Another article on high construction costs in Britain. Now admittedly it's from two Tufton Street types who I mistrust on principle, but their figures (if not their prescriptions) are presumably accurate...
Britain's infrastructure is too expensive
Railways, Trams, and Roads all cost more to build in Britain
www.samdumitriu.com
“Unachievable.” The Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s assessment of High Speed 2 (HS2) does not pull its punches. Back in 2013, the high-speed line to connect London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds was estimated to cost about £56.7bn in 2023 prices. But this proved to be a massive underestimate. The 134 miles of track between London and Birmingham alone is now forecast to cost £53bn, and at £396m per mile Phase 1 of HS2 is one of the world’s most expensive railways.
Some of the mismanagement of the project would be comical, if it wasn’t so tragic. Take the recent news that two multi-million pound tunnel boring machines will be buried at Old Oak Common until a decision about whether to extend the line to Euston station is reached.
Much has been written about how HS2’s budget grew so large. Yet even if the 2013 estimate had been correct, HS2 would still stand out. At £165m per mile, it would still be more than double the price Italy is paying to build a high speed connection between Naples and Bari. It would also be 3.7 times more expensive than France’s high-speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. One reason HS2’s cost is high is the amount of tunneling involved, yet in Japan, bullet trains travel on Hokkaido’s new Shinkansen line built at just £50m per mile despite almost half of the Hokkaido line being tunneled.
It would be unfair, however, to single out HS2. Britain Remade, the pro-growth campaign group where we both work, has looked at 138 tram, metro, and rail projects across 14 countries (data) plus 104 road projects in 11 countries (data).
The reality is that infrastructure of all kinds, from railways to roads, tramlines to tubes, is more expensive to build in the UK.