Dorothea Hackman, Camden Civic Society
Published:
8:45 AM April 9, 2021
Adelaide Wood with the trees cut down for HS2
- Credit: Supplied
Sad and scary events during our pandemic lockdown – remember no mingling yet though!
The saddest for nature conservation is the destruction of the two hundred year old Adelaide Road Woodland by High Speed 2. Their 2017 Hybrid Act permits demolishing three fifths of this Site of Importance for Nature Conservation to build a vent shaft for the tunnel they will construct, but said they must regenerate the green corridor along the railway tracks afterwards from the remaining 40%.
But they have felled all 500 trees, ignoring the ecology of bats and lizards. How will they regenerate from nothing?
Dorothea Hackman, Camden Civic Society
Published:
8:45 AM March 6, 2021
HS2 protesters at Euston Station
- Credit: Dorothea Hackman
When the Euston Tree Protectors camp was established on August 28, 2020, High Speed 2 (HS2) wanted Euston Square Gardens East for their temporary taxi parking area in September.
At the HS2 tree panel we had won a reprieve for the two largest trees, in the north and east, and the House of Lords had told them to leave the trees along the south, Euston Road side, but they planned to fell the trees in the west and the middle.
Aside from hurting our community by destroying our trees and green spaces, HS2 is a terrible idea because of environmental damage all the way up the line – 108 ancient woodlands and a major aquifer and carbon emissions from construction that will take over a century to compensate. There are far more important regional railway improvements in the north to undertake, that will not saddle future generations with debt for dev
This meant defying the party whip, but she survived to continue fighting for her constituents. “Aileen and the rebels were right and I was wrong,” said Phil Turner, a member of the council’s leadership at the time. Both libraries survived.
In recent years, her belief in the vital importance of education led Aileen to initiate and run for ten years a very successful children’s competition to improve the environment on behalf of the Camden Civic Society.
At the Safer Neighbourhoods Board, she spoke against some of the more arbitrary aspects of policing in the borough and was an advocate of fairness in the application of stop and search policies.
Euston Square Gardens under HS2 eviction
- Credit: Dorothea Hackman
Our nightmare neighbour High Speed 2 is “a judge in its own cause”: Assurances of mitigations for all the damage they do to our community and up the line were given to parliament before the bill was passed in February, but HS2 are the ones to receive complaints and they brush them off. And their owner, the Department of Transport are equally dismissive. Weeks or months later the matter could go to a Commissioner, but the damage is already done.
So there is no way to hold HS2 to account over assurances. Camden Council has only just reported two possible breaches after residents have endured a year and a half of appalling demolitions, and HS2 has decided to cut down all 500 trees in the Adelaide Road Woodland – a Grade 1 site of importance for nature conservation (SINC) instead of the three hundred they told the House of Lords. And they haven’t completed the legally required tree and ecological surveys and t