HS2 bill could rise to £102bn with first trains delayed until 2039, government admits

The HS2 high-speed railway will now cost up to £102.7bn and trains will not start running between London and Birmingham until as late as 2039, the government has admitted – £70bn more and 13 years later than originally promised. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander , said that the truncated railway would not be entirely completed until as late as 2043. The figure is the first official estimate of HS2’s budget in 2026 prices. Alexander said the total cost would range between £87.7bn and £102.7bn, with only a third of the rise owing to inflation. The first trains running from Old Oak Common in west London to Birmingham will now run between 2036 and 2039, with the full railway running from London Euston to join the West Coast main line in Staffordshire scheduled to be completed between 2040 and 2043. Alexander said that the forecasts were now “built on solid foundations with credible estimates as ranges”. She blamed the Conservative government for standing by and watching “the world’s most expensive slow-motion car crash”, saying that Labour had inherited a “litany of failure”. Alexander added: “I can confirm that the previous government spent most of HS2’s budget without laying a single mile of track. That is the shocking legacy.” She added: “If it seems like an obscene increase in times and costs, that is because it is. …