HS2 costs soar

Britain’s railway network is short on capacity overall and it lacks the high speed lines which other countries have built. The latest chapter in the ongoing HS2 saga doesn’t give much hope there’s yet a clear path for the future.

In October 2024, the incoming Labour government asked infrastructure consultant James Stewart to look at the HS2 project. His brief was to report on why costs were spiralling out of control and to recommend changes to address the shortcomings of the project.

His review tells us what more or less what we already knew from previous work. Stewart has “revealed” that the spiralling costs of constructing HS2 are largely down to politicians and poor political oversight.

Grandiose

The grandiose visions of Labour politicians who began the project and the constantly changing political decision making under the Conservatives both contributed. And Stewart points out that HS2 started by ignoring best practice on delivering major infrastructure projects. It started to go wrong almost from the start.

‘It would have been wise to use tried and tested designs.’

HS2 has always been about adding much-needed additional capacity to the existing railway network. There was experience of building Britain’s first high speed railway from London to the Channel Tunnel (HS1). This suggested that would have been wise to build the new railway largely based upon tried and tested designs and systems.

But the Labour ministers who initiated the construction of HS2 nearly twenty years ago decided that they wanted the best and fastest railway in the world. As a result, the costs of constructing HS2 are many times greater than those of HS1.

The government says it will accept Stewart’s recommendations. But that does nothing to address the wider needs of the rail network which HS2 was meant to resolve, now more urgent after all this time.

No remedy

The tragedy is that much needed capacity provided by the remaining part of the new line will arrive many years after the West Coast Main Line is full to bursting. The cancellation of the legs to Manchester and Leeds also means that the Midland and East Coast routes will also soon be full – with no hope of any remedy yet in sight.

RMT and other rail unions have opposed reducing the scope of HS2 project. They believe that course means that few of the potential intended (and necessary) benefits will be realised.