EHS0063/EAC/14-15

Pan-Camden HS2 Alliance—Written evidence

INTRODUCTION

1. The Pan-Camden HS2 Action Alliance is a grouping of local associations and residents in the London Borough of Camden that has been studying the HS2 project since publication of the first detailed proposals in March 2010.  Membership is also open to people who commute into the Borough.

2. It has submitted evidence and taken part in consultations since then, organised public meetings and met many times with Camden Council, members of the Greater London Authority (GLA) Transport for London (TfL) and others including academics, primarily at University College London.   It has carried out studies in relation to Old Oak Common, Euston Station, and services on the southern section of the West Coast Main Line (WCML). It is assisting in a study of community impacts, in respect of which others are making a submission.  It is a Community Representative on the Euston Station Working Group set up under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Lister, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor, Policy and Planning in the GLA.

3. The group is not in principle opposed to high-speed railways, and has made constructive proposals for the improvement of public transport infrastructure and widening its market share.  However it is opposed to the way in which HS2 has been designed and developed in Phase One: seemingly in single-minded worship of a God of Speed without regard to the primacy of wider economic, environmental, social or equitable considerations and heedless of the contradictions within such an approach.  Arguably Camden’s residents and businesses will suffer by far the most important and serious adverse impacts of HS2.

IS THERE AN ECONOMIC CASE FOR HS2?

4. The economic justification for HS2 has been changed on several occasions and that the component parts of the project have been aggregated so as to make an outsider’s evaluation very difficult.   In our opinion (shared by the London Borough of Camden and others) important pieces of work undertaken by HS2 Limited (or its consultants) in support of its case are less detailed than work done for other infrastructure projects, more superficial, often inaccurate, and generally not fit for purpose.  By extension, there are likely to be deficiencies in the economic analysis too.

5. It would be usual to compare a transport project of any significant size with alternative schemes, including non-rail schemes. The Economic Case includes what purports to be such an analysis, but in such an aggregated, partial and inappropriate form that it is difficult to arrive at a reasoned opinion.

6. This is not to say that the whole of the HS2 project should be damned.  Undoubtedly large parts of the proposal are worthy of study and possibly implementation: but it would be remarkable if all elements of the wider project were of equal benefit.  We note how the step changes in connectivity take place within Midlands and North and only to a lesser extent with London.
7. HS2 is in fact a “mega project”. We do not therefore accept the premise that the wider project cannot be divided into component parts that could be implemented in isolation or on different timescales depending on how circumstances change. Most elements of the wider project are not dependent on HS2 but are complementary projects that may be viable on a standalone basis without the intervention of HS2.  Successful mega projects tend to evolve through consultation, engagement and discussion (reference: Professor Harry Dimitriou, OMEGA Project, University College London). It concerns us that these elements are missing from HS2.

8. We are struck by the dependence on “soft” justifications, by the lack of disaggregated information available, the near total absence of any data on demand as opposed to capacity, by the heavy reliance on percentages in the presentations: these are warning signs.

9. We have always urged that a project of this size and claimed importance should be subject to scrutiny and testing in a properly independent and public inquiry. We are increasingly dismayed by the extent of potential patronage that could be exercised by HS2, the Department for Transport and by other bodies.  We believe this is damaging and corrosive to our democracy.

SHOULD THE STRATEGIC CASE FOR HS2 PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER 2013 HAVE TAKEN ACCOUNT OF ANY OTHER FACTORS?

10. The Strategic Case is silent on the community impacts: in the main these are adverse impacts of the construction and operation of the railway on the host communities.  A study carried out on behalf of Camden Council highlighted costs in excess of £1bn to the Borough and its businesses.  One of the local Euston communities is conducting its own quantitative exercise, with assistance from professionals, to try and establish the scale of the impacts, and we understand that evidence will be submitted by it to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee's inquiry.

11. We consider that the strategic case should take more account of the time effects on benefits and costs.  In our view, this is a serious deficiency that could lead to the omission or misstatement of risks and costs inherent in the project and its component parts.   For example, a claim is made that on completion of HS2, 16 freight train paths a day will become available on the WCML taking a large number of lorries off the roads.  By contrast to build HS2 around three times that number of lorries is likely to be required in the construction of the Level Deck scheme at Euston for at least ten years.  There are long-established protocols that can be used to inform such an analysis.
     
12. We find no analysis of the effects on road users from construction traffic and closures.  We accept that the Environmental Statement presents a “worst case” situation” but that does not preclude an assessment of the road network effects under different scenarios.

13. We are concerned that Section 47 of the Hybrid Bill provides for extraordinarily wide ranging powers of land acquisition in connection with development opportunities.  We consider these to be excessive and unjust.   Exercise of these powers could inflate the apparent economic benefits of HS2, as its costs would be depressed by expropriation without adequate compensation.

14. Similarly, realisation of the economic benefits claimed will impose health and other costs on some of the poorest sections of society (particularly around Euston) and these costs should be accounted for properly.

15. Nowhere in the Strategic Case do we get a sense of the value added by any part of the proposals.  For example, the regeneration / redevelopment proposals ought to be capable of being backed up by a study establishing a range of the value added to properties during and following the development of a major transport hub, or a major station refurbishment or reconstruction.

16. We note that there are parts of the “Strategic Case for HS2” which are now out of date, following the Higgins Report of March 2013.

WHAT ARE THE LIKELY ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF HS2…DO THEY ALSO DEPEND ON COMPLEMENTARY ACTION BY GOVERNMENTS…?

17. Our review of a substantial amount of European academic literature on this subject leads us to the conclusion that success, or otherwise, is by no means given and is dependent on a number of non-railway factors, but that the outcomes are often unclear and certainly not easy to measure.  Success is therefore likely to require a wide range of stimuli.

18. It has long been known that there is an extremely important link between the demand for passenger transportation and migration (whether that be internal or external).  Indeed the Call for Evidence for this Inquiry implies that this topic is of interest when it asks about measures to attract investment and skilled workers.  It is also evident that the official forecasts for population growth, on which HS2’s forecasts depend, imply a continuing high level of migration.   The case for HS2 should therefore reflect current government commitments and forecasts with regard to migration.

19. The lead-time for upgrading the skills and widening the aspirations of the indigenous population in a large tract of the country is likely to be long, and the intervening shortfall can only be met by migration.  Issues that would need to be addressed might include how younger people who have moved from the North to London to study, qualify or work, might be induced to return to the North, and how the North can be made to attract and retain the cosmopolitan young whose contribution to the economy of London has been so significant in recent years.   

MIGHT SOME PARTS OF THE UK SUFFER ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE FROM HS2?

IS LONDON LIKELY TO BE A MAIN ECONOMIC BENEFICIARY OF HS2?

20. London’s status as a long-established world city gives it a unique pull that increases the chances that the completed HS2 will become a London-centric project.  The rate of employment growth in London is forecast to be higher than in the rest of the country, similarly the rate of increase in earnings (and thus disposable income).   London’s lower dependence on car usage compared with the rest of the country makes it likely that Londoners will be more inclined to use HS2 - and thus receive the journey time benefits.

21. The construction of HS2 will require some investment in transport infrastructure within London:  a new interchange at Euston, the diversion of most London Midland outer-suburban services onto Crossrail One, and possibly the Crossrail Two project.

22. The case for Crossrail Two is likely to be enhanced by second-order effects of HS2, such as the modest increase in commuter capacity into St Pancras and Kings Cross, and by the development needed to make the Level Deck station work financially – because Level Deck will not be populated by rail commuters into Euston.
     
23. The spend within the Greater London area could be of the order of half the total project cost, and we suggest this may be a reasonable proxy for the spread of benefits.

24. During the past two decades, some of the highest levels of social deprivation in the country have been found in Inner London.  There is evidence of emerging problems in the outer suburbs and their town centres. The HS2 project does not appear to offer anything that might help residents in London’s problem areas - indeed, diverting resources to fund the infrastructure required to make HS2 work, will probably have the opposite effect.   It does nothing for South London, for example, though with imagination it could.

25. For example, in recent years there have been studies of two options for making use of the unallocated capacity at the western end of Crossrail One. The first, Option K1, proposes the diversion of Hemel Hempstead/Tring - Euston services to Crossrail.  The second, Option K2, proposes the remodelling of the Bakerloo and Euston-Watford services and the diversion of the services on the outer section to Crossrail.
     
26. K1 gives a greater degree of flexibility during the reconstruction of Euston, which is, presumably, why it is being developed in preference to K2.  Both options are likely to have significant non-railway effects; both are attractive schemes in different ways.   We fear that the choice between K1 and K2 is being influenced by short-term railway operating expediency rather than the broader planning and economic issues (which should determine the choice).

27. The emphasis on freeing up capacity for longer-distance commuters risks contributing to a hollowing-out of London as London workers move out to, or are replaced by, long-distance commuters.  However the nature of the journey-to-work in London is also changing, as we discuss later.    Depending on how the proposed major developments at Old Oak and Euston evolve, it is possible that the economic benefits will be greater in the southeast of England rather than within London.

28. The worst of the disruption will be experienced in Camden. Camden is not simply an Inner London borough. As the centre of the legal profession, a vital medical, academic and creative hub and a significant part of London’s Central Activities Zone (CAZ) it is of exceptional economic importance to the country. Camden accounts for about 1% of UK GDP (including a significant part attributable to creativity research and innovation).  The number of employment opportunities within its boundaries is put at 361,000 in 2013, not far short of the City of London at 435,000.  Capturing benefits for Camden (and thus the Nation) has not featured in the HS2 case.  

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ECONOMIC CASE - VALUE ENGINEERING ON THE EUSTON - OLD OAK COMMON SECTION

29. The very short (9.1 km) Euston-Old Oak section of HS2 represents around one quarter of the projected cost of the project.  It is largely in tunnel (7.5km) and will be the lightest-loaded section in Phase One (TfL forecast only 60% of passengers will stay on trains into Euston). It will be the most intensive in terms of power consumption by reason of the acceleration demands in a tunnelled section.   It is therefore a prime candidate for value engineering.

30. The design speeds initially adopted for HS2 are unusually high for a densely populated country with comparatively short distances between major centres of population.  The fixation with speed may explain the rejection of the M1 and M40 corridors for Phase One, but within the chosen corridor the proposed alignment makes quite extensive use of legacy railway infrastructure and where this is the case, the choice of design speed generally has little effect on the choice of alignment.

31. However over the new section of route between Euston and Old Oak Common, speed has dictated the alignment to an extent unjustified by the business case. Indeed because of the short distances the chosen speed parameter is actually irrelevant and almost certainly damaging: HS2 has designed its railway to such a standard that trains leaving the tunnel portal (about 1½ km north of Euston) could theoretically travel at 180kph.  It takes about 3km to bring a high-speed train to a stop from that speed which could make the gardens of Grays Inn a candidate for a terminus!

32. It also raises the issue of the viability of the Euston-Old Oak section: at broadly one quarter of the project’s financial cost and quite possibly the greater part of the economic, social and community costs, clearly this section of the overall route cannot generate anything like a similar proportion of benefit.  Similarly the distribution of passengers within Greater London has not been properly addressed.

33. Alternative means of accessing Euston have been proposed (notably by Lord Berkeley). We urge that an independent body should carefully and dispassionately examine such alternative options along with the case for not building a link into Euston (but rather having the main London hub at Old Oak Common). 
    
    
    
    

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ECONOMIC CASE - CAPACITY AT EUSTON AND ON THE WEST COAST MAIN LINE SOUTH OF MILTON KEYNES

34. We have studied the claims of Network Rail (NR) regarding the number of trains that could be operated on the fast lines at peak times.  This was because we wished to understand NR’s claims about the scale of the disruption that would be caused during the reconstruction of Euston, particularly in relation to alternative station schemes.

35. We established that reconfiguration of the timetable on the southern part of the WCML could mean that fewer platforms would be required, and reliability could be improved by reducing conflicts within the station throat during the reconstruction period.

36. We also found that by making all main line services (Pendolino and Super Voyager) operate to the same timings it should be possible to provide a better spacing of the peak period fast services to Milton Keynes and indeed there was room for an additional fast service.  As many of these services already operate de facto at these slightly slower timings, the effect is small and largely offset as the retiming removes the need for most “pathing” allowances.   There is therefore some scope for longer-distance commuter service improvements within existing peak period constraints. 

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ECONOMIC CASE - EUSTON STATION COMMUTER DEMAND

37. The Strategic Case for HS2 devotes several pages to the capacity for commuter trains (that is to say peak period services) but offers no data relating to demand.  Nevertheless we have been able to produce a fairly coarse analysis of passenger usage based on other information provided elsewhere.  There are however fluctuations between years that concern us, as they are both material and out of line with fluctuations for London as a whole. We recommend that if the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee wishes to explore the commuting issues further then it should seek better data analysed by service group and covering a reasonably long time series. It could also seek more authoritative data in respect of the outer zone beyond Tring, for this is where the growth has occurred.
     
38. Our impression is that the Euston - Tring - Northampton corridor has yielded significantly fewer commuters in the past 40 years than might have been expected given the growth in employment in the London CAZ and the growth in the corridor’s population, particularly the outer end. We concentrate on the CAZ because that is where the great bulk of rail commuters work.  This table of the changes in London CAZ jobs over time is relevant:
     

39. The table demonstrates that the Euston - Tring - Northampton corridor is not, and is most unlikely ever to become, a significant supplier of labour to fill the 1.8 million CAZ jobs.  Even on our upper-bound figures, it meets around 13,000, or less than 1%, of the need.   On a more restricted view, the corridor is of minor importance to the economy of Camden, with probably 3,000 to 4,000 commuters working in a borough with 360,000 jobs.
      
40. There is some evidence, particularly since the 2008 crash, that suggests the old model of << living “in the country” and commuting to the centre >> is breaking down as it no longer meets the needs of a younger, more international, central London labour force. This better educated and more innovative London labour force is engaged in a more diverse range of occupations than in the past. It works longer hours, is less concerned about having a large living space, commutes at less predictable and convenient hours, is not oriented to car use and often wants to live in edgy areas.
     
41. Areas like Bermondsey are no longer places in which polluting industries are concentrated, younger people can, and want to, live there, on the edge of the centre, rather than the more staid suburbs and the exurbs.
     
42. The proposition of Option K1 to divert most of the Euston - to - Tring services onto Crossrail 1 is likely to make a significant difference within the corridor.  There will be a step improvement in the journey times to an enormous swathe of London’s CAZ.  It is estimated that around 75% of users will receive a significant benefit, and our own work supports this.In consequence of this step change, we suggest it is entirely possible that there will be an increase of up to 50% in ridership on these trains, which would be consistent with the trip generation experienced when the St Pancras services were diverted to provide a through service to the City.  The lesson here may be that if the Euston - Northampton corridor is to play a rôle in supplying London’s labour market then it needs to link into a Thameslink-type service.  Current investment in Thameslink and Crossrail One (and possible investment in Crossrail Two) is likely to further marginalise Euston’s main line commuter services.

HOW MIGHT THE EXPECTED BENEFITS OF HS2 TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMY BE REALISED?

No comment.

HOW SHOULD HS2 BE OPERATED…?

No comment.

SHOULD TRAVELLERS EXPECT TO PAY HIGHER FARES ON HS2 THAN ON OTHER LINES?

No comment.

DOES THE PROSPECT OF HS3 AFFECT THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR HS2?

No comment.

September 2014