The hole near Euston created by ‘paused’ HS2 works

SIR Keir Starmer has called for the government to make a final decision on whether the HS2 railway will ever reach Camden.

The Labour leader told the New Journal the latest confusion over the future of the mothballed multi billion pound Euston stretch of the line was an “insult” to his constituents.

He was speaking following uncontested reports in The Times that prime minster Rishi Sunak has “made up his mind” to terminate the line from Birmingham at Old Oak Common in west London, instead of Euston.

It was the latest “leaked story” in a long sequence over the years of public reaction-testing reports on prime ministers considering axing elements of HS2.

Sir Keir Starmer has called for clarity on HS2

Sir Keir said: “Residents have endured years of demolition, noise and dust for HS2. Many have lost their homes and successful businesses have been forced to close.  Instead of speculation and leaks to the press from a broken government, my constituents need certainty now about what is going to happen to their community.”

He added: “This latest speculation about where in London HS2 will stop is a further insult to the people of Holborn and St Pancras.”

The HS2 railway project has left a gaping hole in the heart of the Labour leader’s constituency with thousands of residents affected by years of demolitions and construction works that are not expected to be competed until the 2040s.

Hundreds of residents have had to leave their homes, businesses have been forced out, trade in some streets has been decimated, a secondary school has been uprooted, public gardens bulldozed, dozens of mature trees cut down, and thousands of bodies exhumed from a burial site.

The residents who remain are facing 25 years living cheek by jowl to noise, pollution and churn of massive lorries in and out of one of Europe’s largest construction sites.

Mr Starmer did not elaborate on whether he would support HS2 terminating at Old Oak Common.

But in March this year he called on his opponents in government to “get on” with building HS2 “in full”.

He was an outspoken opponent of the scheme in the House of Commons before becoming leader of the Labour Party.

The Department for Transport “paused” construction in Euston earlier this year while another cost-cutting review was launched into the Camden section of the line.

Axing the stretch of the line between Camden and Old Oak Common would save around £5billion from the total cost, thought to be at least £108billion.

Former Labour leader MP Jeremy Corbyn told a debate in the House of Commons on Monday that the HS2 shambles was an example of a “very bad national planning process” and that if the Camden section was scrapped “all the pain and disruption around Euston will have been for nought”.

Meanwhile, on social media, Lord Adonis, the Baron of Camden Town, the unelected adviser who came up with the idea for HS2 in the first place – back in 2009 – said it would be “utterly stupid and false economy” to not build the railway in full.

Council chiefs have called on the government not to abandon the Camden leg of the project, with businesses around Drummond Street left operating next to a ghostly construction site.