The first leg of the HS2 high-speed rail link between Birmingham and London could be finished in six years - but the Government has no idea when it will reach Euston, a parliamentary report revealed on Wednesday.
The Commons public accounts committee said HS2 chiefs were “aiming for 2030” to complete the first part of the line, between new stations at Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common in north-west London.
But the Department for Transport does not have a “plausible or detailed proposition” to attract private investors to fund the tunnels to Euston or build the terminus station.
This has left the MPs “more concerned about the HS2 programme than ever before” at a time the estimated cost of the first leg has soared from £44.6billion to as much as £67billion.
They said they were “highly sceptical” that the DfT would be able to attract private investment at Euston “on the scale and speed required to make the London terminus station a success”.
They also warned of the ludicrous scenario of the 225mph HS2 trains being forced to go slower than Avanti West Coast’s 125mph Pendolino trains when they switch onto the West Coast Main Line, due to the decision to axe the HS2 route to Manchester.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided last October to axe the northern section of HS2 and to require the £6.5bn link and new, smaller station at Euston to be privately funded.
But with £24.4bn already sunk in HS2, and it costing an estimated £11bn to scrap outright, the Birmingham to London link now offers “very poor value for money for taxpayers”, the MPs said.
The DfT hopes that a development corporation will be established to take the Euston plans forward. Until Euston opens, Old Oak Common will be HS2’s southern terminus – potentially for a decade or more.
The report said: “The [DfT] could not give any date or range of dates for when it thought Euston might be delivered.
“Developing Euston is dependent on attracting private finance to pay for it, but the [DfT] does not yet have any plan for how to do so and has to make investment decisions soon to protect long-term value for money.”
The proposed Euston HS2 station, which would sit alongside the existing mainline station, had already been reduced from 11 platforms to 10 – but this is expected to reduce further to six.
Experts warned the MPs that this could create a “pinch point”, and increase the risk of delays. There are expected to be eight trains an hour, down from 17 envisaged when the northern section was proposed.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, said: “The decision to cancel HS2’s Northern leg was a watershed moment that raises urgent and unanswered questions.
“Can we seriously be actively working towards a situation where our high-speed trains are forced to run slower than existing ones when they hit older track?”
In evidence to the committee, Camden council warned that if a contract to continue tunnelling south from Old Oak Common was not signed within 10 months then this would lead to “significant additional costs”
Councillor Danny Beales said: “What is also evident is that a clear direction on the future of Euston is needed as soon as possible. The community cannot be left in limbo and a solution to delivering the station and place is needed at pace.”
The lobby group BusinessLDN warned that privately financing the Euston tunnel and station along the lines of the Northern line extension to Battersea Power Station could prove problematic.
This is because the scale of Euston’s costs is considerably greater than the Northern line extension - and because the Government has stated that 10,000 new homes could be part of the Euston project.
