UK resets HS2: cost rises to £87.7-102.7 billion, London-Birmingham service delayed to 2036
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced a reset of the HS2 high-speed rail project in the Commons on Monday, putting the estimated cost of the London-Birmingham line at between £87.7 and £102.7 billion (€101.1-118.4 billion) and slipping service entry to 2036 from the original 2026 target. The final segment between Old Oak Common in the outer capital and Euston in central London will not open before 2040, according to the report by HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild after a fifteen-month review. The project was launched in 2012 at an original budget of £37.2 billion; the Manchester and Leeds extensions were cut in 2021 and 2023, and French group Vinci, through joint ventures and its Taylor Woodrow subsidiary, builds a 90-kilometre Midlands section, Old Oak Common station and a Birmingham depot.
"If I look angry, it's because I am," Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons on Monday 18 May as she announced a reset of the HS2 high-speed rail line. According to the fifteen-month review submitted by HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild and made public the same day, the London-to-Birmingham route is now expected to cost between £87.7 and £102.7 billion (€101.1-118.4 billion) and to enter service no earlier than 2036.
The numbers double, and in places more than double, the project's original 2012 envelope of £37.2 billion and target completion in 2026. The northern extensions — Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham-Leeds — were cut in 2021 and 2023 respectively to contain costs; the line as it now stands has been narrowed twice and is still rising in price. The final inner-London segment, linking Old Oak Common station in the outer capital to Euston in central London, will not open before 2040, the report states. The government has placed the blame for the underestimate on prior administrations and what Wild's review describes as inefficient delivery.
French construction group Vinci, through joint ventures and its British subsidiary Taylor Woodrow, holds work on a 90-kilometre section of the line in the Midlands, on Old Oak Common station and on a Birmingham depot.