'We Were Never Asked': Londoners Living in the Shadow of Major Rail Works Speak Out

Scaffolding has ringed the streets around Euston station for so long that some local traders cannot remember what the unobstructed pavement looked like. Now, with the government's revised HS2 delivery plan confirming a 2035 target for the first trains into a rebuilt Euston terminus, the people who have lived and worked through years of construction disruption want to know one thing: who has actually been listening to them?

The question is not abstract. Parliamentary scrutiny of HS2 Ltd's community engagement record, published in May, found that fewer than 40 percent of residents living within 200 metres of active construction zones in Camden and Islington felt they had received adequate advance notice of overnight working. Complaints to the HS2 helpline from those two boroughs alone exceeded 3,800 in the 12 months to March 2026.

A Corridor of Grievance Running South

The frustration does not end at the northern edge of the Central line. On the Old Kent Road in Southwark — one of the two proposed routes for the Bakerloo line extension — shopkeepers and residents have been living with planning blight since Transport for London first announced the scheme in 2017. Nine years of feasibility studies, funding gaps and political stalling have left landlords unable to sell, businesses reluctant to invest and a high street that is visibly fraying. TfL paused active work on the extension in 2022 when its finances collapsed during the pandemic, and the project has not recovered meaningful momentum since.

Community groups in Bermondsey and Peckham, both of which fall within the extension corridor, have repeatedly raised the issue with Southwark Council. The Elephant and Castle Traders Association has formally written to the Mayor's office twice since January asking for a clear timeline. They have received, members say, holding responses.

Sadiq Khan's office confirmed to The Daily London that revised TfL funding discussions with the Treasury are ongoing but declined to give a date for a public announcement. The Department for Transport pointed to its integrated rail plan commitments but did not address the community engagement criticism directly.

What Residents Say Consultation Actually Looks Like

Drop-in events held by HS2 Ltd at Somers Town Community Centre on Chalton Street — one of the closest residential pockets to the Euston construction site — drew fewer than 60 attendees at the most recent session in April, according to figures provided to Camden Council. Residents' groups argue this reflects the format rather than apathy: evening weekday sessions, held with little lead time, in a neighbourhood where a significant proportion of households do not have English as a first language.

The Camden Somers Town Community Forum has been pushing since 2024 for multilingual notification letters and weekend consultation slots. So far it has achieved one bilingual leaflet drop. The group's co-ordinator, speaking to this newspaper without wishing to be named, described the process as consultation in form but not in substance.

Nationally, the picture is slightly better documented. The National Infrastructure Commission's 2025 annual monitoring report noted that community satisfaction with major infrastructure engagement had risen three percentage points since 2022, reaching 54 percent — but flagged that urban projects in London and the West Midlands dragged the average down significantly.

For traders on Drummond Street, which runs parallel to the Euston site, the daily reality involves delivery lorries rerouted through a residential back-street and a 30 percent drop in footfall compared with pre-construction levels, according to a survey conducted by the Euston Area Plan Community Forum last autumn. Some units have sat empty for more than 18 months.

The next formal checkpoint arrives in October, when HS2 Ltd is required under its Development Consent Order to submit a revised Construction Traffic Management Plan covering the Euston phase through to 2028. Camden Council says it will use that submission to push for enforceable commitments on community liaison. Residents on the Old Kent Road, meanwhile, are waiting for any HS2-equivalent document at all — because for the Bakerloo extension, there is still nothing to scrutinise.