00:01More than £100 billion. That's now the upper estimate for HS2, a rail line first sold as a major upgrade
00:11for the country's transport network.
00:13The latest reset means passengers may wait until the late 2030s for the first services.
00:20We tend to forget that HS2 has been knocking it back for, we're getting that, to the big end of
00:2630 years.
00:26It was originally conceived in the late part of the noughties under the Labour government by a working group.
00:34But it was first announced in early 2010 in the dying days of the Brown administration as a way, if
00:41you like, to revitalise parts of the country by having these fast links from London up to Birmingham.
00:47And then going off in one direction, there was a Y-shape up towards the East Midlands and then the
00:53other going up towards Manchester.
00:54And then connecting on to Scotland.
00:57The latest reset says the first HS2 services between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street are now expected between
01:06May 2036 and October 2039.
01:10The wider scheme, including Euston and the link to the West Coast mainline at Hansacre, is now expected between May
01:172040 and December 2043.
01:20The estimated cost is now between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion.
01:30Now, the original scheme was it would be about 330 miles to track, not all of the HS2, but nonetheless
01:36a good proportion of that, which would be a major contribution to getting people around on the road routes.
01:42What's important to say is that there was an HS1, which effectively went from London, St Pancras, down to the
01:48Channel Tunnel.
01:49And that was seen as a very successful cost around about £6 billion, came in on budget and on time.
01:55Now, of course, we come to HS2, which in the year 2026, you know, sort of 16 years on from
02:01the sort of the first announcement.
02:03What we've got is a sort of a project that is, it's becoming phenomenally expensive.
02:11The sort of the 330 miles of track was estimated to cost in totality something like £30-odd billion.
02:17You know, that has never been absolutely so clear, but that was an estimate at that time.
02:21And that was for us a lot more track than we've got now, which is the sort of the 100
02:25-odd miles between sort of London.
02:27And, of course, yet to be determined, we believe eventually we'll go to Euston, up to sort of to Curse
02:31Street with then sort of a connection,
02:34which potentially could take it further in the future if someone decided to revitalise it.
02:38HS2 has a later opening date, a higher cost range and a renewed promise that it will still be delivered.
02:45Supporters say the project remains necessary to protect future rail capacity.
02:51Critics say the cost and delays have made it harder to defend.
02:54Wherever you put major rail links in, there's always an uplift to sort of the towns that are served.
02:59And, of course, the difficulty you've got is the only town that will largely be served at the moment is,
03:04well, London.
03:05But, of course, London doesn't need sort of an uplift.
03:07So it's OK in that sort of sense.
03:10But, of course, it will probably get some sort of benefit.
03:11But more particularly sort of Birmingham.
03:13But, again, we're talking sort of another, what, 13 years possibly before the sort of the jobs will really start
03:19to accrue.
03:19I think we're seeing sort of some movement, as it were, properly being brought up.
03:24So, in fact, once the sort of the thing is complete, there will be sort of jobs created in the
03:28sort of the hospitality sector,
03:29hotels, leisure and so on and so forth.
03:31So there may be some sort of move of business from London up to Birmingham.
03:35But it's all sort of, you know, it's all moot at the moment.
03:39There's no sort of deafness.
03:40But, yeah, as I say, and the rest of the country will feel sort of hard done by, certainly Manchester
03:45and Leeds and Nottingham,
03:48that, you know, why could they not have had a similar sort of thing?
03:50But, as we know, it was HST has been cut back due to sort of cost considerations years ago.
03:56And what's important is we compare what's happened in other countries, particularly in mainstream Europe.
04:01You know, they are able to sort of to build high-speed rail much cheaper and faster than we are.
04:05And, of course, we then look at China in particular.
04:07But, of course, I know the planning regime is very different.
04:09So HS2 has become something of a sort of a calamity.
04:14It's going to sort of be far too expensive than was originally sort of compared,
04:18or at least was certainly when it was mooted, rather,
04:22as being sort of something that would revitalise the northern part of the country.
04:26And it's certainly not going to do that for any time soon.
04:29And, of course, the benefits in the long term are still highly sort of suspect.
04:33And, indeed, the view is that the amount of benefit we'll get back will be less than it's cost us
04:38to build it.
04:38But, hey, you know, we're still in sort of relatively early days, even though, as I say, this thing was
04:43originally sort of announced in 2010.
04:46The argument for HS2 still rests on capacity, not just speed.
04:50By putting some intercity trains on a new line, the project is intended to free up space on existing routes
04:57for other passenger and freight services.
05:00That matters for people far beyond the stations directly served by HS2,
05:05because crowded rail corridors affect commuting, regional journeys, business travel, freight movement and reliability across the wider network.
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