#HS2: a big challenge just got harder

I’ve got previous with HS2, a high-speed #rail line between London, the midlands and (perhaps, see below) the north of England, that’s one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects. I joked initially when I saw the ‘Y’ outline on a map of Great Britain that it’ll be all the railway we can afford when it opens, due to big increases in operating subsidy. Little did I know that we’re probably only going to get one of the tines of the fork, and even that might not be built.

Less flippantly, I led Oxera’s work on high-speed rail for the Transport Committee of the House of Commons, which at the time was chaired by HS2 fan Louise Ellman MP, a big fan of the scheme. We explained the economic case for the scheme, and helped the Committee’s MPs to understand how the benefits were being articulated. The media reported our work as saying that the business case is ‘uncertain’—somewhat underplaying the myriad ways in which the scheme might turn out.

Several years later, I was asked to appear on a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, which was raising the plight of rail commuters in the north of England, and arguing that a Crossrail-type scheme for that area of the country (‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’) would provide much better value for money than HS2. Based on the information available about both schemes at the time, the evidence suggested that this premise was correct. There was a prescient piece to camera in that documentary from Professor Stephen Glaister, who said that the worst of all outcomes would be HS2 stopping at Birmingham, with any infrastructure north of there deemed too expensive. With delays now announced even to HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe, let alone Manchester, it’s hard to have confidence that this worst outcome won’t occur.

Most recently, I worked on the Oakervee Review with a small Oxera team supporting the experts reviewing the benefits case. We made tangible suggestions that were picked up in both the Review report, and also the Final Business Case for the line, which led to it being given Notice to Proceed (for construction to start between London and Birmingham).?

The latest announcement from the government reduces the line speed for HS2 services, delays implementation of taking the line north of Birmingham to Crewe (and beyond to Manchester), and also delays development of the final connections in London between the initial terminus at Old Oak Common (Cricklewood in north London) and the eventual terminus at London Euston.

I have mixed feelings. The reduction in line speed is entirely sensible, and should have been part of the Notice to Proceed. As we saw in the Oakervee Review, trains didn’t need to run faster than other high-speed services in Europe, at great expense, and offering negligible benefits. ?

The only guaranteed part of the line now will run from north London to Birmingham. The rationale for the line was to peel off inter-city services from the West Coast Main Line (particularly on the congested route south of Rugby), freeing up paths for more commuter and freight services. Post-pandemic, I can see the case for more of the latter, and less of the former, even if that area is destined to see many thousands of new homes. What happens to HS2 services north of Birmingham is really what matters now. Terminate them in Birmingham, or at Birmingham Airport, and the two major conurbations have a new, fast commuter service when the line opens. Continue services north, enabling those freed-up paths further south to be used for freight and innovative new services, and some of the original benefits that were expected might emerge.

Let’s see what happens. The rail network in Great Britain will have (expensive) new capacity to make the most of, albeit not necessarily interoperable with the remainder, or on the timescales it had hoped.?