HS2 Euston access

HS2 Ltd defends 17-year construction process in Euston area and denies suggestions that costs will rise.

HS2 Ltd has responded to criticism from Lord Berkeley, following the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report into the Great Western Main Line electrification (see pages 14-15).

Berkeley said: “In January, during the Committee Stage of the HS2 Bill, I quoted Michael Byng’s calculation that using the same RMM suite for the whole of Phase 1, the cost would be £54 billion rather than the £24bn quoted in a Written Answer to me on December 21 2016.

“How can the first 8km from Euston, albeit with an expensive station, possibly be one-third of the cost of the whole 200km of Phase 1, which also includes expensive tunnels, stations, junctions and viaducts?”

HS2 Ltd spokesman Alastair Cowan told RAIL on March 7: “Phase 1 is all about capacity. That’s why we need to expand Euston, to make it possible to bring 400-metre trains into the station. Running services into the existing station - as Lord Berkeley proposes - would save money in the short term at the expense of future growth.

“It’s also worth bearing in mind that Birmingham Curzon Street is built on a brownfield site, with the line coming in largely above ground along existing transport corridors.

“By contrast, Euston is a densely populated and built-up urban area with the line coming in in tunnel all the way from the M25, including a major station at Old Oak Common. The engineering challenges will be far greater and that is reflected in the cost.”

The Public Accounts Committee report highlights how the GWML electrification scheme has gone from costing £800 million to £2.8bn, with warnings that the price tag could rise still further. PAC blamed poor planning for the overrunning costs.