WSP staff shifted from mothballed HS2 Euston site to Old Oak Common

Part of the 650-strong design team which had been working on HS2’s stalled Euston station has been shifted to work at Old Oak Common job in west London instead.

An unspecified number of staff from consultant WSP have been sent down the road to Acton to help with the largest new railway station ever built in the UK, according to HS2.

The government announced in March that the Euston scheme would be mothballed for at least two years, putting the jobs of the 1,200-plus staff working on the scheme at risk.

Before the announcement, main contractor Mace/Dragados had around 360 people working on the job, while the design team of Grimshaw, Arup and WSP, has a further 650.

Grimshaw began consulting on redundancies almost immediately, while Arup said it would look to redeploy staff.

WSP said in a statement at the time: “We’re working closely with our client to consider any impact of [the] announcement on project resourcing.”

The National Audit Office has put the cost of the stalled scheme at £4.8bn – a rise of £2.2bn on its original budget.

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It was supposed to cost £2.6bn but is now 85% above that figure with close to £550m spent on the project up to the end of last year alone. A further £1.5bn has been spent on land purchases and preparatory works at the site.

Work on Euston has officially been delayed for two years, but there have been concerns – heightened by mixed messages from ministers – that it will never be built, with Old Oak Common serving as London’s HS2 terminus.

Levelling-up secretary Michael Gove told Channel 4 around the time of the delay announcement that there remained “a debate on whether it will be Old Oak Common or Euston”.

Speaking at a report launch at the Old Oak Common site yesterday, construction minister Nusrat Ghani told Building: “I have family in Birmingham, HS2 can’t come fast enough for us.”

While a skeleton crew of security staff remains on site at Euston, roughly 1,000 workers continue building each day at Old Oak Common, with the station box beginning to take shape.

Last month, workers completed the first base slab concrete pour at the western end of the scheme, which is being built by a Balfour Beatty, Vinci and Systra joint venture.

Work to begin building the ground level platforms, which will be used by the Elizabeth Line and Great Western Mainline services, will begin later this year.