HS2 needs a rethink, warns boss of major engineering contractor
HS2 needs a major rethink in the wake of revelations it will blow its budget, according to the chief executive of one of its biggest contractors.
Bob Pragada, head of the Fortune 500 engineering consultancy Jacobs, suggested Boris Johnson failed to properly scrutinise data on travelling patterns and demand before he gave the controversial train line the green light.
He said that now is the time to pause and properly analyse this data before deciding which parts of the project should be prioritised. The call for more detailed analysis comes after Mark
Harper, the Transport Secretary, announced last month that HS2 would be pared back and delayed to combat the soaring cost of Europe’s biggest building project.
Mr Pragada’s comments drew praise from Lord Berkeley, the Labour peer who served as deputy chairman of the Oakervee Review on deciding whether or not to go ahead with HS2, and Sir John Armitt, chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission.
Officials are scrambling to find new ways to avoid blowing HS2’s budget, which at one point officially hit £98bn. Cuts already announced include only running services to outer London, rather than central London, in the initial stage of the project. Mr Pragada admitted he was “not close enough to the inner workings of Parliament, and how those decisions are made” but said it appeared that “the use of data in order to optimise sometimes is happening after the decision, or the debate, the political debate”.
He added: “The Government is reaching out to the supplier community, the consultancy community.
“Right now the debate is around [the fact that] these are expensive programmes, and they will have an impact on the UK balance sheet.
“How do we optimise that? I think what HS2 and others are asking is, ‘OK, how do we start to optimise
that finite amount of capital in order to get more?’.”
Mr Pragada suggested that the process be flipped on its head, with datadriven decision-making on how much to spend rather than simply trying to get as much out of the budget as possible.
“What if we were to turn it [around] and get some analysis that can drive the decision-making process,” he asked. “The sizing of that line, the distance of that line, the mechanics of where the stations go, and the frequency of the use ... and all those types of things – data can really help with that.”
The American executive’s remarks drew cautious praise from the Government’s infrastructure adviser.
Sir John Armitt said: “Reviewing the latest data on transport trends is vital during the development stage of the project and can help guide decisions about later enhancements.
“However, you can’t avoid hard decision points, at which stage you commit to core elements of a project [in order to] give certainty to contractors, investors and communities ... we’ve reached that point with the phases of HS2 from central London to Manchester, and we now just need to get on and deliver it.”
Lord Berkeley said: “He [Mr Pragada] is absolutely right. We couldn’t get any demand forecasts out of the Department for Transport when we were doing the Oakervee Review.
“He has done everybody a great service by questioning it. My understanding is that many of the other contractors are very concerned because they want to make money and build the thing – but they want to make sure it is the right thing that they are building.”
The Department for Transport and HS2 declined to comment.