Sunday, November 28, 2021 3:26 p.m.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to abolish the eastern stretch of High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) from East Midlands to Leeds was made without a formal cost-benefit analysis of the remaining route, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
The government decided earlier this month to abandon the Y-shape of the HS2 route, leaving only the London Euston to Manchester wing of the taxpayer-funded £ 96 billion project intact.
Services to Leeds have been suspended, with HS2 now stopping on East Midlands Parkway on one side, while plans for a new line between Manchester and Leeds have also been abandoned.
This is despite the fact that the route was originally an important plank on the Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Despite these seismic changes, the Department of Transportation reportedly completed the calculation of the updated “cost-benefit ratio” for HS2 just last week.
This is the metric used to assess whether a taxpayer funded project is good value for money.
Instead, the division told the newspaper that officials had only carried out a cost-benefit analysis of Johnson’s entire integrated rail plan.
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A transport ministry spokesman said: “It is not true that no benefit-cost analysis has been carried out. Our integrated railway plan worth 96 billion pounds was shaped by a detailed profitability and value for money analysis including benefit-cost ratios. “
Commenting on future developments, they added, “As individual programs move forward, more cost-benefit analyzes will be carried out in order to make future decisions. This is standard on a project at this stage of development and given the study to be carried out on how to bring HS2 services to Leeds. “
Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, the former secretary of state in the Treasury, told the newspaper it was “very strange” and “surprising” that no value-for-money analysis specifically of the revised HS2 program was made before the Prime Minister’s signing off on plans to change the line.
He said, “In a sane world, when you’re trying to prioritize investment projects, you want the full analysis broken down by project.”
Former HS2 technical director, Professor Andrew McNaughton, has previously stated that the West Midlands-Leeds route is a “core element” of the line.
While some backbenchers criticized the decision to delete the eastern section of the HS2 line, critics of the plan are suspicious of the plan, believing that new calculations could lead to an official rating showing that the line is poor value for money.
This follows on from the last assessment in 2020, which concluded that the system had fallen from “medium” to “low”.
The ambiguity about the evaluation process is the most recent situation in which the Boris Johnson administration can be accused of sloppiness.
The confusion over the rail schedule follows both Boris Johnson, who stuttered his way through speaking to the Confederation of British Industry, referring to Peppa Pig and making car noises, as well as the humiliating descent from his attempt to standardize parliamentary proceedings against those who have since stepped down former MP Owen Paterson.
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