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General news
Transport Secretary Mark Harper accepts HS2 delays will not save money
Image Source: PAMEDIA
Transport Secretary Mark Harper has accepted delays to HS2 will not save money.
He told MPs the Government had to make “sensible decisions” due to having annual budgets.
It was announced in March that construction of the Birmingham to Crewe leg of the high-speed railway will be delayed by two years and services may not enter central London until the 2040s.
Mr Harper told the Commons’ Transport Select Committee: “In itself, delaying delivering something doesn’t save money.
“But of course it does reflect the fact that you have a budget in each year, everybody listening to this has to live within their annual budget, as well as a budget over time.
“We’ve had to make some sensible decisions about how you make those decisions. For me, the choice was very clear.
“There’s a section of the project which we have fully mobilised. We’ve got contractors building it, spending a considerable amount of money on phase one (between London and Birmingham).
He added: “Delaying the later aspects of the project, it’s much more cost effective to do that because you don’t have contractors on site, you aren’t already building the railway, and you can change the timing of that in a much more sensible way.”
The high-speed line was due for extension between Birmingham and Crewe between 2030 and 2034 to help boost transport in the north of England.
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