HS2
contracts


which
should
have
cost
£19.5
billion
in
total
have
already
risen
in
price
by
another
£6.5
billion,
according
to
HS2
CEO
Mark
Wild.

Mr
Wild
was
giving
evidence
to
the
Commons
Transport
Committee.
He
said
that
there
had
been
‘optimism
bias’
when
projects
were
being
costed,
and
that
control
of
the
scheme
had
been
lost

He
has
been
brought
in
to
undertake
a
complete
‘reset’
of
the
scheme,
which
should
have
welcomed
its
first
passengers
next
year
but
has
now
been
put
back
to
an
unknown
opening
date
after
2033.

Only
60
per
cent
of
the
civil
engineering
on
the
160km/h
route
has
been
completed,
although
it
should
have
been
virtually
finished
by
now.

He
told
the
Committee:
‘The
bottom
line
is
that,
at
the
notice
to
proceed,
the
contractors
could
not
price
the
risk.
What
we’re
seeing
is
the
crystallisation
of
risk:
they
should
have
cost
£19.5
billion
and
we’ve
already
spent
£26
billion
and
we’re
just
over
halfway
done.

‘If
you
lose
control
of
the
programme,
you
end
up
at
the
extreme
end
of
optimism
bias,
which
ends
up
in
delusion.
The
problem
with
HS2
is
we
lost
control
of
the
programme.’

He
predicted
an
eventual
‘overspend’
of
between
50
and
100
per
cent.

Rail
minister
Lord
Hendy,
meanwhile,
questioned
the
need
for
trains
travelling
at
350km/h.

He
said:
‘It
is
hard
to
understand
why
there
was
such
zealotry
about
the
highest-speed
railway
in
a
relatively
small
country.’

The
maximum
speed
on
HS1
is
300km/h,
and
high
speed
lines
on
the
continent
rarely
offer
more
than
320km/h,
even
though
they
cover
much
greater
distances
than
the
remaining
section
of
HS2.

What
do
you
think?
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us
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