Any enthusiast for the High Speed Two (HS2) rail link from London to Birmingham will have been pleased by the announcement of three engineering consortiums to build the new line. It is an overdue sign that the government is committed to this controversial infrastructure project. The 119-mile line is not scheduled to open until 2026, with the spurs beyond Birmingham not carrying trains before 2033. The three companies will make a start on some of the most difficult and expensive projects, including tunnels under the Chilterns and the approaches to Birmingham and Euston.
HS2 is important because Britain’s railways are reaching capacity. Both the east and west coast main lines are now so busy that any breakdown or delay can disrupt thousands of passengers for hours. The extra routes to the north would be needed even if built only for trains running at today’s top speeds. And given the protracted HS2 timetable, it is far from clear that the present network will be able to cope with the projected passenger growth or the extra freight that the government would like to shift off roads.
One of the contracts, with Carillion, was announced only days after the company suffered a sharp fall on the stock market when it issued a profits warning. Its share price recovered somewhat on the news, and it has called in bank advisers to help to repair its balance sheet. But the insistence by Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, that the company’s difficulties would not affect its ability to carry out the contracts is not reassuring.
Even less reassuring is the continued speculation about the rising cost of HS2. From its inception, the line has been extraordinarily expensive, with a projected budget of £24.3 billion for phase one alone. Critics argue that in a time of austerity this is a waste of money needed to repair ageing parts of Britain’s infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, roads, water supplies and the rest of the rail network. They say that HS2 will benefit mainly rich business travellers and will suck even more jobs to the south.
Their arguments are falling on fertile ground at a time of rising political pressures to lift the public sector pay cap and prepare for future economic shocks. Such arguments will only be strengthened by the latest budget estimates commissioned by the Department for Transport. These foresee a doubling of the total, with HS2 eventually costing more than £400 million a mile, making it the most expensive railway in the world. The figure is absurd. It suggests that it will cost Britain seven times more a mile to build a high-speed line than France has spent on its latest TGV route, and eight times more than the equivalent in China.
Advertisement
Admittedly, Britain is densely populated. Land and houses cost more than in China. Yet all infrastructure projects are plagued by endless consultations, interminable planning disputes, lobbying to protect plants and newts and an array of lawyers and consultants who eat up some 35 per cent of costs. The government needs to get a grip. Where it should spend more — on reinstating the proposed link between HS2 and the HS1 route to the continent — it has foolishly forfeited the future. Where it needs to enforce financial discipline, it has let a high-speed project race through common sense, fiscal controls and public support. Only an entirely new approach to control costs will win back that support and give taxpayers the railway they need.