HS2 - Sommerstown instead of Euston?

[matacaster]

If the terribly ugly (in my opinion) nation nal library was knocked down and relocated, why not have the old Sommerstown goods yard as the main HS2 station adjacent to st pancras and kings cross, with a through connection to HS1??

 

[The Planner]

If the terribly ugly (in my opinion) nation nal library was knocked down and relocated, why not have the old Sommerstown goods yard as the main HS2 station adjacent to st pancras and kings cross, with a through connection to HS1??

I thought the HS1 link had been discussed and debunked several times on here?

 

[HSTEd]

If the terribly ugly (in my opinion) nation nal library was knocked down and relocated, why not have the old Sommerstown goods yard as the main HS2 station adjacent to st pancras and kings cross, with a through connection to HS1??

They spent 30 years building that complex, telling them to move out and do it again is going to have significant political costs!

If the Library hadn't been built there, I would agree it would be the better location for the station, given that it would allow the creation of a single high speed rail station complex with the associated interchange opportunities.

But unfortunately, the Library was built there.

 

[waverley47]

If the terribly ugly (in my opinion) nation nal library was knocked down and relocated, why not have the old Sommerstown goods yard as the main HS2 station adjacent to st pancras and kings cross, with a through connection to HS1??

1: the site isn't long enough, so you'd need to demolish the Francis Crick Institute as well, along with some quite expensive private properties along Brill Place and towards the old church.

2: the aforementioned owners of the aforementioned buildings probably wouldn't be too happy that they were being turfed out at such a late stage

3: the previous property owners around Euston would probably be quite miffed that their demolished properties now needn't have been demolished

4: you'd need to find somewhere else in central London to build a new British Library, taking many years to build, before you could start moving the archives over and then demolish the old one

5: the plans that have been around for ages, and are currently under construction, see the new station at Euston, and changing them would be a bit of a bother

6: all of the above combined would require spending a lot more money, over probably a decade, just to get to where we are now

 

[Basil Jet]

4: you'd need to find somewhere else in central London to build a new British Library, taking many years to build, before you could start moving the archives over and then demolish the old one

The Archive is in Boston Spa, North Yorks. The St Pancras site is a reading room with a fair number of periodicals and so on.

 

[YorksLad12]

The Archive is in Boston Spa, North Yorks. The St Pancras site is a reading room with a fair number of periodicals and so on.

No. Boston Spa holds the Document Supply Centre (for Inter-Library Loans) and the newspapers that used to be at Colindale, among other things. St Pancras has collections relating to its various Reading Rooms and is like an iceberg; seven-eighths of it are below the surface.

 

[Magdalia]

If the terribly ugly (in my opinion) nation nal library was knocked down and relocated, why not have the old Sommerstown goods yard as the main HS2 station adjacent to st pancras and kings cross, with a through connection to HS1??

There is a delicious irony in this suggestion because the British Library building was the Crossrail/HS2 of its time being delivered very late and massively over budget.

It is sometimes reckoned that it was the most expensive building constructed in the UK in the 20th century.

But it is an excellent building, and I say so as a relatively frequent user. It now has a Grade 1 listing. It could be argued that it started the regeneration of the area before bringing Eurostar to St Pancras had even been thought of.