HS2 Failure - Why is UK so Bad at Building Infrastructure?

A look at why costs of HS2 rose above initial expectations. Why it is not just about HS2 but wider issues of building infrastructure in the UK. What can be done about it?

Text version

Sources:

About

[JimFarrand]

"Poor management" is a pretty generous description. The whistleblowers make it sound more like outright fraud.

[mrmeldrew]

We are quite sophisticated at fraud through taxpayer funded contracts to rich mates.

[iq]

But Japan's population density is pretty high too. I think the key is corruption and bureaucracy as you touched on.

[Stewy-xwfz]

When the Jamaican government made a request to the UK government to build a couple highways thru the mountains on the island, The UK government told the Jamaican government that they were unable to do it and it would be impossible. The Jamaican government gave the contract to a Chinese Engineer contractor called CHEC and the rest is history.

[TrevorWilliams-fqmg]

I worked on the Crossrail project in a 3 way joint venture Contractor partnership, 1 British, 1 Dutch, 1 Spanish Contractor. We built the tunnels and the station platform concourses and corridors to the Western section from Royal Oak to Liverpool Street. Total cost £850 million at 2015 prices. The job went like clockwork. We can compete with other countries but HS2 was a political brainchild with no thought or detailed planning behind it.

[richardbloemenkamp]

The UK is sick, and I guess that is for a large part because UK politics is sick. Hope you get better and elect smarter politicians in the future, but so far it has been downhill at least the last 5 years.

[majormoolah]

1850: The sun never sets on the British Empire

2023: Why can't we do what France does?

[AL]

Gareth Dennis had an extensive analysis of the reasons for the high cost and one of the main ones he gets to in the end is that the UK economy is built on rentier extraction so the money is made mostly by a long chain of middle men that raises the cost.

[clivejohnson]

UK has a stop / go attitude to rail. After HS1, HS lines should have started immediately, say East Mid to Leeds, Leeds Manxchester, and so on. You never see new Motorway building stop.

[Bobrogers]

The UK isn't alone in building infrastructure so expensively. The same often happens in the US, and for some of the same reasons.

[alhollywood]

The parallels with our white elephant California HSR are eerie. Exploding costs and construction of a less useful part of the route are just 2

[balkanleopard]

Unfortunately you fail to mention China's HSR (now at about 40, 000 km in total) built at a cost of around US$19m/km in very technically challenging terrain. Converting your £/mile for HS2 to US$/km gives a UK cost of US$243m/km. In other words UK built HSR cost around twenty (20) times as much per km as China. Perhaps the UK should let people who know how to build HSR, on schedule and budget, do the work.

[oliverlondon]

A key issue are UK property laws. Because of these, the majority of the tracks are underground here. Such laws don’t exist elsewhere and the governments of other countries have the right to take possession of land for critical infrastructure projects

[erongi]

The UK's paradoxical mix of higher proportion of rural space than many Western countries and high population density is unique to the UK. According to the World Bank, 78% of the UK's land area is rural, compared to 60% in Germany, 52% in France, and 38% in the United States.Study by the author Guy Shrubsole found that the aristocracy and gentry still own around 30% of England. William himself own 0.2%. Of course people like that have no influence behind the scene. Do they?

[johnjephcote]

Even 50 years ago at Uni I knew the economic benefits of a Network rather than a mere Link. Now, that is all we have...a link to Birmingham. When I see freight trains sidetracked on loops (that were once slow lines) and I watch those trains rushing through in the wee hours, that is why we need the capacity for the old lines to take the freight and the new to run the expresses.

[STJukes]

Out of curiosity, you say the UK has relatively low skilled workers compared to some countries in EU. But why is this the case to begin with?

[danielmartinezdowsett]

I’m working on HS2 - from a consultant perspective there are two factors I have noticed that are definitely driving the design costs up:
1 - HS2’s undefined scope - it has evolved over the years and we are continuously redesigning
2 - Over-engineering required by HS2

[huwgrossmith]

Because, like many governments, they do not contact in decent project management professionals. Govt contracts have 2 rules: 1 win - print variation books; 2 when any govt aligned persons says anything in any way fill out variation.

[nettcologne]

The London-Birmingham and Cologne-Frankfurt routes are comparable, both around 190 kilometers long.
The construction of the German route took seven years and the costs amounted to around six billion euros: On July 25, 2002, the ICE route between Cologne and Frankfurt was opened. Here you can travel with the ICE at speeds of up to 300 km/h. The trip lasts approximately 50 minutes to 1 hour.

[Bawdale]

The issue is incompetence in the government. Ministers don't know how to vet and manage large construction projects, and rely too heavily on private sector consultants. More engineers and industrialists are required in government not lawyers and media experts. Secondly cabinet ministers are more concerned about their individual brands which have a very short life cycle. They gravitate to cheap short term election cycle wins ahead of long term projects with benefits that play out over generations.