Following the latest Public Accounts Committee report on HS2, Greengauge21 looks at recent research into the reasons why HS2 build costs have continued to rise.
“This review from Manchester Business School researcher Graham Winch gets behind the now routine interrogations by the Public Accounts Committee”, says Greengauge 21 Director Jim Steer, “and pinpoints a failure of all parties to recognise that lengthy delays in the planning process have knock-on consequences for construction schedules.”
The Greengauge 21 report also takes apart a suggestion in the new research that the pursuit of greater journey time savings as the project progressed drove an increase in capital costs. “It was those objecting to the project who were relentlessly riffing around the pointlessness of ‘getting to Birmingham a few minutes faster’, not HS2 Ltd who recognised from the start that this project was all about building network capacity.”
You can access the article here: Greengauge 21 – response to Graham Winch article
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