No guarantee that HS2 contracts can be renegotiated so how are costs going to come under control? - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Nigel Boddy, Greencroft Close, Darlington.
Recently the Westminster Transport Committee heard from Mark Wild, chief executive of HS2 Ltd, and Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Junior Transport Minister that all the problems in HS2 were the last government's fault for "starting too early".
They will try harder in the autumn to get the project back under some sort of financial control by trying to renegotiate some contracts. However, they openly admitted the contractors didn't need to do this.
They were unable to give any estimate of how long the project will take. Worryingly Mark Wild placated the committee by reassuring them HS2 was the best railway that money could buy. He just couldn't tell them how much money.
The Waverley Line in the Scottish Borders cost £4m per mile by relaying track on old track bed. HS2 is costing £403m per mile. No one mentioned the Great Central Railway, taken up in the 1970s which ran from Sheffield to London, 15 miles to the East of HS2.
Dr Rob Bell in his TV series "Walking Britain's Lost Railways" referred to The Great Central Railway as "Britain's original HS2".