MP’s have been told this morning that the cancellation of the HS2 project to Manchester will result in crowded and slower trains
HS2 Executive chair Sir Jon Thompson said the government’s decision to axe the northern leg would mean ‘reduced’ rail capacity between London and Manchester
“There are a number of scenarios in which the number of seats between London and Manchester could go down,” he told the Transport committee
Meanwhile the estimated cost of building HS2 between London and Birmingham has soared to as much as £66.6bn, the project’s executive chairman, Sir Jon Thompson, has said.
The cost is now double that of the original budget for the whole project from London to Manchester
“If you brought our estimate for 2019 prices up to 2023-24 prices, you’d be adding somewhere between eight and 10 billion pounds further to that,” Thompson told a committee of MP’s on Wednesday adding that the budget was too low to begin with.
“The cost of delivery is more than the government budgeted, and that is before you begin to account for the extraordinary construction inflation over the last three years or so,” he said.
