UNCOVERED: Uk business news today what went wrong with hs2 - The Untold Story

HS2 went wrong from the very outset by being named HS2. That will be one interpretation to be drawn from the report by former National Security Adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove. He was asked to review the project by transport secretary Heidi Alexander. One conclusion? That there was a fixation on speed at all costs, literally. What was intended to boost capacity on the stretched West Coast line, from the capital to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, was taken over by a desire to provide a super-fast service – the fastest on a conventional rail track in the world, at 224mph. This added to the bill as the focus was on state-of-the-art engineering and technology, rather than making trains longer and more frequent and capable of carrying greater numbers of passengers. Politicians, in other words, put kudos before necessity.