Billions more for HS2

On 26 November, Construction News reported that HS2’s chief executive Mark Thurston had said the government will not give the project any more money despite its current cost gap.

Yet, just a few days later, the Sunday Times claimed that the government had been planning to extend HS2 to Liverpool, at a cost of £7 billion.

The current “£55.7 billion” budget of the HS2 ‘core programme’ does not include the funds needed for the Manchester airport (Davenport Green) station, the “HS2 hub” at Crewe, and ‘growth strategies’ for the East Midlands, Leeds, Birmingham, etc.

Evidence from other rail megaprojects, and the history of HS2 to date, suggests that the Y network cannot be built as planned, unless much more public money is made available. When the ‘wider programme’ and things like sterling devaluation are factored in, HS2 looks more like a £100 billion project, than a £56 billion one.