Construction on the HS2 tunnel from Old Oak Common station to Euston station will start “fairly soon”, the rail minister has said.
Lord Hendy of Richmond said the Government has “cracked” the problem of how to bridge the gap between the two stations with the use of two tunnel boring machines (TBMs).
His words came in response to a comment from Tory peer Lord Jackson of Peterborough, who said the minister has “a lot on his plate, not least with HS2 and how to plug the gap between Euston and Old Oak Common”.
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Lord Hendy said: “The Government is going to fund the tunnelling machines, and they will start fairly soon.”
This comes after the Government announced in the Budget last year that it would be “committing the funding required” to begin the tunnelling work.
Two new TBMs, which will build the pair of 4.5-mile tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston, were revealed in December.
The work is expected to start in 2026 and take around 18 months, with the machines operating 24 hours a day.
Lord Hendy’s comments came as peers debated the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
