Misinformed about the true cost of HS2

IN the interest of factual accuracy regarding the cost of HS2, I’m afraid Mr Neil Stafford (“HS2 cost a drop in the ocean in the pandemic”, Opinion, February 2) has been misinformed when he quotes and compares figures.

Irrespective of opinions as to what else taxpayers’ money should be spent on (pandemic or not) it would be helpful to make such representations and opinions based on the factual cost to the nation of HS2.

The figure we see regularly in the media and quoted in both Government and HS2 publications (the £106 billion sort of figure) is the “estimated” cost of construction only. This figure doesn’t include the two primary costs of the HS2 project, namely the capital finance costs (the cost of borrowing the money) and the compensation costs to those who will lose land or property to it.

These two cost elements combined dwarf the construction costs. This is one of the scandals of HS2 – these costs are omitted from the benefit cost ratio (BCR). Were they to be included, the BCR becomes a negative, in other words for each one pound spent, it costs more than that one pound to actually have HS2.

There’s nothing clever about any of this, just a routine of making the BCR look all bright and squeaky clean. Quite apart from the obvious deceit, it’s a departure from accepted methods of establishing the true value of any given project.

But once again, no matter how you look at the enormous cost, and how many apples you compare with pears, HS2 is most certainly not a “drop in the ocean” by any wild stretch of vested interest or imagination.

David Briggs Kingston on Soar