Peculiarities

The M25 was built to go around London, whereas everyone using it knows that it’s London that goes around the M25. All that anyone can remember about the Millennium Dome is that it had a Body Zone and became something of a white elephant before moving to private enterprise and flourishing as the O2. And now, Crossrail, Hinkley Point, Heathrow’s third runway and HS2. What is it about projects touched by the hand of Government that cause controversy, delay and huge bills?

Remarkably, HS2 is now on its fourth Prime Minister. A feat only bettered by HM The Queen. By the time the entire high-speed route is completed and opened, it will have been more than three decades in the making. Let’s hope the trains run quicker than the machinations of Government.

Large infrastructure schemes are always at the mercy of that great chasm between politicians’ vision and stark reality. Our current Prime Minister has certainly shared a few – how shall we say – ‘ambitious’ proposals with the country; from the garden bridge to Boris island and the Scotland–Northern Ireland bridge.

The construction industry has been chomping at the bit for years to begin proper work on HS2 and the concrete sector, along with its supply chains, is itching to get going on the slab track, viaducts, tunnels, stations and other structures.

So why the procrastination?

While it would be wrong to believe that the UK is alone in the world in delivering delayed, late and over budget mega-infrastructure schemes, there are particular idiosyncrasies. Over-reliance and over expenditure on management consultants and lawyers rack up the bills before a single digger is on-site. The politicisation of such grand schemes is also a British quirk, as is the love of bureaucracy.

But perhaps the biggest foible is a persistent failure to learn the lessons of the past. The role of Government, through dialogue with industry, should always be to provide a framework in which any sector can operate and then let the experts get on with it. This must surely apply to large infrastructure schemes. Four years after it was set-up, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority quango still has much work to do to fix the project delivery system. And it is not immune to the tinkering of Government.

Since HS2 was first given the ‘green light’ under Gordon Brown’s administration, costs have soared due to politics, poor management, property price rises, contractual issues, uncertainty, inflation, etc. If the high-speed scheme does indeed end up costing well over ￡100 billion then it is a bit rich for the Prime Minister of the day to extol political colleagues for designs that “have been improved immeasurably”, while bemoaning progress by HS2 Ltd so far and without acknowledging that design change equals cost.

HS2 – another peculiar British project.

Taken from Concrete March 2020. Visit: www.concrete.org.uk / https://bit.ly/2cjmEiM