HS2 delayed again?

[mrmartin]

Can't see discussion of this elsewhere

HS2 Service Start Date Set for Another Delay

The HS2 debacle has been a rolling disaster, with Phase 2—the leg from the West Midlands to Manchester— axed in 2023. Even so, the government insisted

order-order.com

The HS2 debacle has been a rolling disaster, with Phase 2—the leg from the West Midlands to Manchester— axed in 2023. Even so, the government insisted Phase 1 would stay on track, with services expected to run between 2029 and 2033, (with the optimistic target date being 2030) between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street. Euston’s grand terminal was originally slated to be finished by 2041, though now the government won’t commit to a timescale. Now, Guido hears the date for trains to start running has been kicked even further into the long grass…

Industry insiders say that yet another delay is looming, pushing back the next phase of HS2 by several more years. Hardly a shocker, given the ballooning costs and the Treasury’s penny-pinching. When Guido asked the Department for Transport, they didn’t deny the hold-up, instead blaming the “dysfunctional mess” inherited by the Tories. A government source said:

“This is speculation. The Transport Secretary inherited a dysfunctional mess in HS2. But the project is now undergoing a full reset, and we have acted swiftly to put urgent measures in place to bring its cost and delivery back under control. This includes tasking the new Chief Executive to assess the current cost and timeline, and to provide an action plan to deliver HS2 at the lowest reasonable cost.”

Off the rails…

 

[james_the_xv]

Can't see discussion of this elsewhere

Probably because the source is about the the same level of trustworthy as your local drug addict shouting on the street corner

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Probably because the source is about the the same level of trustworthy as your local drug addict shouting on the street corner

Guido - exactly

 

[Jimbo]

I fear it is telling that the DfT allegedly did not deny the story.

 

[Horizon22]

I fear it is telling that the DfT allegedly did not deny the story.

Well they did say: "This is speculation".

No 'allegedly' anything and this is a poor source.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

We already knew that the HS2 project was being "reset" which will take several months.
Something more definite might emerge from the government's spending review, linked to the budget next month.
Meanwhile construction of core parts of Phase 1 (eg tunnelling, viaducts, stations etc) continues at pace.
Euston design is still uncertain, but the approach tunnels will be built.

 

[hwl]

Guido is at least 8-9months behind the forum in news terms. Non story

 

[mrmartin]

HS2 Euston tunnel work put on hold

Supply chain told of delays in shock announcement

www.constructionenquirer.com

Tunnelling work along the final 4.5 mile stretch of HS2 underground high-speed railway into London Euston station is being rescheduled with some parts put on hold for up to two years.

 

[takno]

HS2 Euston tunnel work put on hold

Supply chain told of delays in shock announcement

www.constructionenquirer.com

So, according to that article, the bit that was cancelled last year and only recently reinstated isn't going to start on the pre-cancellation schedule. The reason offered for this is that they are concentrating on getting the bit open that they said they were going to open.

The only people to whom this appears to be news are some subcontractors, who essentially seem to be fishing for compo..

 

[Chris125]

So, according to that article, the bit that was cancelled last year and only recently reinstated isn't going to start on the pre-cancellation schedule. The reason offered for this is that they are concentrating on getting the bit open that they said they were going to open.

The only people to whom this appears to be news are some subcontractors, who essentially seem to be fishing for compo..

To be fair we were told a funding decision was urgently required, now it seems they can wait several years before starting.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The main works paused are at the Euston end of the tunnel, allowing the immediate funds to go north on the route to Birmingham.
The bulk of the two TBM bores seem unaffected, but progress might be slowed to keep current spend down.
Local delays don't matter if the main OOC-Curzon St project is unaffected.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The main works paused are at the Euston end of the tunnel, allowing the immediate funds to go north on the route to Birmingham.
The bulk of the two TBM bores seem unaffected, but progress might be slowed to keep current spend down.
Local delays don't matter if the main OOC-Curzon St project is unaffected.

HS2 Ltd has needed a £200m increase in its budget this year although thats quite small compared to last few years. All spending departments are under immense pressure to deliver against the cash targets set by Treasury this year and next so if HS2 Ltd can see pressures on the core works already the Euston tunnels are an easy target given they aren't needed anytime soon.

 

[Meole]

Appears Wendover issues will increase costs and delays https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qk6g4692o
The company behind the HS2 rail project said taxpayers could face a bill running into "tens of millions of pounds" after a key phase of the scheme was blocked.

Permission for an underground chamber and ditch in Wendover, designed to manage groundwater as part of the high-speed rail line, was refused by Buckinghamshire Council.

 

[mrmartin]

Appears Wendover issues will increase costs and delays https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qk6g4692o
The company behind the HS2 rail project said taxpayers could face a bill running into "tens of millions of pounds" after a key phase of the scheme was blocked.

Permission for an underground chamber and ditch in Wendover, designed to manage groundwater as part of the high-speed rail line, was refused by Buckinghamshire Council.

This indicates the problem of British planning in a nutshell.

1) Environmental/NIMBY mitigations added at great expense (the green tunnel itself)
2) This then causes much more complicated construction
3) Local authorities for some reason have say in these, despite a bill through the house of commons/lords approving the scheme (which is an extremely long and arduous process in itself)
4) Councils frustrate approvals, risking the whole construction timetable which then causes 2) to have to be replanned and the cycle continues

Hopefully the new planning bill will limit the impact of council interference on national infrastructure projects; but I still feel 1) is the 'root of all evil' and from my brief reading mitigations will still be required in an awful lot of circumstances.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

In the TBM progress thread there is a mention that the start of the Euston tunnelling has been delayed because otherwise it would clash with major work on OOC station construction.
See post #573 in this:

HS2 TBM Progress

I'm not sure about how much PR there will be. It seems that politicians mainly want HS2 to stay under the radar. I agree. Quietly get on with it and very little PR is the ticket.

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Tobberz]

This indicates the problem of British planning in a nutshell.

1) Environmental/NIMBY mitigations added at great expense (the green tunnel itself)
2) This then causes much more complicated construction
3) Local authorities for some reason have say in these, despite a bill through the house of commons/lords approving the scheme (which is an extremely long and arduous process in itself)
4) Councils frustrate approvals, risking the whole construction timetable which then causes 2) to have to be replanned and the cycle continues

Hopefully the new planning bill will limit the impact of council interference on national infrastructure projects; but I still feel 1) is the 'root of all evil' and from my brief reading mitigations will still be required in an awful lot of circumstances.

What is most baffling to me is why Parliament didn't simply exempt HS2 from local planning processes. It could literally have included in the initial Bill that the infrastructure would be built notwithstanding the Town & Country Planning Act, if it had wanted. Bizarre.

 

[YorkshireBear]

What is most baffling to me is why Parliament didn't simply exempt HS2 from local planning processes. It could literally have included in the initial Bill that the infrastructure would be built notwithstanding the Town & Country Planning Act, if it had wanted. Bizarre.

That would likely have caused lots of uproar in the media, not saying it wouldn't be the right thing to do but that would be a bit consideration of a government led scheme.

 

[Geogregor]

Doesn't SoS have right to override the obtrusive local councils?

Anyway, the whole piecemeal approval process is a farce. Every single bridge needs separate planning application. This absolutely ludicrous way of building linear infrastructure. I don't think any other country in Europe does it that way.

 

[Tobberz]

Doesn't SoS have right to override the obtrusive local councils?

Anyway, the whole piecemeal approval process is a farce. Every single bridge needs separate planning application. This absolutely ludicrous way of building linear infrastructure. I don't think any other country in Europe does it that way.

Yes, the SoS can "call in" these things, and has done a number of times since the new government took power. Unclear why that hasn't happened here.

 

[hwl]

Unclear why that hasn't happened here.

Unclear why that hasn't happened here yet.

Bucks CC are busy increasing the size of their chapter in the HS2 cost increases review.

 

[swt_passenger]

Unclear why that hasn't happened here yet.

Bucks CC are busy increasing the size of their chapter in the HS2 cost increases review.

Perhaps Bucks County councillors should be personally charged the increased costs. I suspect some councillors still think if they object to everything the project will be cancelled...

 

[hwl]

Perhaps Bucks County councillors should be personally charged the increased costs. I suspect some councillors still think if they object to everything the project will be cancelled...

Agreed - time for someone in government to threaten summoning the ghost of Shirley Porter...

With the next election in Summer 2029 they are probably hoping for a change in government and cancellation after the trains have started test running.

Realistically most of OOC to Curzon Street throat will be complete from a civils point of view at the end of 2026 apart from a small number of problems structures and surrounding area (including this particular one).

The key overall will be to have decent distance either side of the railheads to get on with track laying - which looks likely to be the case.

 

[mike57]

How did HS1 construction fare in terms of local planning obstuctiveness? Was there any learning which should have been brought forwards to HS2.

If local councils had been excluded from the HS2 planning process once the parlimentary bill was approved how much money would have been saved. Or what has that money bought for us, I suspect nothing except more paperwork and consultants fees. It does rather feel like the tail wagging the dog. I assume the full design was placed before Parliment, and surely once this has been approved by parliment local input should be stopped. Maybe some caveats to take account of minor design changes as the project progresses, something along the lines of "As long as no structure exceed x m high and is contained within the railway boundary no further local planning permissions will be required".

 

[mrmartin]

I guess HS1 had one council for the most part (Kent CC? Though I don't know if lower tier councils had a say?) which was also getting a lot of benefit from the scheme (new HS stations and the classic compatible service).

Buckinghamshire on the other hand gets not much apart from a lot of disruption.

There should be no need to get LA approval for anything that parliament has approved directly. Minor modifications included in that.

 

[styles]

I agree that national decision-making bodies should have authority to overrule local authorities on such matters.

This actually applies somewhat locally as well. The London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea has object to every east-west segregated cycle lane TfL has proposed. To the point that, due to the shape of the constituency, RBKC basically hold ransom on creating east-west cycle lines from west London into central London. At some point, TfL should intervene and say actually one of these roads is part of our strategic road network and we're going to overrule you on this.

I'm all for local decision-making, but some authority needs to be given to the people we've elected to look at the bigger picture. Some of the planning objections to HS2 are fair, but so many are really not. The national government of the day should be able to intervene, with appropriate committees to ensure fair scrutiny, and say actually we've decided it's in the national interest to go ahead on this one. It shouldn't require inordinate amounts of time and paperwork either, but a reasonable deadline for submission of evidence-based objections.

 

[38Cto15E]

I am not 'in the loop' in any way regarding HS2 progress, but on a journey along the WCML a couple of weeks ago there seemed very little work going on in the Lichfield area.

 

[mike57]

There should be no need to get LA approval for anything that parliament has approved directly. Minor modifications included in that.

I agree that national decision-making bodies should have authority to overrule local authorities on such matters.

Are the legal frameworks by which railway construction bills presented to Parliment much the same as they were in Victorian times, when the majority of railways were built. Not sure of the timeline but a quick Google AI answer seems to imply that 'Planning Permission' as a concept was introduced in 1932.

So maybe the whole method by which railway building proposals are brought before, and approved by Parliment needs to be reviewed and modernised. Maybe a two stage process, first stage "We want to build a high speed railway from A to B via C and D", fairly high level, with the general route and parameters outlined (design speed etc.) which is then debated, modified if appropriate, and approved, then a second bill with all the fine detail in it, once that is approved construction starts and local authorities are no longer in the loop.

 

[InTheEastMids]

There should be no need to get LA approval for anything that parliament has approved directly. Minor modifications included in that.

The issue in this case appears to be that the need for this drainage scheme was not foreseen when the Act was passed, so therefore is not permitted by the Act (unlike most of the HS2 works).

People love to talk about how we can't deliver major projects to time/cost, but this does look like a physical example of what this looks like in practice. The need for this drainage scheme wasn't foreseen when the act was passed. Instead of focusing on developing mature design, there was a rush to get designs knocked together, the Act passed and boots on the ground before it could be cancelled. Now - regardless of the actions of Bucks Planning - there is a significant scheme that's outside the scope of the Act because nobody knew it was needed, and cannot possibly have been properly costed/scheduled for

So the key point is that they need LA approval because the scheme is outside what Parliament approved.

Elsewhere on the railway, and I think on HS2 construction, where the works are covered by the Act, then they do get to use the Prior Approvals process. This is basically HS2 saying to the local planning authority, "We believe these plans are already permitted because eveyrthing we're proposing is in line with the Act", and the LPA will agree or disagree with that.

At the end of the day, local politicians gaming the planning committee for their Nimby reasons is not an excuse to effectively make HS2 unaccountable. It's trying to reduce cost and deliver more quickly. Even if well-intentioned, local people might find themselves putting up with significant design changes or very disruptive working practices (e.g. heavy machinery working 24/7 under floodlights next to residential areas), without having been able to hold HS2 to account.

 

[Mordac]

I guess HS1 had one council for the most part (Kent CC? Though I don't know if lower tier councils had a say?) which was also getting a lot of benefit from the scheme (new HS stations and the classic compatible service).

Buckinghamshire on the other hand gets not much apart from a lot of disruption.

There should be no need to get LA approval for anything that parliament has approved directly. Minor modifications included in that.

In two-tier areas, planning is a district rather than county council affair.

 

[NickBucks]

If fellow posters had made there own enquiries they would have discovered that the issue is not about the new drainage structure which the local Wendover community have accepted but it is all about the vast number of lorries passing through the town to complete the works which frankly HS2 do not care about.Bucks C C have refused planning permission until this issue can be resolved and the local Wendover HS2 group have submitted alternative and sensible proposals which I understand are now being considered.