When HS2 was first proposed in 2009, Transport Secretary Lord Andrew Adonis claimed that it would be ‘the union railway, uniting England and Scotland, north and south, richer and poorer parts our country, sharing wealth and opportunity, pioneering a fundamentally better Britain.’ Once this vision was sold to parliament and the country, HS2 Ltd was established in that same year, with 1,500 employees all working for the single goal of the creation of a new high speed railway network.
This company operated under the supervision of the Department for Transport, and was freely given the funds the Board felt were necessary to achieve the project. They informed the government that HS2 could be achieved for a budget of £37.5bn. Full trust was placed in HS2 Ltd, and the government made the necessary arrangements for this project to go ahead.
HS2 split the project into two phases, Phase One would go from London Euston to Birmingham Curzon Street, and Phase Two would be split into two, with Two A going to Crewe in Cheshire, and Two B going both from the West to East Midlands and from Crewe to Manchester. The project was greenlit in January 2012, and the High Speed Rail (London to West Midlands) Bill was introduced by parliament in November 2013, giving HS2 the legal power to repossess the homes that were on the proposed train route.
All seemed ready to go ahead. HS2 were given everything they needed to achieve on the promises they had delivered, the project was presented as thoroughly planned with a clear timeline, and the public were assured that HS2 would be delivered in 20 years.
As time went on the cracks began to show and the truth behind the project started to become evident as progress slowed and costs increased.
In 2013, the government announced that HS2 would in fact cost £50bn and the line would be operational in 2026. In 2015 this was revised up to £55.7bn. In 2019 a report by the HS2 Ltd Chair Allan Cook stated that the railway could cost up to £88bn and might not be completed until 2040. Already a pattern was emerging, and HS2 seemed to be spiralling out of control. The truth was that HS2 could never be delivered for the original budget of £37.5bn, and the public were deliberately lied to in order to get the project off the ground, and to line the pockets of those involved.
After costs began to rise, several reports and reviews were commissioned to ensure that HS2 would be able to go ahead on the current budgets. This included the HS2 Plus Review published by Sir David Higgins, which stated that Phase One would cost £21.4bn or less. It also claimed that they had used an advanced QCRA model to calculate this with a 95% confidence level. Margaret Hodge, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee from 2010 to 2015, said at the time that she did not believe the figures presented in the HS2 Plus Review, and her concerns were not without good cause.
It became apparent that this conclusion had been reached by deliberately undervaluing the cost to purchase property along the route, in order to present a lower figure to the government, ensuring continued funding for their own benefit. In fact, the cost of land and property had been valued at £1.075bn more than the HS2 Plus stated in that very same month, according to a former employee. Those working on HS2 knew their figures were wrong and never had any intention of achieving the project with the original budget.
Another report was published in 2015 by PWC, which again showed that HS2 were undervaluing properties in their estimates, falsely lowering the total estimate for the cost of the project. Just like the valuation from the year before, this was ignored and HS2 Ltd continued to use their old figures in order to maintain the illusion of a project working within budget.
In the same year a report was published by Deloitte that concluded that HS2 did not have the capacity or the capability to carry out the necessary work on acquiring and developing the land and property needed to complete HS2. On the back of this Deloitte were tasked with creating an Action Plan that would allow HS2 to carry out the work needed to complete the project. However, in January 2016 Oliver Bayne become the new Director for Land and Property at HS2 Ltd. He chose not to re-engage with Deloitte, stopped all work towards carrying out the Action Plan, and even went so far as to order that all physical copies of the Deloitte Report were to be shredded and any electronic copies were to be destroyed. At every turn, HS2 Ltd did all they could to cover their lies, and continued to present an image of a successful project, even as they were warned of rising costs and institutional inadequacies.
In June 2019 the Infrastructure and Projects Authority concluded that Phase One was ‘unachievable’ on the current budget and schedule. Once again this advice was ignored and HS2 continued to push false promises, with nothing being done about the increased costs and institutional failure to deliver the project.
From the very beginning, HS2 Ltd wilfully lied to the public about their ability to deliver the project within budget, and continued to either ignore or bury any evidence that suggested the contrary. As more and more money has been thrown at the issue, no accountability has been taken by those reaping the benefits. There were many opportunities to change and improve how HS2 was being carried out, but all advice was ignored, landing us in the mess we are in today.
The story continues after the timeline.
As it stands today, HS2 is still going ahead with more and more money being funnelled into a rotten project. Nothing has been changed, and it continues to be taxpayers that suffer for it.
£592 million has been spent on land for Phase Two routes that have now been cancelled, and it is estimated that a further £100 million will need to be spent to close down sites where work had already begun on Phase Two, which will take at least several years. This wasted money is salt in the wound for the north of England, which has been completely left behind in a project that was meant to serve the whole country. Instead HS2 will only benefit London.
Money continues to be thrown into the pit of HS2 Ltd, with the cost for Phase One alone (Old Oak to Birmingham) expected to be between £45bn and £54bn according to the governments last estimate. However, independent rail expert Michael Byng says that the route could be as expensive as £87bn which, given the government’s track record of undervaluing the total costs, seems the more likely figure. If the route is in fact extended to include Euston (which the government seems likely to pursue) the total figure could exceed £100bn.
There is also the human cost, which cannot be calculated. 20,000 homes and business have been forcibly purchased for HS2. The project has created ‘ghost villages’ in areas such as Madeley and Whitmore for stretches of the railway that will now never be built. Entire communities have been destroyed for the benefit of those running a dishonest company. Those affected deserve the truth, as do all taxpayers who have funded this disaster.
Something needs to be done, otherwise HS2 will continue to leech off public funds, and destroy lives in the process. How many families need to be robbed of their homes, how many billions need to be wasted before the government decides they need a different approach? As it stands the government intends to finish HS2 in 2040.
That is another sixteen years of lies, wasted money, and institutional failure at the minimum.
Further delays and cost increases are likely.
Those responsible need to take accountability to prevent the situation from getting even worse.
The scale of HS2's corruption demands more than outrage - it demands action.
Together, we can push for accountability, transparency, and criminal investigations.
Here’s what you can do:
