The Prime Minister has refused to answer questions over the last few weeks regarding the future of the high-speed network.
with the estimated price being nearly £80bn more than expected.The project has been beset by delays and inflation, with estimates putting the cost at more than £180bn, nearly £80bn more than the original price tag.
This was the original planned HS2 route in three phases – but now the Manchester to Birmingham leg could be scrapped TrendingHS2 was supposed to form 330 miles of high-speed rail network, initially intended to link London and the West Midlands, stretching to Birmingham, with a further phase extending to Crewe, Manchester and Leeds in the North.The Government initially estimated that HS2 would cost £37.5 billion in 2009 prices, according to a report by the House of Commons Library.
A further revision in 2020 set the estimated cost of completing the full HS2 network at a range of £72 billion to £98 billion in 2019 prices – however, these estimates were for the original scheme, which anticipated the line running to Leeds as well as Manchester. The vast majority of this spending has been on phase one, London to Birmingham, with £0.9 billion spent on phase 2A, Birmingham to Crewe, and £0.7 billion on the western section of phase 2B, Crewe to Manchester.
The first train is expected to leave the production line in 2027, according to the company overseeing the project, HS2 Ltd.Phase one of HS2, from London to Birmingham, will run on 140 miles of dedicated track. Main construction of the line has been under way for three years, with work now taking place on around 350 sites from London to the West Midlands.This has now been revised, with phase one of the line currently scheduled to be completed between 2029 and 2033 – although trains will not run all the way between Birmingham to central London initially, and will instead begin and end at Old Oak Common in north-west London.
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