DfT looking at ways to protect space for additional HS2 Euston platforms - leaders admit still no agreed phase one cost

The Department for Transport is looking at ways to secure space for additional platforms at HS2’s London Euston station, if the demand is there.

Alan Over, Director General, Major Rail Projects Group, Senior Responsible Owner for High Speed 2 Programme at the DfT, made the comments at the Public Accounts Committee on December 19.

Responding to a question from Ruth Cadbury MP, who expressed fears that the future station will not be big enough, Over said: “If we look at this across the line of route and the decisions taken by the last Government and are yet to be opined on by this Government, we think six platforms will be sufficient to provide all the foreseeable services, unless there is a major expansion of the network in the future.

“But we want to make sure that our successors have that option, so we are actively planning for future-proofing at the HS2 station that would make provision for an additional three platforms, or possibly four platforms, next to the ones that we have a concrete plan to build.”

Over said those involved need to decide how that’s provided for due to costs, but admitted that “if we do not put enough future-proofing into it, it is very difficult to return to at a later date”.

He added: “We are trying to make sure that that is protected and to work across the three stations to make sure that there is an integrated view of demand. We need to ensure that we do not build for demand that has not yet appeared, but we do not want to preclude the option to make sure that we can accommodate future demand, because that is essentially the purpose of this.”

His comments came days after Rail Minister Lord Hendy said HS2’s Euston station would have six platforms that could support a ten-train-per-hour schedule.

In the same hearing, Dame Bernadette Kelly, Permanent Secretary at the DfT, told MPs that there was still no agreed cost estimate for phase one, something she admitted was “clearly unacceptable”.

She told the committee: “I last appeared before you about a year ago, shortly after the Government’s decisions on Network North. At that point, we had published two outturn estimates. One was the Department’s estimate of £45 billion to £54bn. The other was the estimate that HS2 Ltd had provided of, from memory, £49bn to £57bn.

“Since then, we have been working to establish with HS2 what an accurate and robust cost range for this project now is. I am afraid that I have to report that we do not have such an estimate.

“Earlier this year, HS2 Ltd provided a further upwardly revised estimate—which again, for full transparency, we have reported in the parliamentary report—of £54bn to £66bn for phase one. That is an unassured figure. We do not regard it as a reliable and agreed cost estimate.”

When asked when the situation will be resolved, Kelly said it would “take some time to arrive at a revised estimate”, with a “whole-programme reset” being done.

“We need to reach agreement on a cost estimation methodology, which we do not currently have; as part of that, we will need to agree how outstanding risks on the programme will be dealt with; we need to agree a revised range on cost and schedule; we need to agree the future funding profile for this programme in the next phase of the spending review because we will need to determine both what is most efficient and what is affordable within fiscal constraints; we will need to agree a plan to drive down cost and drive up productivity in every element of delivery, including renegotiating the main works contracts,” Kelly added.

She also admitted that the work will not be completed in time for the spring spending review.

Mark Wild, the new Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd, compared the situation to the Elizabeth line, but said the problems with HS2 have “occurred much closer to the beginning of the project, adding: “It is clear to me that we have to acknowledge that HS2, in its core mission to control costs, to deliver it for the lowest feasible cost, has failed.

“ I need to start from the position that I really do respect and honour all the work done by HS2 people and our supply chain, but we have to acknowledge that HS2 has failed in its mission to control costs.”

Wild said construction of HS2 started “much too early”, saying there was a “rush to start before there was mature design consent”. He also said contracts moved the risk to HS2 Ltd to manage, but it has “not managed the risk profile in an optimal way”, and that activities bear no relation to the scheme’s performance baseline.

“It will take all of 2025 to set the activities into the right position, and then it may take a little bit of time after that to get what would be called an assured contractualised baseline. The reality is that it won’t be until mid-’26 that we will be sitting here with an assured baseline that can be properly measured against,” he said.

The committee also asked when they expected trains to start running between Euston and Birmingham.

When Alan Foster, Chief Financial Officer and Interim CEO at HS2 Ltd, said 2037, committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, asked Wild for another answer, however he said: “You would hope that in the 2030s, you would have a functioning railway, but the truth of the matter is that—sorry to pour cold water on it—I need to do the work.”

Kelly pointed out that trains between Old Oak Common and Birmingham are due to start running between 2029 and 2033, before the section to Euston opens a few years later.

“The schedule for Euston services has an outer limit of 2036, and our current work on Euston suggests we are still within that parameter,” he said.