High-speed rail link tenants: ‘Don’t demolish our homes’

Published: 25 March, 2010
by DAN CARRIER

TO rail planners, they appear as squares on a map – but for people living on estates near Euston they represent homes and gardens.

And now tenants in four large blocks are demanding more information following the news that the High Speed Two rail link, planned to whisk passengers from London to Birmingham and beyond in super-fast time, could carve right through their front rooms.

Proposals revealed two weeks ago show the route would mean a new line from the north end of Euston station heading west under Hampstead Road. 

While much has been made of the fact the new track will go through the Chilterns – an area of outstanding natural beauty – if the scheme gets the go-ahead, the four council-owned blocks of Ainsdale, Silverdale, Eskedale and Stourbridge House will be demolished.

Nardos Tesfazghi has lived in Ainsdale for 10 years with her three children. She said: “We know everyone here – it is a real community. This is a good place to live and our children can walk to school. 

“If we are moved, what will happen to them?”

Work on the scheme could start in 2017 and is a key plank of the government’s green policy to get people out of cars and off planes. 

And while the final route is still being firmed up by Whitehall, the current plans would also mean tunneling underneath homes in Primrose Hill.

An HS2 spokesman said no demolition would take place until everyone affected had made their views known.