HS2 failings blamed on high-speed focus and political pressure
Sir Stephen Lovegrove is expected to blame gold-plating and shifting political priorities for HS2’s rising costs and delays.
- The Lovegrove Report, expected this week, concludes that HS2 failed due to political pressure and a focus on achieving the "highest possible speeds," resulting in a bespoke and highly engineered design.
- Sir Stephen Lovegrove describes these issues as the project's "original sins," criticizing "the decision to begin construction at the hardest points of the route" between London and the Midlands.
- HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild is conducting a comprehensive "reset," while Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander considers reducing top speeds from 360km to 320km to help bring down costs.
- Alexander is expected to confirm that trains will not meet the 2033 target date, as the project faces rising costs and the cancellation of northern legs to Leeds and Manchester.
- A Government source said "The Lovegrove Report further confirms the astonishing extent to which previous Conservative governments had totally lost control of HS2," vowing to pull the project out of the dirt.
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Ghost towns and trains to nowhere: How the £100bn HS2 line descended into farce
The Government will ask HS2 bosses to reduce the speed of trains running on the high-speed line in a bid to lower costs, it is expected to be confirmed tomorrow. The beleaguered high-speed rail project was supposed to see trains hit 223mph (360 kph) between London and Birmingham making it one of the fastest in the world. But after repeated delays and spiralling costs, Labour asked chief executive Mark Wild to examine whether reducing the speed t…
HS2 report expected to criticise 'gold plating' decisions
The official Lovegrove review into the multibillion-pound rail project is expected to list "the original sins of the scheme", including its focus on the highest possible speeds, and will be published this week
HS2 despite chopping link to Scotland to take 2 to 3 times as long as Japanese and French equivalents AND now go even slower – Con and Labour governments not to be blamed as it’s not a Scottish ferry is it?
From BBC UK today: The failings surrounding the HS2 rail project are partly due to a focus on achieving the highest possible speeds and political pressure for progress on the scheme, a review is expected to find. The scheme has been undergoing a “reset”, and in March Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander asked HS2 bosses to look at lowering top speeds to save money. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c936xeeye41o This comes on top of an earlier, …
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