A no show from HS2 and a non-committal council

Published: 24 March, 2011

A CHAIR was set aside for an engineer or spokesman for the High Speed Two project at a public meeting but it remained empty.

Afraid of facing the flak? A double-booked diary appointment?

We are none the wiser.

No explanation was given by the authors of the venture, High Speed (HS2) Ltd.

Undoubtedly, the project appears as a safe bet in Whitehall.

But it is definitely running into the buffers in those parts of the borough where it will cause havoc.

It will firstly mean the destruction of 365 homes in Camden.  

This is probably seen as a perfectly manageable and acceptable figure by the civil servants, engineers, planners, the motley crew of politicians who are enamoured of it, and the big boys in the City who will make billions of pounds from the enterprise.

We shall assume they think of it as of being in the national interest.

It is also likely to cause havoc as it cuts it through the subterranean parts of Euston, Primrose Hill and Adelaide Road areas.

Week by week the wave of protests grow.

The last two public meetings have been packed.

A growing number of residents can see it.  

Local MP Frank Dobson opposed it from the start. 

His passionate speech on Tuesday conveyed a genuine abhorrence of the scheme.

But Labour leader  Nasim Ali, probably in the company of several colleagues, cannot make up his mind. 

He grew up in Regent’s Park estate, his family still live there, but he made it clear on Tuesday that he remains an abstainer.

It is true that, essentially, only two wards of the borough are affected by the project.

But we are at a defining moment in the history of the borough – a large part of it faces enormous disruption and damage. 

Where does the council stand?