LONDON — Britain’s planned new high speed rail line is long delayed, over budget and drastically curtailed. Now Cabinet ministers are growing ever-more furious about the cost of its notorious “bat tunnel” rising by millions.
The price tag of the shield to protect a rare bat species a risk of being battered by HS2 trains has approached £125 million, an official estimate obtained by POLITICO suggests. That’s nearly a third higher than first forecast.
Protecting wildlife including Bechstein’s bats, one of the most elusive specimens of the winged mammals in Britain, may have been a noble and legally-required cause. But the decision to save them by building a 900-meter-long structure has, for critics, become emblematic of Britain’s infrastructure woes.
After being shown the latest estimates, Environment Secretary Steve Reed told POLITICO: “Spending vast sums to build a ‘bat tunnel’ is ludicrous.
“For too long, regulations have held up the building of homes and infrastructure, blocking economic growth and doing little for nature. That is why we are introducing new planning reforms and a Nature Restoration Fund to unblock the building of homes and infrastructure and improve outcomes for our natural world.”
Back under the Conservatives in 2019, the tunnel was initially priced at £95 million.
But HS2 acknowledged in response to a freedom of information request that a new estimate was drawn up to calculate additional costs — and it put the price-tag at £114.8 million, in March 2023 prices.
A spokesperson for HS2 said the alteration was solely down to inflation and that they have not carried out a full re-assessment since.
But city economists and a civil engineering expert reckon the costs will now be nearly £125 million in today’s prices, underlining the effect spiraling inflation has had on the country’s public finances.
The tunnel isn’t due to be completed until 2027 but Mark Wild, who was appointed as HS2’s new chief executive last year, is “resetting” the program. Any further delay will only add to the cost.
One Whitehall official, granted anonymity to speak bluntly, described the cost of the tunnel through an ancient woodland in Buckinghamshire as “fucking bonkers,” but lamented being unable to stop the tunnel because so much of the construction has been completed already.
In March, Rail Minister Peter Hendy conceded that the “bat mitigation structure” is “well advanced” and that decommissioning it and devising an alternative scheme would cost more than completing the current tunnel.
Wildlife advocates have been particularly angered. The Bat Conservation Trust has argued that the tunnel is being used as a “political scapegoat” to “justify rolling back environmental protections.”
Wild has defended the scheme too, saying he “can’t apologise” for the tunnel, which he argued was the “most appropriate” way to “comply with the law.”
‘Absurd’
Since his Labour administration won a landslide last July, Keir Starmer has railed against the “absurd spectacle” of the tunnel as he seeks to get through legislation to reform planning regulations accused of holding back development and economic growth. That bill has proved controversial with MPs who fear habitats and wildlife will be bulldozed over in favor of development.
Luke Charters, a Labour MP on the Public Accounts Committee who’s been examining HS2 costs, said: “The tunnel has already more than doubled the cost of this section of railway, and I’m concerned the final bill could climb even higher once inflation and long-term maintenance are factored in.”
Britain’s second high speed line was set out under a Conservative transport secretary in 2012 to be a Y-shaped network from London to Birmingham and continuing to Manchester and Leeds. The cost was drawn up as £32.7 billion and the first trains were expected to run in 2026.
But costs spiralled owing to excessive optimism about how quickly it could be completed and changes to its scope, like the need to build a tunnel through a leafy shire to quell the anger of backbench Conservatives.
The price tag hit £98 billion in 2019 before Conservative PM Rishi Sunak axed what remained of the northern half in 2023, to the fury of the rail industry. The remaining leg is far from completion.
A spokesperson for HS2 said: “The demands of the UK planning and environmental consents process come at a high cost, largely out of HS2 Ltd’s control.
“To comply with laws protecting vulnerable species, including internationally protected bats near Sheephouse Wood, a covered structure over the HS2 line is being built. A range of alternative options were reviewed and rejected on the grounds that they were more expensive or failed to pass the legal test.”
