Impact of HS2 on ground floor property in London

[Radikal]

We are at advanced stage of buying a property and the solicitor searches have revealed that the HS2 train line tunnel is just 35-45 m away from the property.

Does anyone have first hand experience of living relatively close to the many underground tunnels in London? Ideally less than 50 meters from the ground level of the house to the track.

Our worry is whether the HS2 line tunnels in London impact properties that are this close to the planned route, both during construction and then ongoing runs (whenever that happens!). Of course, the answer is "it depends"! But we are looking for any first-hand experiences in terms of noise, vibrations, subsidence etc. when an underground train line is running close-by.

Note: Image for representation purpose only.

Are you a reporter/interest group? Haha

We live next to a tube station and the track runs underneath our house. I'm not sure if the exact depth but it's only one average escalator down so can't be very deep. If it's quiet and we're not doing anything, you an sometimes feel the trains going under the house but it's pretty minimal. We only bought about 6 months ago and there was nothing flagged up in the survey. We don't have a basement but a lot of houses on our road do and it hasn't been a problem at all. I don't know if it makes a difference but our house is 1860s so predates the tunnel/tube.

I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors for a residential building (110 flats) & grounds that Crossrail runs 30 metres underneath. There has been some damage/subsidence to our drainage caused by building site vehicles (so not by the actual tunneling) and we negotiated some compensation from Crossrail (this didn't cover the full amount of damage and has been a very nasty process but we couldn't afford to go further down the legal route so had to settle for their low offer).

The other issue was the dirt and mess and noise from the building works that went on for many years.

If you can avoid it, I wouldn't go down this route. It was over a decade of hell.

Thanks for sharing! This is good to know!

Thanks for sharing! This is good to know!

Well, there is indeed construction above the ground but it's on a nearby road. This is to build the ventilation shaft and "head house" and it appears the trucks/lorries etc. are using the other road. We can double check this.

Didn't realise that back and forth of building site vehicles can cause damage to the drainage system. Can you share the nature of the damage?

Thanks for highlighting these.

From what we could read up on HS2, the soil dug up for the tunnel will be transported out via some sort of conveyor system. I wonder (hope!) if this implies that they won't rely on lorries to transport the dug up soil or whatever else is needed for constructing the tunnels.

You can find out how deep the tunnels will be from HS2, ie the Hillingdon tunnels will be at depths of between 12m and 40m.

https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/tunnels/tunnel-drives/northolt-tunnel/

There are downloads with more info.

Thank you for including a picture of a tunnel 😭😭😭 I have no idea about HS2 tunnels but do come back to MN with any parking problems as I expect you will provide the best diagrams ever. This thread has made my day!!

Thanks! The HS2 helpdesk has indeed shared the distance of the property to the tunnel, specifically the centre of the left hand track or the "down" line :) PS: the right track will be closer to the property!

Hence, we are checking the experience of people who live at a distance of 35-45 m or lesser from a tunnel in London. Agreed, hopefully HS2 should be more advanced from an engineering perspective.

I would expect the depth of the tunnel and the local ground conditions would have as great an impact as lateral distance if you don’t have surface construction operations nearby.

Also, if you know that the tunnels are on average 8.8 m in diameter and have a separation of 20 m centre line to centre line then you can work out how close the nearest tunnel will be to the property.

Yep, on it, thanks!

FYI only for others - attaching an image from one of the HS2 documents on how much sub soil they obtain for "tunnelling and protective works". Overall they take an area which is 40 m wide and 20 m deep.

Just curious what you decided?