Analysis
Getting to the heart of the matter
WHATEVER your views on HS2, make no mistake: the decision in October to abandon the project north of Birmingham and switch much of the money saved into road schemes is a massive setback for the rail sector.
The plan to halt HS2 announced by the Prime Minister appears to have emanated from No.10 and its policy advisers, rather than the Department for Transport. But it is a Government decision, signed off by the Transport Secretary and the Cabinet.
It follows 15 years of cross-party consensus, starting and finishing at the Conservative Party conferences of 2008 and 2023.
It’s worth remembering that only two years ago, the Government committed to funding rail investment in the North and Midlands in its Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), to the tune of £96 billion.
This provided for HS2 Phases 1, 2a, 2b, and 2 East as far as Trent, the Midland Rail Hub, and many other rail projects - including the Transpennine Route Upgrade, electrification and other schemes. It was integrated… and it was a plan.
In its place, we now have a Smörgåsbord - a platter of unrelated ideas, some old favourites, some that have not got beyond the drawing board, and (no doubt) some that have their merits.
But fixing potholes, however important, surely shouldn’t be funded at the expense of providing the nation with climate change-resilient 21st century infrastructure.
The budget allocated to rail has been slashed. The current vibe in Government is to look after ‘the motorist’. Funding has been diverted from rail to the road sector.
The official title for the Smörgåsbord, by the way, is ‘Network North’. But it’s neither a network nor is it (only) for the North.
To understand the Government’s decision of October 4, let’s look in turn at each element that has now been lost or put at risk: Phase 2a, 2b, HS2 East and Old Oak Common-Euston.
Phase 2a
It is nearly ten years since Sir David Higgins, then Chairman of HS2 Ltd, delivered his report calling for the southern section of HS2 Phase 2 between the West Midlands (just north of Lichfield) and Crewe to be split out and brought forward, with “a clear proposal to accelerate construction so that the Crewe section of Phase 2 would be completed by 2027, not 2033”.
That now looks an ambitious timescale. But nevertheless, the Parliamentary powers for its construction were granted in 2021, and about 70% of the land needed for its construction has been obtained. The project is ‘ready to go’.
With a limited amount of tunnelling, and avoiding any major settlements, Phase 2a was costed at just £4.2bn in 2015 prices, with a benefit:cost ratio of nearly 2:1. Duly accelerated, it allowed cost savings on the Phase 1 scheme, too.
