How HS2 went off the rails
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The high speed railway HS2 has been quietly graded ‘red’ by the government’s infrastructure watchdog, meaning successful delivery appears unachievable. The cost of the line - planned to run between London, and central and northern England - is at £71 billion so far; nearly £2,500 for every UK household. So what went wrong? Who’s got rich off this? And will it ever be finished?
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Guest: Oliver Wright, Policy Editor, The Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Olivia Case.
Clips: Channel 4, HS2 Ltd, GB News, BBC, Parliament Live, The Guardian, Sky.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are you keeping track of this? |
| 0:03.4 | Britain's new high-speed railway, high-speed 2, is a game-changer for our rail network. |
| 0:13.9 | We've been banging on about HS2 for 15 years or so. |
| 0:18.4 | It's hoovered up cash. |
| 0:19.7 | Back at the beginning, 34 billion was the price tag for. |
| 0:22.9 | 45 billion pounds now. |
| 0:25.0 | We're now looking over 100,000,000 billion and it's not going to go to Manchester until |
| 0:29.1 | I'm in my 60s. |
| 0:30.1 | To 138 billion, is the government misleading this country just to how much this HS2 is folly |
| 0:39.0 | is going to cost? |
| 0:40.8 | It's been delayed. |
| 0:43.8 | Is this project going ahead or isn't it? |
| 0:46.8 | Because my constituency looks like an industrial site right now. |
| 0:51.2 | I'd like to thank the right Honourable Lady for her question. |
| 0:54.8 | Spades are already in the ground as she well knows, with HS2 and we are focusing |
| 0:59.1 | on its delivery. |
| 1:00.1 | Whole legs of the route have even been junked. |
| 1:03.1 | And on Wednesday, hardly a ringing endorsement from the Prime Minister. |
| 1:07.6 | Can you guarantee that it remains your government policy for a high-speed rail train to go from |
| 1:12.8 | Houston to Central Manchester? |
| 1:14.8 | I'm not going to speculate on lots of the other things that people will be talking about, |
| 1:18.5 | but I'm focused on today is something that the sun in particular has been campaigning |
... |
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