Implications go wider

Published: 31 March, 2011

• MAY I correct a remark in your editorial (A no show from HS2 and a non-committal council, March 24)?

You write that “…essentially, only two wards in the borough are affected by the project”.

That’s not quite right. So far, the Kilburn ward has not made its voice heard but I can tell you it is as concerned as everyone else.

The projected HS2 tunnels would run right through the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate, for its entire length. 

Any subsidence or collapse would cause serious structural damage to this Grade II* listed estate. 

It is known that the “New Austrian Tunnelling System” (the method that would be used for HS2) is inherently unstable and that somewhere in the world, at least one collapse happens every year. 

In the UK readers may remember two serious previous collapses, one in Stratford when the high-speed line to France was being tunnelled (a giant hole appeared and had to be filled with concrete) and the other at Heathrow Airport, when the Heathrow Express was being tunnelled (the ground collapsed and an entire building was swallowed up).

I think you will find that the opposition to HS2 is as strenuous in the Kilburn ward as it is in Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW8