HS2 costs rise £800m just weeks after construction starts
The cost of controversial rail link HS2 has risen another £800m, the government has admitted, just six months after the project was newly approved.
Ministers said that the extra costs were related to removing more asbestos than had been expected, as well as on developing the terminus at Euston station.
The increases were revealed in HS2 minister Andrew Stephenson’s first six-monthly update on the progress of the project.
In it, he said that if the new “cost pressures” could not be remediated they would be drawn against the projects £5.3bn contingency fund.
That emergency money has already been factored into the overall £44.6bn budget for phase one of the project, which stretches from London to Birmingham.
At the moment, the Department for Transport forecasts an actual construction cost of £40.3bn, although it admitted that this did not take into account the impact of coronavirus.
Earlier this year, the government gave the project a revised total budget of £98bn after a review showed that costs were spiralling out of control.
Despite considerable opposition over its mounting costs, HS2 won the approval of Boris Johnson, who said it was crucial to the UK’s plans to “build back better” after coronavirus.
Construction work started in earnest at the beginning of September, with the promise that 22,000 jobs would be created over the coming years as a result.
Stephenson also warned that there was a chance that services could begin later than had been anticipated.
The target date for running the first trains between Euston and Birmingham Curzon Street is still 2029 to 2033, but he said that there were “some pressures on the earliest date” due to the pandemic.