The project’s cost has now soared to £100 billion since an earlier estimation of £37.5 billion in 2013.
Work on the first section of HS2 began in April 2020, with the first trains due to run between 2029 and 2033.
The 215km of track between London and Birmingham, the first section of the line, will cost £247 million per kilometre, more than eight times as much as the Tours-Bordeaux high-speed line that entered service in 2017, the organisation estimated. “Why is it more expensive to build in Britain than in say China?” asked HS2 chairman Sir Jon Thompson in a Daily Telegraph article published in February.
In March, Downing Street postponed the construction of other sections by two years and announced that the line would not initially go as far as Euston station, in central London. The government is considering cancelling another section, between Birmingham and Manchester, British media has reported.But finance minister Jeremy Hunt, when asked on Thursday about the concerns of local politicians, told LBC radio that “they will also be worried if we have an infrastructure project where the costs are getting totally out of control.”