The Camden Highline, a project intended to transform a disused railway line into a public park, has been scrapped.
Organisers have paused development “with immediate effect”, citing high costs, the energy crisis, and a “challenging fundraising environment”.
The project, which was conceived almost a decade ago as London’s answer to New York’s High Line, was intended to stretch for almost a mile of elevated track from Camden to King’s Cross, featuring a wildlife walk and landscaping to encourage walking and cycling.
In a statement, organisers said: “The team was built around the ambition to transform a disused railway viaduct into a new local park, garden walk and wildlife corridor. However, over the last five years, the UK has experienced a series of sustained economic shocks, with construction costs in particular rising well above general inflation.
“Until now, these pressures have been factored into the project’s modelling, but the emerging 2026 energy shock represents a further step change.”
The statement cited rising living costs, higher operating costs and increased pressure on charities, public bodies and other partners, which have reduced the capacity available for discretionary capital projects.
“Taken together, rising costs and reduced funding capacity mean the project is not currently viable in the present economic climate,” it read.
The New York High Line, which opened in 2009, has been credited with revitalising post-industrial neighbourhoods on Manhattan’s west side, and has become an attraction in its own right, being used by millions of tourists and locals each year.
The Camden Highline was first proposed in 2015 by University College London geographer Oliver O’Brien, with plans including walkways, viewing platforms, and wildflower gardens to attract butterflies, bees and birds, at an estimated cost of £35 million.
A crowdfunding campaign launched in 2017 raised £64,000 from 314 donations, including from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
A planning application for the first section of the project was then approved in January 2023 at an estimated cost of £14 million, with construction originally set to begin late last year with an anticipated opening in early 2027.
Simon Pitkeathley, the group’s chief executive, said: “To the thousands of people who joined our walking tours, the hundreds who supported our planning application, the 1,200 donors, the 530 schoolchildren who took part in our workshops and the many members of our team and volunteer squad over the past decade, we are truly grateful and deeply sorry.
“Despite your support, and the outstanding advice and commitment of experts across many fields, this extraordinarily ambitious challenge has, for now, proved a stretch too far.
“Green infrastructure in cities matters. Finding space for it is rare. And battling through the treacle to make projects like this happen is difficult, lengthy, and expensive. Which is why today’s announcement is so painful to make.”
Richard Terry, the chair of the Camden Highline trustees, said: “The work is not lost. The planning, creativity and imagination that brought the Camden Highline this far will be carefully preserved by the trustees, so that whether it is us or others who one day pick up the mantle again, the project’s achievements can be carried forward for the future.
“It is, in that sense, a time capsule: a record of what has been imagined, designed and built in partnership with the community, waiting to be reawakened when the time and conditions are right once more.”
A similar project in Peckham, known as the Peckham Coal Line was cancelled in 2022 after eight years of planning.
Aiming to “reconnect Peckham’s neighbourhoods” with a park linking Queens Road Peckham and Rye Lane built on disused railway coal sidings, the project was paused in December 2022 after a “process of evaluation and reflection” which led the trustees to step down.
