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
SECOND protest tunnel is found in London: Bailiffs find activists in secret crawl space beneath Islington tree encampment - after eco mob got help from Swampy s crew at HS2 barricade in Euston
The new burrow has been put up beneath Dixon Clark Court in Islington, north London, over tree fell plans
Highbury Corner Tree Protection Camp have been up the trees for months before bailiffs arrived today
They discovered a tunnel - just like the one at Euston - and said to have been masterminded by Swampy
12:00 EDT, 8 February 2021
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A Tory backbencher has led calls for the immediate removal of the dangerous anti-HS2 campsite in Euston, including wooden shacks which cover a 100ft tunnel network - after bailiffs first started evicting eco-warriors protesting the controversial £98billion rail project 13 days ago.
Six HS2 Rebellion activists including veteran environmental campaigner Swampy, real name Daniel Hooper, and his son Rory are occupying the tunnels dug in secret near Euston Station in Central London.
MailOnline understands that the wooden shacks cover an entrance to the tunnel network and that they will be torn down by contractors at an appropriate point in HS2 s safety-led approach . The National Eviction Team, which is leading the operation, declined to comment.
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But Swampy claimed the tunnellers have been prevented from fixing the water leaks into the tunnel in a video taken underground today.
He said: We urgently need help. We need people to really shout and get HS2 to do the right thing. They’ve made our tunnel unsafe. They’ve stopped the water control we had in place where we were catching the rainwater on the roof. They’ve taken that away and that means we’ve just been inundated with water in the tunnel. They need to help us make the tunnel safe again. We are now not getting the air supply that we need to our tunnel. We’ve got an inundation in our tunnel.
A teenager holed-up in secret tunnels below Euston Station in protest at the HS2 high-speed railway is the daughter of an eccentric millionaire who owns a Scottish island.
Blue Sandford, 18, proudly posted last night a picture of herself in the illegal underground burrow, declaring ‘I put the crime in criminal’.
The environmental campaigner is the one of the children of Roc Sandford, a wealthy landowner and publisher.
Mr Sandford, a proud supporter of her and Extinction Rebellion, recently gave two daughters Christmas presents made out of rubbish found on his Inner Hebridean isle of Gometra. The businessman, who identifies as non-binary on his website and uses the pronoun They had made the reclaimed items into art and wrapped them in old newspaper.