Both Private Eye and the Camden New Journal are essential reading this week for anyone remotely interested for the government’s plans for the redevelopment of Euston Station and Camden Council’s position on the matter.
On page 11 of Private Eye (1378) Gavel Basher writes: “Can it really be in order for big business (using taxpayers’ money) to buy off people about to give evidence to a parliamentary committee? Apparently so.”
Gavel goes on to describe how a parliamentary committee has been set up to hear complaints from those affected by the route of HS2.
But those witnesses waiting to go into the committee room have had to run the gauntlet of HS2 representatives with their wallets open.
Apparently there have sightings of witnesses being taken to one side before “coming to financial settlements” and “then saying they did not want to appear after all”.
On page 2 of the Camden New Journal (Thursday 30 October) Tom Foot reports that anti-HS2 campaigners believe that Camden Council has “dropped its outright opposition to the £50billion project by working on a plan for Euston”.
The CNJ also prints a half-page letter signed by campaigners who say “Camden Council is now repositioning itself on HS2”.
An editorial in the CNJ asks: why is Camden Council no longer strenuously opposing HS2?