Latest news with #highspeedrail
The Independent
a day ago
- Business
- The Independent
HS2 may make key change to save money
The HS2 project is now expected to open after 2033, with the London to Birmingham section delayed beyond its target opening date. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander criticised the project's management as a "litany of failure," citing £37 billion in cost increases due to constant scope changes and ineffective contracts. HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild indicated that the high-speed rail line might open at "reduced running speeds," potentially 200 mph, to cut spiralling costs and reduce further delays. Wild proposed a "staged approach" to simplify the initial railway, aiming to reduce risk, improve reliability, and provide more certainty around costs and opening dates. The Prime Minister has tasked the cabinet secretary with investigating the roles of civil servants and public bodies in the project's significant delays and cost overruns.
The Independent
a day ago
- Business
- The Independent
HS2 trains could run slower than expected to cut spiralling costs
HS2 trains could now run slower than initially expected when the rail line eventually opens to cut spiralling costs. Mark Wild, chief executive of the government-owned HS2 Ltd, said the flagship high-speed rail project, which is now predicted to cost £100 billion, could open at 'reduced running speeds' to save money. He said 'there is a need to simplify the day-one railway' in order to reduce further delays and ballooning costs after it was revealed the remaining London to Birmingham stretch of the rail line will be delayed beyond its target opening date of 2033. It comes after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander decried the management of the project under the previous Tory government, which she said had been 'no less than a litany of failure'. She told the Commons on Wednesday that 'billions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management', as she said the costs had risen by £37bn between its approval in 2012 and last year's general election. The original design of the 330-mile Y-shaped network was due to connect London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, with hopes that trains with a top speed of 248mph could connect London to Manchester in just over an hour. But as the scope of the project has been cut over time by successive governments, train speeds between London and Birmingham were cut to 225 mph. Now, this could be slashed further to 200 mph when the line eventually opens. Mr Wild, who took up the position in December, wrote in a letter to Ms Alexander: 'I am looking at all available levers (e.g. opening at slightly reduced running speeds, removing automatic train operation) while protecting the long-term agility to deliver the full benefits. 'This staged approach will reduce risk, improve reliability, allow for more certainty around cost, reduce the delay to the railway's opening and enable incremental build-up of the service,' he wrote. The project was originally due to cost £32.7bn (in 2011 prices) with the first leg between London and the Midlands opening in late 2026. As Ms Alexander told the Commons that HS2 would not now open in 2033, the prime minister has tasked the cabinet secretary with examining whether civil servants and other public bodies should face an investigation into their roles in the delay. The initial plan for HS2 was to build the first phase, connecting London to Birmingham, with two branches to Manchester and Leeds. However, the Conservative government scrapped the leg to Leeds in 2021. The Independent was the first to reveal that Rishi Sunak was pulling the plug on the remaining second leg between Birmingham to Manchester in 2023. Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon accepted mismanagement on behalf of his party. He said cutting the northern legs was a 'product of mistakes we made in the handling of HS2' and 'we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them'.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on HS2 delays: a chance to break the cycle of costly failure
One day there will be a high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham. Maybe. Not soon. When HS2 was first proposed, an opening date for the first phase was planned for December 2026. After multiple delays and cost overruns, a revised target of 2033 was set. That is no longer realistic, according to Heidi Alexander. The transport secretary told MPs on Wednesday that two more years are likely to be required, blaming the last Conservative government for mismanaging the whole project and wasting billions of pounds in the process. The record is indeed dismal and, while HS2 was originally conceived in the last days of a Labour government, the systemic failure to bring it to fruition has happened under successive Tory prime ministers. Citing the findings of two new reviews into the scheme, Ms Alexander highlighted inadequate ministerial oversight as a consistent problem. Construction contracts were signed that failed to give value for money and, it is alleged, may have enabled fraud. The cost has ballooned while the ambition has shrunk. Originally there was to be a whole high-speed network, extending north from Birmingham to Crewe and branching into the East Midlands. Meanwhile, the budget has soared. In 2012, phase one was forecast to cost £20bn. That rose over the ensuing decade to £57bn and the latest estimates are closer to £100bn. HS2 is a case study not in why the state shouldn't build major infrastructure, but in how it must do so better. Opponents of HS2 – and it has had many from its inception – feel vindicated in having warned that it was a money pit and a folly. These concerns are not trivial – nor should they be casually brushed aside. Infrastructure must serve the future, not scar it. That means designing and delivering projects that respect both nature and people. But the benefit of the new line is not just in getting people to their destination faster but also freeing up capacity on the existing route. Although there is much to regret about the way HS2 has evolved so far, the case for aborting it is flawed, amounting to defence of a plainly inadequate status quo. Laying tracks and digging tunnels is environmentally disruptive, but railways are ultimately a more sustainable way to move volumes of people around than roads. Every precedent from modern transport history says the alternative to HS2 is not more green pasture but more cars. London and Birmingham are not far apart, nor are they separated by vast mountains. High‑speed railways are not an experimental 21st-century technology. Other European countries have networks covering thousands of kilometres. It is embarrassing that the UK has managed just one line, from London to the Channel tunnel, opened in 2007. Ms Alexander is right that the last government mismanaged HS2, but that failure also expressed a deeper malaise in the capacity of the British state to modernise. Pressing ahead with HS2 must mark a turning point: embracing greener construction, tighter cost control and democratic engagement. If lessons are learned, HS2 can still be salvaged and become a model – not a cautionary tale – for public infrastructure.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
How HS2 squandered billions to become a national embarrassment
' HS2 will provide more track, more trains, more seats and faster journeys to improve performance and reliability across Britain's rail network.' So says the hitherto dysfunctional organisation that has squandered billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash with precious little to show for it. A more accurate assessment of its role so far: 'We have an unlimited pot of taxpayers' money and we are going to spend it.' The new chief executive, Mark Wild, says: 'The position I have inherited in HS2 Ltd is unacceptable; the organisation has failed in its mission to control costs and deliver to schedule. We must intervene to regain control of the programme and reset it to deliver at the lowest feasible cost, while maintaining safety and value for money.' Labour has spent almost a year since taking office assembling evidence to pin the blame for the shamble on the Tories – but now must pick up the pieces and deliver at least something. These are the key questions and answers. What is the history of high-speed rail in the UK? High Speed 1 is the 68-mile fast railway line from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone in Kent, which opened in 2008. It cost less than £7 billion, roughly £100 million per mile. High Speed 2 is a much more ambitious rail project, originally involving 345 miles of new high-speed track. HS2 was designed to relieve pressure on the West Coast and East Coast main lines, to move intercity passengers to a dedicated network, reduce journey times and increase capacity. The existing West Coast main line is the busiest intercity route in Europe, handling a mix of Avanti express services, commuter trains and freight. There is no room for expansion, and the system has little resilience. High Speed 2 began as a dream in 2009, gathering all-party support for a project that would unify the nation with proper 21st-century rail connections from London to the Midlands and northern England, with improved journeys to Scotland. Trains were due to start running in 2026. Sixteen years and about £40 billion later, there is now no prospect of any high-speed trains running for another decade – after tens of billions more have been spent on an embarrassing stump of a line between London and Birmingham. The total cost, estimated at around £33 billion for the whole project in 2010, is now expected to reach as much as £100 billion for a much-reduced line: the 140 miles of Phase 1, which will include stations at London Euston, Old Oak Common in west London, Interchange Station in Solihull and Birmingham Curzon Street. The cost per mile? About £700 million. What went wrong? The new CEO Mark Wild says: 'Construction commenced too soon, without the conditions to enable productive delivery, such as stable and consented designs. From the start, the cost and schedule estimates were optimistic with inadequate provision for risk.' After signing nonsensical contracts with construction firms which left taxpayers on the hook for spectacular overspends, a succession of ministers – in particular transport secretaries – have wrought further expensive havoc by repeatedly changing their minds. The most essential parts of the scheme – comprising a northwest leg to Crewe and Manchester and a northeast leg to Sheffield and Leeds were scrapped in an attempt to save money amid ballooning costs and to try to drum up votes from motorists. In a crowded field of contenders for the most egregious act of vandalism against desperately needed national infrastructure, one figure stands out: Rishi Sunak, who scrapped the link to Manchester. The-then prime minister pretended that the money saved would be spent on piecemeal transport improvements collectively called 'Network North' – which surprisingly included projects in Kent and Devon. Did anybody notice? Yes. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which reports to the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, concluded in 2023: 'There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.' The Department for Transport (DfT) now says: 'The long-running failure to manage the programme effectively, along with repeated de-scoping under previous governments, means that the programme will not achieve its original mission and has undermined the remaining delivery.' Through all this, HS2 Ltd has demonstrated 'insufficient capability and capacity in key commercial and technical functions' – according to CEO Mark Wild. One example quoted by the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander: 'Between 2019 and 2023, HS2 Ltd provided initial designs for Euston station, coming in almost £2 billion over budget. When asked for a more affordable option, they offered one costing £400 million more than the first attempt. The word 'affordable' was clearly not part of the HS2 lexicon. 'Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.' When HS2 finally opens, how much faster will the journey be? The current claim is that the trip from London Euston to Birmingham Curzon Street will take 45 minutes, compared with 77 minutes at present on the conventional line. Initially, though, trains will run only from Old Oak Common in west London. And, says Mr Wild, the line might open at 'slightly reduced running speed'. So let's call it 50 minutes. HS2 claims: 'Our high-speed trains will continue to Manchester, the North West and Scotland using the conventional railway network, cutting journey times.' But the originally planned trip from London to Manchester of 67 minutes – almost halving the current journey time – will be much longer. With the new line northwest to Crewe and Manchester scrapped, the final section of HS2 will be a link from Birmingham north to Handsacre Junction on the existing and heavily congested West Coast main line. Is there any hope for the northern section? A lower-cost, 'quite high speed' link from Birmingham to Crewe and Manchester could provide some connectivity. The transport guru Thomas Ableman says: 'The purpose of HS2 is an investment to transform the economics of this country. At the moment, Britain is one of the most unequal countries when it comes to productivity: London, incredibly high; cities of the north, some of the lowest in Europe. 'This is about equalising that and it's absolutely the right thing to do. Does that mean it needs to be a 200mph or 225mph railway? Almost certainly not. Putting in place the capacity to make that transformational change possible is far more important than the precise specification that was developed for the original HS2 project. 'Quite frankly, HS2 has become something of a toxic term. A more conventional railway that provides the connectivity, provides the capacity could be exactly the way of unlocking what would otherwise be a very knotty political problem.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
HS2: 16 years of high hopes, bruising reality and burgeoning costs
Under detailed plans ministers set out more than a decade ago, HS2 wwas to cost £32.7bn and trains would be running by next year. Now that money has already been spent, the planned network has been cut back to one line, no track has been laid and no train has been built. On Wednesday, the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, announced that the London to Birmingham line would be delayed from the 2033 target, but did not set a new date. She called the project an 'appalling mess' but vowed to 'sort it out'. As Labour attempts to draw a line under a 'litany of failure' and reset construction work on the high-speed line, here are the key moments in a story of high hopes and bruising reality. 2009 The Labour government announces plans for a high-speed railway running from London to northern England and sets up HS2 Ltd. 2010 The coalition government comes to power, backing greener transport, and reviews the scope of the line, including a possible spur to Heathrow. January 2012 The transport secretary, Justine Greening, gives the official ministerial green light. HS2 will be a Y-shaped network from London to Birmingham, continuing to Manchester and Leeds. It will cost £32.7bn. Trains are expected to be running in 2026 and the full network operating by 2033. June 2013 With tunnels added through the Chilterns – the result of much Conservative backbench pressure – the government resets the HS2 budget at £50bn. January 2014 A new chief executive of HS2 Ltd is appointed, On a salary of £750,000, Simon Kirby becomes the UK's highest paid public servant by some distance. March 2014 MPs overwhelmingly vote in favour of HS2, with only 41 votes against, and the hybrid bill starts to make its way through parliament. November 2015 Costs are revised upwards again to £55.7bn. June 2016 The National Audit Office says HS2 could be delayed by a year. February 2017 After three years of detailed scrutiny, the HS2 bill becomes law, enabling preparatory work to start on the first phase between London and Birmingham. The new chief executive, Mark Thurston, who had worked on the 2012 Olympics, arrives in the spring. July 2017 HS2 Ltd admits making £1.8m of unauthorised redundancy payments to staff, which it calls a 'serious error'. 2018 Demolition of streets, homes and businesses begins around Euston station in London. July 2019 Boris Johnson is elected Tory leader and becomes prime minister after promising a review of HS2 on the campaign trail. September 2019 A report by the HS2 Ltd chair, Allan Cook, warns that the railway may not be finished before 2040, and could cost £88bn. January 2020 A National Audit Office report estimates that completing the full HS2 network will cost between £72bn and £98bn at 2019 prices. February 2020 Johnson pledges to build HS2 despite the doubts raised in the Oakervee review he commissioned. The building of the planned north-east leg, however, will be 'reviewed', effectively putting it on ice. May 2020 MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) say HS2 has gone 'badly off course'. September 2020 A ceremony marks the formal start of construction work after contracts to build the first phase of the line were signed during the Covid lockdown. January 2021 Protesters dig a network of tunnels outside Euston as HS2 prepares to fell dozens of trees around the station. November 2021 The government confirms that the eastern leg from Birmingham to Leeds will be scrapped. March 2023 Construction of phase 2a – Birmingham to Crewe – will be delayed by two years, the government announces, and work at Euston is put on hold. The cost the HS2 terminal is put at £4.8bn, almost twice the initial budget. The first HS2 services will now start and stop at a new Old Oak Common, six miles from central London, until at least the 2040s. June 2023 In the six-monthly HS2 update, ministers say services between Birmingham and Old Oak Common should begin between 2029 and 2033, with trains only reaching Manchester at some point between 2035 and 2041. Thurston resigns the following month. October 2023 The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, axes the remaining northern half of HS2 in a speech at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, to the fury of the rail industry and northern politicians. Sunak says the Euston HS2 station can only be built with private finance and blames HS2 Ltd for cost overruns. October 2024 The new Labour government says it will fund the line into Euston. It vows to get a grip on the project costs and commissions a review into the delivery failings. November 2024 The HS2 chair, Jon Thompson, reveals that a 'bat shed' to protect species in woodland near the line cost £100m. December 2024 A new chief executive, Mark Wild, takes over HS2 Ltd, promising to review and reset the remaining construction work. A leaked report suggests the cost for the truncated line has risen to £80bn at current prices. February 2025 Another scathing PAC report says HS2 has been a 'casebook example of how not to run a major project'.
