The Government is continuing to enthusiastically back HS2 even though an official report has shown the estimated economic benefit of the £50billion project is falling.
A detailed 150-page report today from the scheme’s promoters HS2 Ltd showed that the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for the full two-phase project is now estimated at 2.3 compared with a figure of 2.5 given in August 2012.
This means that for every £1 spent, the wider economic benefit of the entire scheme will produce a benefit of £2.30 compared with £2.50 estimated last year.
Opponents of the scheme immediately seized on the lower figure as further proof, to them, that the project was a waste of money and should be scrapped.
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said it was vital that costs “stacked up” but Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin stuck to his guns by saying the scheme would bring massive benefits to northern England and was great for commuters.
Mr McLoughlin and the HS2 Ltd team also latched on to another report today from Network Rail and engineering company Atkins which said there would be 14 years of weekend engineering work if HS2 did not go ahead.
But emphasising the mistrust that exists between the pro and anti-HS2 camps, the scheme’s opponents spoke of “random figures being pulled out of the air”, the Government resorting to “voodoo economics” and areas such as Camden in north London being “blighted for a decade” by HS2.
The new BCR came in a report entitled The Strategic Case For HS2.
The HS2 Ltd company said the new BCR was based, partly, on a recalculation of the number of business travellers using the 225mph, 400 metre-long trains and the amount of work they do on trains.
The strategic case document said the line was vital to make more equal the North-South divide. By completion of the full scheme around 2032/33 with the building of a Y-shaped route north of Birmingham to north east and north west England, there would be a trebling of the number of train seats an hour into Euston station in London.
Also, at present there are 13 trains an hour on the West Coast main line. Building HS2 would increase the number on the West Coast corridor to 30 an hour.
Carrying 1,100 passengers, the trains would run at the rate of 14 an hour for the first phase of the project and this would increase to 18 when the full line is completed.
HS2 Ltd director-general David Prout said the strategic case was based on HS2 travellers paying the same rate of fares as “normal” travellers.
Pressed on whether there would, in fact, be a premium fare for those using the new line, Mr Prout said it would be his firm intention to advise ministers to have the same fare structure for HS2 as for existing long-distance travellers.