Member Article

HS2: Green light for Camden replacement homes

As dozens of council tenants and leaseholders are set to lose their homes to High Speed 2 (HS2), Camden Council has granted planning permission for its replacement homes scheme.

Camden Council’s Development Control Committee approved the application submitted by the Council’s Housing Department for replacement housing on Thursday, subject to conditions, which will see 90 replacement homes, 16 affordable homes and ten private homes built across eight sites on Regent’s Park Estate.

Camden Council secured funding from HS2 Ltd. in a legal agreement in March 2015, following months of negotiation, to build replacement homes for Council tenants losing their flats to HS2. This agreement also allows the Council to build enough new homes to offer resident leaseholders the opportunity to remain in the area.

HS2 Ltd. had previously agreed to pay Camden Council for 70 flats in the new Stanhope and Winchester apartments on Stanhope Street. These flats, with the flats given planning permission on Thursday, will together provide the replacement housing for tenants, needed as a result of HS2.

Leader of Camden Council, Councillor Sarah Hayward, said: “We’re determined that HS2 should not break our strong communities in Camden – and building these new homes will ensure our tenants and leaseholders can remain in the area that means so much to them.

“70% of tenants losing their homes told us in consultation that they want to stay in the local area. Residents losing their homes should only have to move once so we plan to have the new homes ready for residents to move into before HS2 construction starts.

“HS2 will subject Camden to over a decade of disruption and we’re gravely concerned that many more Camden homes will be left uninhabitable. HS2 Ltd. must guarantee they will address the combined impacts of construction and the long-term effects that noise, dust and vibration will have on our residents’ lives.”

HS2 is a planned high-speed railway which will link London and Birmingham, with future plans for extension into the North West and Yorkshire. The £42bn project is set to begin in 2017, with a proposed opening date of 2026.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .