Nils Pratley’s summary of governmental incompetence regarding HS2 is stark (HS2: a complete failure by the British state and its politicians, 18 June). However, it is the lack of application of a basic procurement principle that is the underlying cause of the HS2 debacle.
On a major project like HS2, the first question a procurement professional should ask is: “What is the business need?” The time spent establishing a clear need, signed off by all stakeholders, is time well spent. My experience is that quality procurement expertise is not sought before the project specification is defined and this question is fudged. Why scupper a glamorous ill-defined (and therefore inevitably costly) project for a dull and precisely defined one?
I would suggest that the actual business need was not to build a high-speed connection to the Midlands and north, but to increase passenger capacity, for which there were many solutions. However, matching the TGV (France’s intercity high-speed rail service) was not one of them, but it became adopted as such in the minds of the proponents of the project and the politicians. That being the case, the project signed off by the politicians was entirely inappropriate.
Bruce White
Cambridge
• HS2 has the flaw that it has always had since conception (The Guardian view on HS2 delays: a chance to break the cycle of costly failure, 18 June). The time gained from high speed over a short run is minimal. This is not Madrid to Barcelona (approximately 320 miles). The argument that it will relieve capacity on existing lines is false – it does not stop anywhere along the way. People must travel into London or Birmingham to get on, wasting time and money as well as loading the existing lines. People will prefer the overall quicker route from where they live, rather than schlepping into the city. It doesn’t even serve the two international airports that it conceivably could have reached.
Think of the transport projects that could have been if those billions had not been poured away on political vanity. For example, I live in Cornwall. Our connection to the National Rail network is a single-track bridge that was opened in 1859 and a line that clings to the edge of the land except when it gets washed away. A fraction of those billions could be well spent down here. Instead, Old Oak Common degrades the GWR line into Paddington that serves not only us, but a huge commuting contingent from Berkshire, Wiltshire etc. Just stop throwing good money after bad and give it up.
Alan Peabody
Feock, Cornwall
• The HS2 project is a national disgrace. Spiralling costs, massive environmental destruction, loss of homes, and for what? Reducing the journey from London to Birmingham by a few minutes, with no doubt expensive tickets as well.
This vanity project, started by the Conservatives, does not appear to have any justification, and nobody is taken to task for its current failures; nor do we know who is profiting from it, whether consultants or managers. The cost to the taxpayers is unacceptable, especially given the need for better and cheaper rail services in so many other areas. There should be a public inquiry into this.
And yet this government is apparently going to continue pouring money into it, at a time when Rachel Reeves claims that there is a lack of resources to fund pressing matters in other areas, policing, the arts and social services. No other European country would have botched such a project, nor indeed considered it.
Tanya Firth
London
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