How HS2 went from state of the art to £67bn ‘worst of all worlds’ white elephant

4 comments

1. Originally conceived in 2009 to better connect the UK’s major cities, [HS2 ](https://inews.co.uk/topic/hs2?ico=in-line_link)was viewed as more than just a rail project but a crucial part of the country’s industrial strategy to fire economic growth in the regions.

   Once the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, the state-of-the-art rail link was designed to connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds by 2026, cutting journey times and, more importantly, adding much needed volume to a network already running close to capacity.

   The project was to be delivered in phases, the first connecting central London to Birmingham; Phase 2a connecting Birmingham to Crewe and Phase 2b connecting Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to Leeds.

   However, in the intervening 15 years, the scheme became dogged by planning battles, ballooning costs and political meddling.

   Today the long-anticipated national super-scheme stands to end up as little more than a high-speed shuttle between London and Birmingham that may not even terminate in the centre of the capital. And the brand new £460m station built at the other end of the line in Birmingham will be left with most its platforms unused.

   Under the latest plans, the railway is set to actually worsen the capacity problems on the rest of a system that it was specifically designed to ease.

   And even the trains, which were contracted to be built under a £2bn deal, no longer meet the needs of the heavily clipped scheme, and will have to be redesigned at what is expected to be a significant cost to the taxpayer.

   # How did HS2 get to this point?

   HS2 had broad cross-party support, and despite being the brainchild of former Labour transport minister Lord Adonis, it was adopted by the Coalition government and given the green light by Conservative transport secretary Justine Greening in 2012.

   The original estimated cost was £32.7bn – but between 2011 and 2013, this rose to around £50bn.

   HS2 was given a budget of £55.7bn in 2015 but costs then ballooned further, with an estimate of up to £98bn – in 2019 prices – by 2020. And by the start of this year the cost of just the remaining London to Birmingham leg was said to be on course to reach £66.6bn.

   Running a new high-speed rail line through a congested and, in parts, densely populated country was always likely to throw up challenges.

   France, which has been running such a network since 1981, and Spain, which has the highest amount of high-speed track in Europe, both benefit from having large expanses of country where it is easier to run straight lines of track, which are essential to enable swifter speeds. England does not enjoy such geography, meaning the new line must run through more populated areas, throwing it up against the country’s expensive and often sclerotic planning system.

2. The argument that we can’t build high speed because we’re a densely populated country is utterly depressing when tiny Belgium has four lines capable of 300kmh running. It’s pure NIMBYism that got us into this mess. As the article says, insane amounts were spent to placate Tory MPs in the Chilterns – that’s a national scandal.

   It’s a tragedy we didn’t look across the Channel and say ‘we’ll have one of those please’ and just let French engineers loose in Cameron country. Bonus points if they could blast it through Rebecca’s Brooks’ place.

3. Get rid, invest in health care, more prisons, only serves those that commute to London and the south.

4. How much of the bloat was caused by politicians constant meddling?