Simon Jenkins’ argument is short-sighted and ignores the fundamental reason HS2 was designed in the first place – the West Coast trunk line is full and the UK is teetering towards its worst transport bottleneck (HS2 is the wildest white elephant in British history. Please put me out of my misery, May 21st). Cost and schedule overruns invite legitimate investigation and reflect obstacles that need to be addressed. However, these do not override the need for additional rail transport capacity that will bring transformative benefits to the North, including significant freight capacity and improved regional connectivity.
With unemployment on the rise, major infrastructure programs are not just about capacity and connectivity. They are essential to creating high quality careers and supporting the UK supply chain. HS2 already does both. From our tunnel facilities in Hartlepool to our work with local businesses across the West Midlands, HS2 supports over 30,000 jobs, retains highly skilled workers and apprentices, and strengthens small businesses in every region. The bridges, viaducts and tunnels delivered to date are a testament to the country’s continued engineering excellence.
These benefits are rarely discussed, but they cannot be ignored. HS2 has already started generating £20bn of development benefits across the West Midlands and West London. You won’t save money by abandoning HS2 now. That would leave taxpayers with a huge bill without providing any of the benefits that this project would continue to provide. Cancellation costs and the inevitable need for alternative solutions to the capacity crisis would result in huge bills for each, leaving the North at a permanent disadvantage and sending a damaging signal that the UK no longer has confidence in delivering key infrastructure.
The question is not whether HS2 should be canceled, but what damage a congested and unreliable rail network will ultimately cost the country. The priority now is for industry, government and HS2 Ltd to work together to deliver HS2 within the revised scope.
Deb Carson
High-speed rail group business manager
Simon Jenkins was right to call HS2 “the wildest white elephant in British history”, but the same culture of institutional denial and sunk cost thinking has already metastasized elsewhere in the UK rail sector. East-West Railway, especially the controversial Eastern Railway The section route option, known as CS3, risks becoming a scaled down version of HS2. It’s another prestigious infrastructure project insulated from scrutiny while taxpayers are expected to foot the bill indefinitely.
The most worrying aspect is that the Department for Transport continues to resist freedom of information requests to disclose the business case underlying CS3. If ministers and officials truly believe the numbers are stacking up, they will announce it. Instead, activists and affected communities are left piecing together pieces of evidence while decisions with grave consequences are made behind closed doors.
What has already become clear should concern anyone who takes public value seriously. The scheme’s own figures reportedly show a benefit-to-cost ratio as low as 0.3, an unusual acceptance for a project that appears to be justified on economic grounds. There is no way a railway that returns as little as 30p for every pound spent can withstand intense private sector scrutiny, but such projects have gained their own momentum in Whitehall, driven by a revolving door culture of consultants, lobbying networks and rail industry cheerleaders circulating between public authorities and infrastructure bodies.
Meanwhile, billions are wasted on speculative master plans, consultations and promotional activities as local transport priorities struggle to secure funding. Like HS2, East West Rail has become divorced from the fundamental question that should govern all public spending: is this really the best use of scarce national resources?
Britain urgently needs ministers prepared to think the unthinkable. It is not weakness but responsible government that cancels failed projects. East West Rail deserves the same ruthless reassessment that is currently being demanded for HS2, before even more public money disappears in an avoidable infrastructure fiasco.
Stephen Mallinson
Little Everden, Cambridgeshire
I completely disagree with Simon Jenkins’ opinion on HS2. It is shameful that this project is so expensive and poorly managed, but he does not offer an alternative to the problems facing the existing railway. The West Coast Main Line is full. There is no easy way to increase the number of seats available without building new lines. If HS2 is not built, there will be even worse overcrowding on all services between London, Birmingham and Manchester. Regardless of whether the railways are nationalized or not, fares must be set high to limit demand, as has been the case since World War II. If we follow Jenkins’ advice to cancel the project, future generations will be doomed to higher rail fares, worse road congestion, and more crowded trains.
alex stewart
london
More than 20 years ago, I had a conversation with a colleague at the Northwest Regional Development Agency. We were pretty junior in the organization, so our opinions didn’t matter. We agreed that while there was an argument for increasing rail capacity, there was no argument for higher-cost options to shave minutes off travel time from Manchester to London. My colleague expressed his reservations in a sympathetic manner unbecoming of a family newspaper.
A meeting in London realistically means a full day’s journey from your office in Warrington, and saving 30 minutes doesn’t change that. As a result, high-speed rail was pursued as an expensive vanity project for engineers and politicians. It continues to this day and Simon Jenkins was absolutely right to call for it to be stopped.
julian roberts
Great Bookham, Surrey
Simon Jenkins was right to call for the hugely expensive HS2 vanity project to be scrapped. HS2 was first mooted in 2009 and we are told it will probably become operational between 2036 and 2039. In 2009, construction began on a 34-mile bridge and tunnel linking Hong Kong and Macau. It was opened to the public in 2018. The incompetent management and oversight of major infrastructure projects in the UK is pathetic and deeply embarrassing.
david campbell
Portishead, Somerset
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