On the eve of the government's decision on the future of HS2, the
TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) has warned the prime minister that the
project is likely to come off the rails.
In a personal letter to the PM, TPA chief
executive John O'Connell lays out that the eventual costs,
including associated expenditure and rolling stock, may be closer
to £150 billion.
In February 2017 the TaxPayers' Alliance estimated the cost of
HS2 at between £90.8 billion and £99.9 billion. This prediction
was proved correct when the HS2 Ltd Chairman's Stocktake put the
price at £88 billion in 2019 prices.
Having long campaigned for HS2 to be scrapped, the TPA have
identified 28 local and national transport projects
across the country which could be funded for a
fraction of the cost, to provide better value for money and more
directly benefit provincial English towns in the Midlands and
North.
The TPA is calling on MPs to ensure that critical
consideration is given to a realistic cost of the
project, the difficulties in delivery and implications for both
‘left behind towns’ and the environment.
Click here
to read the full letter
Key points:
- The initial and official cost estimates have been
consistently wrong. Eventual costs could be closer
to £150 billion.
- HS2 is the only major project to have
received seven Amber/Red warnings in a row
since 2013 from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority .
- The benefit-cost ratio could be as low
as 0.78.
- The official HS2 business case shows that almost
half, 43 per cent, of the benefits go to London
and the South East.
- Claims that sunk costs total £11 billion are over-inflated,
based on assumptions about land sales and the value of existing
contracts. A more realistic figure is in the region
of £6 billion.
- A national program of transport
investment would be better value for money and would
more directly benefit provincial English towns in
the Midlands and North.
-
The Great British Transport
Competition selected 28 winning
transport projects. The sum total of their construction costs
came to £45.1 billion, approximately half the
cost of HS2.
