HS2 ‘doomed from the start’, says former government transport advisor

Andrew Gilligan blamed dishonest project management for the ‘train wreck’

The former Downing Street transport advisor said HS2 northern connections should be ‘left in the grave’ (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A former Downing Street transport advisor has said the HS2 railway was “doomed from the start” after ministers revealed they could not confirm if the project was £10 billion or £20 billion over budget last week.

Andrew Gilligan, head of transport at think tank Policy Exchange, wrote in The Sunday Times on Sunday (27 October) that the intercity high-speed rail network is Britain’s “worst infrastructure scheme in modern history”.

He called for the scheme outside of the West Midlands to be “left in the grave” with the money redirected to install cheaper infrastructure such as trams and bus lanes.

Mr Gilligan, a former advisor to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, blamed four “foundational flaws” – the wrong route, wrong speed, bad connections and “ratchet” project management – for the current state of the line.

He said that HS2 should have chosen a “better route” along the M40 corridor rather than slicing through ancient woodlands and lowered speed aspirations from 250mph to avoid costlier tracks.

As for the contentious northern link for travellers beyond Birmingham, former HS2 plans to connect via a “15-minute walk through the streets of Birmingham” and poor infrastructure at Euston station mean “the time you save simply isn’t worth the extra cost of the high-speed track”, says Mr Gilligan.

According to the transport advisor, almost half of the benefits of HS2 will be felt in London and the southeast even if the full scheme is delivered – degrading links from smaller cities such as Stockport, Stoke and Coventry on the main lines.

The undeniable “waste and dishonesty” of HS2 Ltd, said Mr Gilligan, is the scheme’s “greatest flaw” and the cause of the spiralling costs that plague the project.

He also called proposals for ‘HS2 light’ a “delusion and a trap”.

Earlier this month, ministers were reportedly considering the ‘light’ railway line linking Birmingham and Manchester as part of a cheaper proposal to solve the “capacity crunch” in the north.

The scaled-back HS2 ‘Phase 2’ track could be built to connect Birmingham Curzon Street and Crewe.

Trains travelling at around 185mph on the “light” line would be faster than those on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) route, but slower than the 225mph speeds of HS2.

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