Savills Executive Director, David Williams FRICS, discusses the dramatic economic uplifts London could expect with the delivery of increased rail capacity around St Pancras.

HS1’s announcement last year proposing to increase passenger capacity to 30 million over the next five years from 19 million today, is a great catalyst for thinking about the 20-year plan for rail around St Pancras and Euston. Reinforced by The Chancellor’s confirmation of HS2’s arrival and operation at Euston in circa 2038, we went on to imagining what if the Holy Trinity were to be completed with the delivery of Crossrail 2 – It begs the question what if the much anticipated trio of HS1, Cross Rail 2 (CR2) and HS2 were all in operation by 2045?

·       London St Pancras International¹ 36.1million 

·       Euston²,⁴: 69.1million 

·       Kings Cross³: 24.5million 

·       Kings Cross St Pancras⁴: 72.1million
Total 201.8m passengers per annum

With over 200 million passengers per annum, all four stations already provide the greatest proliferation of adjacent rail travel of anywhere in Europe; with London St Pancras International, seemingly acting as the fulcrum/core location. 

Map prepared by Savills showing today’s stations

Now to consider the trajectory for increasing passenger numbers over the next 20 years as well as how it might be achieved. HS1’s expansion by circa 2030 and HS2’s arrival eight years later are well documented, with HS1 providing another 12million⁵ and HS2 an estimated 85million passengers⁶, taking the total to circa 300million passengers per annum by 2038 – a 33% increase over the next 13 years. 

Our examination of employment forecasts for central London suggest that the passenger numbers above are more about capacity than actual demand, but it is fair to conclude that often demand tends to grow once new capacity is delivered. Even on a relatively conservative basis we expect that there will be 15% more people working in central London in 2035 than today, and this ignores an expansion in leisure travel.

This mass collection of rail hubs will be the fulcrum for sustainable travel in the UK.  What’s more, the likely radial economic effects this station ensemble will have in terms of encouraging best in class development for employment, sharpening investment yields, providing significant long term rental growth and delivering all forms of new housing is arguably only going to become more pronounced over the next decade. As a result, the Knowledge Quarter is likely to be the most accessible, sustainable and important knowledge cluster in the country. 

With Crossrail 2’s* potential arrival at the new station hub to be built, Euston St Pancras would represent a further seismic infrastructure delivery for the capital – particularly as The Elizabeth Line continues to have a radial impact on values station by station – increasing the opportunities for sustainable commercial densification and generating radial economic growth. It is already carrying 210million passengers as at 2023/2024, more than expected by 2030.  For the purposes of this analysis we have imagined that Crossrail 2 opens in 2045 and has say 170 million passengers a year – 20% less than Elizabeth Line today. 

Map prepared by Savills showing the new Euston St Pancras Crossrail 2 Station (accessed from London St Pancras International and Eversholt Street* Euston). * as well as Euston Tube station and Grafton Place

Across these five stations total passenger numbers are estimated below for 2045.  These figures don’t include uplift for either King’s Cross St Pancras or King’s Cross.

·       London St Pancras International¹ 47.1million

·       Euston²,⁴ : 154.1million

·       Kings Cross³: 24.5million

·       Kings Cross St Pancras⁴: 72.1million
·       Euston St Pancras⁶: 170million prediction
Total 467.8m passengers per annum

Combined, this analysis shows that close to half a billion passengers a year are set to pass through this assembly of St Pancras stations by the mid 2040’s.  This is a total unmatched anywhere else in the world, with the exception of Tokyo, and represents at least a 120% uplift on today’s passenger numbers.

While it is hard to imagine the reality of these five directly interconnected stations all operating interdependently today, there is little doubt that incrementally they will each be increasing their operating capacities significantly over the next 20 years. In our view this will have a profound impetus in bringing forward a new generation of world-leading mixed use developments across the Knowledge Quarter, potentially realigning London’s core. The 33 landowning institutions surrounding this mighty mass of projected infrastructure can take considerable heart in the material rental growth that awaits.

* To highlight the potential earlier progression of CR2’s delivery of Euston St Pancras station, our clients Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan have obtained planning consent and signed the Section 106 agreement for the British Library Extension (BLE), a scheme of an equivalent scale to The Francis Crick Institute at over 1,040,000 sq ft GIA. The project will deliver CR2 infrastructure enabling works beneath their scheme.

For reference, Crossrail 2’s new Euston St Pancras station will provide a direct subterranean access to St Pancras International station at basement level under the BLE site.

References:

¹ Railway Data – Total LSPI Passenger Number ; MediaCentre Eurostar – HS1 Passenger Number ; HS1 – Projected Passenger Number Increase by 2030

² Data Portal – Mainline Euston Passenger Number ; TFL – Euston Underground and Overground Passenger Number

³ Railway Data – King’s Cross Mainline Passenger Number

⁴ Wikipedia – King’s Cross St Pancras Tube passenger numbers

⁵ Wikipedia – Predicted HS2 passenger numbers

⁶ Data Portal – Annual passenger numbers for Cross Rail 1, which have discounted by 20% to give a conservative estimate for CR2

Enquiries to Victoria Buchanan Savills vbuchanan@savills.com Head of Group, UK and EMEA PR and Comms - UK Board Director