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HS1 costs taxpayer £4.8bn

The Channel Tunnel high-speed rail link is set to cost the taxpayer £4.8 billion according to a committee of MPs.

Over optimistic forecasts about the number of passengers using the service has been blamed for the costs of the service, although the Department for transport has predicted that forecasts had improved significantly since work 20 years ago.

According to the Public Accounts Committee, international passengers using the service are a third of the 1995 forecast and two thirds of the 1998 forecast.

Committee chairwoman, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, said: “There was real over-optimism on the number of passengers they thought they were going to get.

The report also indicated that the HS1 project had suffered from a lack of effective leadership, as the Department for Transport failed to give sufficient attention to evaluation its major projects.

The Committee raised concerns that another report into the East Coast main line had raised concerns about over-optimistic planning - with many believing that this could also happen with the more expensive HS2 line from London to Birmingham.

While HS1 has provided an efficient service, the Committee is stressing that the “costly mistakes” of the project must not be repeated with HS2.

Mrs Hodge continued: “The department must revisit its assumptions on HS2 and develop a full understanding of the benefits and costs of high-speed travel compared to the alternatives,”

HS1 is the line for 186 mph trains between London, Paris and Brussels, and has been a successful part of the transport infrastructure carrying millions of passengers each year to the south-east and the continent.

Despite the overall costs, a spokesperson for the Department for Transport said that the line was generating more than £2 billion for the taxpayer.

He commented: “Our passenger forecast modelling has improved significantly since the original work for HS1 over 20 years ago, with better understanding of what drives passenger demand, better computer modelling and more computer power to do it.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .