HS2 cost estimate ‘massively wrong’

A FORMER executive for High Speed Two (HS2) has revealed that an early land and property cost estimate delivered to MPS was enormously wrong.

A whistle-blower on the company, responsible for building the new highspeed railway between London and Leeds and Manchester, has told BBC Panorama that the firm underestimated a number of costs when pitching the project to the government.

Doug Thornton, former Land and Property Director for HS2, led a team responsible for acquiring all the land interests that HS2 needed to purchase to build the high-speed railway.

Mr Thornton claimed that the value of many properties were underestimated and that the company knew it might need more than had been costed in that early estimate.

He said: “There was a gap of almost 100 per cent in terms of the numbers, wrong numbers of properties that the organisation had not budgeted for.”

The investigation also spoke to a former senior HS2 insider who agrees that the early estimate MPS had then had not been updated to reflect the predicted higher costs. HS2 says it followed the correct process to keep Parliament updated on budgetary changes.

The National Audit Office has investigated the land and property programme and found that estimated costs did increase significantly, but concluded that HS2 was not required to

‘There was a gap of almost 100 per cent in terms of the numbers … properties that [HS2] had not budgeted for’

provide its more detailed updated property cost estimates to MPS.

Mark Thurston, the chief executive of HS2, told Panorama: “It’s perfectly normal that in a scheme as vast and as complex as HS2 that over time we have a greater understanding of the alignment of the route, how many land parcels and land areas it affects and what the full extent of the acquisition programme needs to be.”

HS2: Going off the Rails? will be broadcast on BBC One’s Panorama at 7.30pm tonight.