The HS2 high-speed train line is only about “one third complete” and two to three years behind schedule, the project’s new chief executive has told MPs.
Mark Wild, who was brought in to rescue HS2 last year, told the transport select committee on Wednesday: “After five years of civil engineering, we are at least two to three years behind.
“We are about one-third complete against the whole scheme.
“In the first two years of effort, we simply didn’t make enough progress.”
He added: “The real delay is the 100 miles of civil engineering between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street.”
Last month Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons there was “no route” to meet the target date of having HS2 services running by 2033.
Ms Alexander said: “It’s an appalling mess, but it’s one we will sort out.”
An interim report compiled by Mr Wild laid bare the “shocking mismanagement of the project under previous governments”, Ms Alexander said.
She added: “He stated, in no uncertain terms, the overall project with respect of cost, schedule and scope is unsustainable.
“Based on his advice, I see no route by which trains can be running by 2033 as planned.”
Appearing before the transport committee on Wednesday, Mr Wild said the civil engineering – the digging of tunnels and building the route between the new stations at Old Oak Common and Curzon Street – was “about 60 per cent complete”.
He said construction, which started in April 2020, had begun “too fast” and had run into problems with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
In addition, the contracts with firms involved in HS2 had been badly drawn up as all the risk was borne by HS2 and the Department for Transport.
However, the station at Old Oak Common was one example where HS2 was “making good progress”.
Mr Wild said the project suffered from “optimism bias”, adding: “The estimates have been proven to be too optimistic.”
He compared it to building a house extension or a supermarket too quickly. “If you are designing something in the morning and trying to build it in the afternoon, you end up with a lot of inefficiency,” he said.
HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then on to Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed by the previous Conservative government because of spiralling costs.
The first phase – between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street - was initially planned to open by the end of 2026, but this was pushed back to between 2029 and 2033.
In June 2024, HS2 Ltd’s estimate of the maximum cost was £61.8bn excluding Euston.
Mr Wild said HS2 was “now in a much stronger position” as the majority of costs were known.
He added: "The whole scheme, which includes, of course, the tracks, the overhead lines, the trains, the system integration, we're about a third complete."
Rail minister Lord Hendy said: “There have been a lot of politicians associated with this since 2010 and we must all bear some responsibility.
“There has been a number of years where the speed of construction of the project appears to have been rather more important than its costs.”
Lord Hendy said there had been a need for a new railway to ease the “huge pressure” on the West Coast Main Line.
But the mistake had been to order an “exceptionally fast railway rather than just a fast railway”, which meant that HS2 would unnecessarily have a higher “spec” than the HS1 route between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel.
Mr Wild, in an update to Ms Alexander last month, said it would take three years of testing before HS2 could open - far longer than originally anticipated.
Under the current plans, 54 British-built “bullet trains” will travel at a top speed of 225mph along 140miles of high-speed track between London and Birmingham.
Mr Wild has suggested opening the railway with the trains not reaching full speed.
Lord Hendy revealed: “We don’t have a test facility for the trains as fast as the ones that are planned.”
“It’ hard to understand why there was such zealotry to have a high speed railway... when the origination of it was to relieve capacity,” he added.
