{"id":104378,"date":"2025-05-15T20:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T20:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104378\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T20:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T20:08:13","slug":"fears-birmingham-hs2-station-could-be-delayed-amid-new-2039-finish-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104378\/","title":{"rendered":"Fears Birmingham HS2 station could be delayed amid new &#8216;2039 finish date&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>High Speed 2 services are now anticipated to start in 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 apparently looking more likely<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_Curzon-Street-Station-main-entrance-at-night.jpg\" alt=\"A visualisation of Birmingham's HS2 Curzon Street Station at night\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>A visualisation of Birmingham&#8217;s HS2 Curzon Street Station at night(Image: HS2)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Work on a Birmingham HS2 station could be delayed while another might &#8216;lay idle&#8217; for ten years as the full project may not finish until as late as 2039, it has been suggested.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Construction of the Interchange station in <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/solihull\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Solihull<\/a>, where work is scheduled to commence in 2026, could be delayed as part of the setbacks, RAIL reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">It comes as it was revealed the <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/hs2\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">HS2 <\/a>services are not anticipated to start until 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 apparently looking more likely according to preliminary reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">Read more:<\/strong> <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/birmingham-house-fire-destroys-roof-31653771\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Birmingham house fire destroys roof and blocks road for hours<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The new suggested timeframe has also prompted fears <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/curzon-street-station\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Curzon Street station<\/a> in the city centre could &#8220;sit idle for ten years&#8221; or even more once it&#8217;s finished.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The under-construction Curzon Street station is set to undergo an internal fit towards the end of this year, finishing at the end of 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Operational testing is set to take place at the city station between 2026 and 2028 &#8211; over a decade before the latest estimated completion date.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_JS331395192.jpg\" alt=\"HS2 Curzon Street station in Birmingham\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/>HS2 Curzon Street station in Birmingham(Image: andrewhendry.com)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">News of the delayed date came as the estimated final cost was said to be over \u00a3100bn for the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The completion dates are the early assessments of HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild in a preliminary report to ministers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">They came shortly shortly after he took up the role last year, as reported by RAIL magazine, following Freedom of Information requests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Wild also confirmed he was undertaking a \u201cfundamental reset\u201d on the HS2 project to fully ascertain the current financial situation at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1747339693_604_0_Curzon-Street-Station-view-of-front-entrance.jpg\" alt=\"A visualisation of the proposed revised design for Curzon Street Station, the HS2 station in Birmingham. .\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/>A visualisation of the proposed revised design for Curzon Street Station, the HS2 station in Birmingham. .(Image: HS2)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Department for Transport (DfT) permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly admitted at the time that the reset is \u201cextremely complex\u201d and would \u201ctake some time\u201d as the parties involved had not yet agreed a cost estimation methodology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Earlier this year Wild confirmed that it would likely take the rest of 2025 to complete the reset and present a full picture of the current HS2 progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">He also said he would not commit to HS2 services starting in the official timeframe of 2029 to 2033, but this latest news suggests that it could be some years behind schedule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">It&#8217;s understood the estimated final cost of HS2 will be \u00a381bn in 2019 prices, equating to \u00a3100bn in today\u2019s prices, accounting for inflation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The DfT is now waiting for Wild\u2019s full report in order to take decisions on the best way to take the project to completion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High Speed 2 services are now anticipated to start in 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 apparently looking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,32623,393,4884,29350,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-104378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-curzon-street-station","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-hs2","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}