Rail Minister insists we can afford to finish HS2, despite challenges

Britain can still afford the controversial HS2 rail project despite "challenging times" according to a government minister. The £74bn scheme to build a 225mph railway linking London, Birmingham and Manchester survived last week's cuts announced by the Chancellor. Rail minister Hew Merriman, visiting the Old Oak Common construction site in Acton, west London, described HS2 as "not just a rail project". "Here at Old Oak Common, it will regenerate the area," he said. Mr Merriman added: "It will deliver 25,000 homes, over 50,000 jobs into this community and that's outside of the rail project itself. "The country can afford it because it's an investment in ourselves. Successive governments have been criticised for not looking beyond the election cycle. This is us looking decades ahead of us."

HS2 is Europe's largest construction site with more than 12,000 people employed at sites in London and the Chilterns. The new station at Old Oak Common will be a temporary southern terminus when the line from Birmingham opens between 2029 and 2033. It will also serve as an interchange allowing passengers to transfer to and from trains on the Elizabeth and Great Western lines. The timetable for HS2 reaching Euston is between 2021 and 2036. It could be 2041 before the line reaches Manchester. Some rail insiders predict the cost of the project will spiral in the years ahead.

HS2 Minister Huw Merriman officially launching the west London spoil conveyor at HS2's Old Oak Common Credit: PA

But Mr Merriman said HS2 chief executive Mark Thurston was expected to find cost savings and efficiencies. "They know that we are in challenging times," said Mr Merriman He added: "Inflation is running not just in the shops but also for the materials that are used to build HS2. I don't want to speculate what the final cost will be." The first of three conveyor belts, built to transport five million tonnes of waste oil and clay to a rail depot at Willesden has been switched on. HS2 said the technology would mean one million fewer lorry journeys on roads in west London. The excavated spoil will be taken by train to sites in Cambridgeshire, Kent and Warwickshire.

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