HS2 Ltd has unveiled the designs of two ‘headhouses’ that will provide access to tunnels under London and the Chiltern hills.
The Chesham Road headhouse is the last of five that will serve the ten-mile Chiltern Tunnel. HS2 says the single-storey facility, covering a 45-metre shaft down to the twin-bore tunnels, will be largely “hidden behind a hedge and line of mature oak trees”, as well as taking “inspiration from the style of nearby barns and other agricultural buildings”.
The headhouse, situated alongside the B485 road, was added to the design in 2015 when the tunnel was extended by around 11/2 miles to save woodland in Sibley’s Coppice, Farthing Wood and Mantle Wood. Work is also under way at the four other shafts, near Amersham, Chalfont St Giles, Chalfont St Peter and Little Missenden.
Meanwhile, a revised design for the Adelaide Road headhouse in Camden has been released following community feedback on the original suggestion from 2018.
Providing access to the 41/2-mile Euston Tunnel, it will now be set further back from the road. Situated on a Network Rail-owned embankment, the headhouse will appear as a double-storey structure on the railway side, but present only a single storey on the aspect facing the road.
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Alan O'Connor - 11/09/2021 18:16
HS2: More public money wasted on a hugely costly project that is now so unnecessary and has only negative economic return. It combines outdated technology with outdated planning and ignores the great advances in modern communications technology. It saves very little time and benefits very few people at an eye-watering cost. A fraction of the money being wasted on HS2 could bring enormous benefit to the entire railway network, particularly in the economically and socially deprived northern half of England.