2023 and 2024 have proven to be landmark years for HS2. In September 2023, the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, dramatically axed the project’s northern leg between Birmingham and Manchester.
He also announced that HS2’s station in Euston would be funded by private investment. The tunnel from Old Oak Common – which is due to act as a temporary terminus – to Central London was also gripped by uncertainty.
Then, in October 2024, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, having been appointed after the landslide defeat of Mr Sunak’s Conservative Party by Labour in the summer, announced cash for engineers in her Budget to fund tunnel boring machine’s trip under the capital to Camden.
HS2’s London terminus station, however, is still to be funded privately. What happens in 2025 will shape the future of public transport in the middle and west of the city.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves provided cash for HS2’s tunnel to Euston in October
(Image: Carl Court/Getty Images)
What’s in store at Old Oak Common
HS2 project client director at Old Oak Common, Peter Gow, outlined what’s next at the interchange at the beginning of November. He said: “During the next phase of the project, we’ll hand the east end of the station box to the team building the 4.5 mile Euston tunnel, which will take HS2 into the heart of London.
“First, we’ll need to lower two giant tunnel machines into the ground, and prepare them for their under into the capital. Then, we’ll begin to put together the station superstructure, and connect this vast HS2 underground station to the above ground station. We’ll assemble the immense roof that will unite the two parts of station together. That will cover an area the size of over three football pitches.”
Peter Gow, HS2’s project client director
(Image: Adam Toms/MyLondon)
He added: “We’re working to connect the station to the existing railway network, bringing the infrastructure into the station to enable Elizabeth line, Great Western Mainline and Heathrow Express services to stop here. This includes turning the current four track Great Western Mainline into an eight platform arrangement, laying 28 kilometres of new track, and installing new signalling, overhead lines, power and communications systems.”
The director says that Old Oak Common is set to open in the ‘early 2030s’. MyLondon previously understood that the interchange was due to open at some point between 2029 and 2033.
James Richardson, managing director of HS2’s London tunnels contractor, Skanska Costain STRABG Joint Venture, told MyLondon in January: “The current construction timeline we have is we will be starting the [Euston tunnel] TBM build, so they open in September. The actual main elements of the tunnel boring machines will be lowered into this box. We will then continue with the assembly of those and the launch of those will be early 2026.”
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Next steps at Euston Station
Enough private investment will have to be accumulated for construction of Euston’s huge HS2 terminus. In the meantime, after the Budget announcement, the new Government said that work will ‘immediately’ begin to ‘support delivery of thousands of new homes and drive growth in the heart of the capital’. Bek Seeley will chair the Government’s Euston Housing Delivery Group to ‘deliver ambitious Euston regeneration’.
Ms Seeley was previously the European Managing Director for Development at Lendlease, a multinational construction and real estate company. She also holds several senior advisory roles in regeneration and affordable housing delivery, as well as being responsible for leading ‘major housing projects’ across London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Construction work has halted at HS2’s Euston site
(Image: Carl Court/Getty Images)
Officials want to create an ‘ambitious housing and regeneration initiative for the local area’. The scheme will also include supporting a ‘thriving life sciences district’, which ministers say will bolster the area’s existing Knowledge Quarter.
A spokesperson for the Government said in October: “The Delivery Group will be made up of industry experts in urban design, landscape architecture, affordable housing delivery and financing large-scale projects. Their core focus is to unlock more investment in Euston and drive economic growth across the capital.
“Working closely with the local community in Euston, Camden Council, the Mayor of London and ministers, the Group will help the area become one of Europe’s leading hubs for life sciences and innovation and set out wider ambitions to tackle the capital’s housing crisis with a new era of affordable homes.”
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