UK Sunak cancels high-speed train to link London and northern England
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Wednesday that he is cancelling the HS2 project to link London and Manchester by high-speed rail in the face of spiralling costs that have pushed the initial bill from £33 billion (38.145 billion euros) to between £71 billion and £98 billion (82.069-113.278 billion euros).
In this way, the route, which was to cover the distance between the British capital and one of the main cities in the north of England with 530 kilometres of track, has been reduced by half due to unforeseen costs and inflation, which have made the infrastructure several times more expensive than the initial estimates.
Thus, the tracks of what its promoters described as “the biggest infrastructure project in Europe” will only be available for high-speed trains up to Birmingham, while the stretch to Manchester will be conventional.
Long start-up
The branch line that will reach the first city should have been ready in 2026, but it is not expected to be completed until 2033. The train to Manchester, meanwhile, would not have been completed until 2041 if it had gone ahead.
“We have ended the drama of HS2 and will instead embark on large-scale national reinvestment,” Sunak told the Conservative Party’s annual conference, referring to new projects to be funded locally, including a potential high-speed rail link between Manchester and Liverpool and electrification of the railways in Wales.
The aim of HS2 was to revitalise the north of England and had been championed by Sunak’s five predecessors in office, including Boris Johnson, who gave the plan a central role in the run-up to the 2019 general election and persuaded many Labour voters to choose the Tory ticket in that election.
Meanwhile, the president of the Confederation of British Industry, Rain Newton-Smith, has rejected Sunak’s decision as “sending a damaging signal about the UK’s status as a global investment destination”.
A widely criticised decision
He was not alone. The decision has been widely criticised even in much of the Conservative party. And it was at the Conservative Party Congress that he made the announcement.
Sunak has tried to reinvent his mandate as one of tough decisions and action. With the Conservatives lagging far behind Labour in the polls ahead of next year’s election, Sunak and his team are trying to portray himself as a politician willing to take “tough decisions” over the long term to improve the situation for citizens.
Sunak’s supporters have said he is proof that he can withstand criticism in his eagerness to make the “right decisions” rather than the politically expedient ones, pointing also to his recent decision to soften measures to meet climate targets.
Effect on Spanish companies
The Spanish companies with the largest presence in the project are ACS and Ferrovial, although neither of them will be affected by the cancellation of the section from Birmingham, according to sources at the companies, because their contracts are being executed on the section that will go ahead.
ACS, together with Mace, its partner in the United Kingdom, is in the process of developing two major contracts within the framework of the British high-speed railway: the construction of Euston station in London for 2,000 million Euro and Birmingham station, where the high-speed line will finish from now on, for 660 million Euro.
For its part, Ferrovial holds 15% of a joint venture (UTE), also formed by Eiffage and Kier, which has been developing the first section since 2020 and which will continue to be executed as agreed.
In any case, this is a project that had attracted great interest among all Spanish companies dedicated to infrastructure and train manufacturing, which will now be attentive to future announcements on the destination of the 36 billion pounds that the cancellation of the project will uncover in other areas of transport in the country.