HS2 line to be delayed again with no new date given

The opening of HS2 will be delayed beyond the target date of 2033, the government will announce but it is not expected to say when the high speed railway line will begin operating.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to tell Parliament on Wednesday that there is “no reasonable way to deliver” the railway line on schedule and within budget – but is not expected to say when the route will finally start operating.

She will say a “litany of failure” has led to missed deadlines and ballooning costs which rose by £37bn between HS2 being approved in 2012 and last year.

It is the latest setback for the high-speed rail project, which has been scaled back and delayed repeatedly.

Alexander is expected to say that Conservative governments presided over the rising cost of HS2. She will release two reports into the project to “draw a line in the sand” and mark a reset in how major infrastructure is delivered.

One will detail the findings of a review conducted by the former chief executive of Crossrail, James Stewart, which was commissioned last year to “investigate the oversight of major transport infrastructure projects”.

It will set out what has gone wrong with HS2 to date and what ministers can learn for future projects.

A second review by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2 who was put in place as part of efforts to get control of rising costs in October last year, will assess the construction of the project’s phase from London to Birmingham.

Alexander is also expected to announce the appointment of Mike Brown, the former commissioner of Transport for London, to become the new chair of HS2 Ltd.

Under the original plans, HS2 was intended to create high-speed rail links between London and major cities in the Midlands and North of England.

It was designed to cut journey times and expand capacity on the railways, but has faced myriad challenges and soaring costs in the 16 years since it was first proposed.

The massive construction project was given the green light in 2012, and was expected to cost £33bn and to be open by 2026.

By 2013, the cost of the project had spiralled to almost £50bn, with the expected completion date pushed back to 2033.

In 2020, when Boris Johnson recommitted the government to going ahead with HS2, one independent estimate put the potential eventual cost at £106bn.

In recent years, the scope of the development has been scaled back.

The eastern leg between Birmingham and Leeds was axed first, before Rishi Sunak’s government cancelled the planned Birmingham to Manchester route.

Last year, the Department for Transport said the remaining project cost was estimated at between £45bn and £54bn in 2019 prices – but HS2 management has estimated it could be as high as £57bn.

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