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From the Financial Times:
There is a lot more info of cost overruns and problems in the FT article linked including the fact that HS2 have only bought 20% of the property required for phase 1 but have spent £1.6bn of the £2.8bn allocated budget.
Leaked HS2 report claims scheme ‘fundamentally flawed’ - FT
Rail project in ‘precarious position’ and may exceed £56bn budget by as much as 60%
Racing through the countryside at 250mph, the planned new high-speed train line from London to the Midlands and northern England should be one of the fastest in the world. But it is also set to be one of the most expensive.
- Successful delivery appears unachievable, says report’s author
- Project hit by series of controversies
- Scores of people yet to receive compensation
A leaked document prepared for the government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority warned shortly before the High Speed 2 railway was approved by parliament in February 2017 that the scheme was “fundamentally flawed” and would overshoot its £56bn budget by as much as 60 per cent.
The December 2016 document, marked “sensitive” and “not for publication”, said Europe’s biggest infrastructure project was in a “precarious position” and would be “classified as ‘failed’ by any internationally recognised definition”.
It added that HS2 was “highly likely to significantly overspend, 20 to 60 per cent”, which would increase the cost to as much as £90bn.
The project management capabilities of HS2 Ltd, the taxpayer-funded company charged with building the railway, had fallen “well short of best practice”, and its executive team lacked “cohesion and common vision”, said the document.
It called for “greater transparency and frankness” about the timeline, costs and benefits of HS2, which will run from London to Birmingham in its initial phase, and later to Manchester and Leeds.
‘The government clearly misled parliament’ Tony Berkeley, a Labour peer and former engineer who worked on the High Speed 1 railway between London and the Channel tunnel, said: “The government clearly misled parliament by hiding this devastating report on HS2’s performance and cost overruns.
“If parliament voted for HS2 on false premises that calls into question the legitimacy of the project.”
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There is a lot more info of cost overruns and problems in the FT article linked including the fact that HS2 have only bought 20% of the property required for phase 1 but have spent £1.6bn of the £2.8bn allocated budget.