunnel through London to a terminus at Waterloo. “It’s ridiculous to demolish homes in one of the most expensive parts of the country just to park trains overnight,” he said. “We should do what France does. They have three tunnels carrying the overground through the [Paris] city centre.”

Asked about a large above-ground development at Euston being used to help pay the colossal bill for HS2, he said: “There’s no need for all this demolition. We can pay for these things through quantitive easing. The Bank of England could print the money, build HS2, Crossrail 2 and Crossrail 3, and the Bank of England would own it as an asset. If it ever wanted to sell it, they could sell it to domestic pension funds. It seems so obvious that that’s an easier way to do it.”

SEE ALSO: LABOUR CONFERENCE – BIG HITTERS SAY HS2 IS NO LONGER A QUESTION OF 'IF' BUT 'WHEN' AND 'HOW'