- CANCELLING EUSTON WOULD BE COMPLETE FOLLY
- OLD OAK COMMON DOES NOT HAVE PLATFORM CAPACITY TO BE LONDON TERMINUS
- EUSTON TERMINUS ESSENTIAL TO ALLOW MANCHESTER SERVICES TO OPERATE
An industry response to the speculation about the potential cancellation of the Euston terminus of HS2, suggesting that the station at Old Oak Common could instead be the London terminus:
Cancelling Euston would be the height of folly. The construction site is already very well progressed. Works have been underway there for 5 years and already hundreds of millions have been spent.
Old Oak Common station has nowhere near enough platforms to serve as the London terminus. Indeed, if it was, there would only be enough capacity to allow London-Birmingham shuttle services on HS2. In very simple terms, if Old Oak Common is the terminus, you cannot have HS2 services reaching Manchester. If you cut off Euston, you also cut off Manchester and the rest of the north.
Finally, if the suggestion is to merely delay the opening of Euston, then it is true that you may save some money in the very short term. But by delaying works, allowing more construction inflation to creep in, you will actually add to the overall cost. It would be a total false economy.
We need to take a long term view and build HS2 in full.