£107 billion HS2 rail project costs out of control, says Berkeley
Those in charge of the HS2 project have been been accused of “fiddling the figures” by the deputy chairman of the project’s review panel.
Parliament was “seriously misled” over the costs of HS2, which would be poor value for money and bad for the environment, the former Labour transport spokesman Lord Berkeley has said.
He also accused the project of being “completely out of control financially”.
Lord Berkeley’s comments come after his hard-hitting 70-page dissenting report into the high speed rail proposal was published, listing several grave concerns.
Chief among them is the rise in estimated costs.
The network was initially expected to cost £50.1 billion. Latest estimates by HS2 Ltd, the private company in charge of the project, put the price at £88bn. But Lord Berkeley said that independent analysis arrives at a figure of at least £107.92bn.
“I believe that Parliament has been misled because the costs were clearly known to the department, and I believe ministers, three or four years ago – there’s a lot of evidence to that.
“The costs at that stage, they were saying well they were probably over £100bn. Now I think the figure which I believe is about right is £107bn.
“It’s an enormous figure and Parliament should have had an opportunity to debate this.
“This project is probably two or three times over budget even before the construction has started. Now that’s a completely different level of cost overrun and it does need looking at again,” he said.
He added: “For me, HS2, if it were almost cancelled except forthebitinthenorthernpowerhouse area and replaced by about half the investment on local services, local rail network in the north and the Midlands, it would be much better for everybody who lives up there.
“Saving £50 billion at this stage, I think, is quite something that we’ll want to look at.”
Responding to Lord Berkeley’s comments, director of the Northern Powerhouse project Henri Murison said they “sound like the views of someone who has always been a sceptic of HS2 simply making the points they’ve made before”.
Lord Berkeley said he wrote his “dissenting” report because he disagreed with conclusions of the draft report overseen by Doug Oakervee, the former HS2 Ltd chairman appointed by Boris Johnson to lead the review into “whether and how we should proceed” with the project.