London Assembly warns of the forgotten green impact of HS2
THE PLANS to build the first leg of the High Speed 2 railway ignore many effects on Londoners’ health and well-being, the London Assembly said yesterday.
Extra noise, lost green space and air pollution kicked off with a decade of construction work should be included in the government’s cost-benefit sums, it added.
The Assembly was responding to the HS2 environmental statement, a 50,000-page paper accompanying the project’s hybrid bill. A consultation on the documents ends on Thursday.
The Assembly pointed out that HS2 is valuing the loss of green space at £54,000 per hectare across the entire route, while Camden Council has said the cost of providing replacements for Euston Square and St James’s Gardens could hit £82m.
“These costs need to be re-evaluated for the sums to add up to a realistic price tag for the construction of HS2,” said Murad Qureshi, chair of the Assembly’s environment committee.
The committee thinks HS2 is also underestimating the amount of compensation needed to make up for the impact on the city.
HS2 will link London to Birmingham and later stretch to Leeds and Manchester. New chairman Sir David Higgins will next month set out possible savings to be made in the project’s £42.6bn budget.