London, June 19, 2025 — The UK government has confirmed that the opening of the HS2 high-speed rail project will be delayed beyond its current target date of 2033, in what Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has called an “appalling mess” of mismanagement, rising costs and repeated delays.
Addressing the House of Commons on Wednesday, Alexander said there was “no route” to completing the controversial infrastructure project on time or within its original budget.
“It gives me no pleasure to deliver news like this,” she said. “Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.”
The announcement marks the latest setback for HS2, which was initially greenlit in 2012 with the goal of linking London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds via a high-speed railway line.
Originally slated to open in 2026 with a projected cost of £33 billion, the project’s timeline and budget have ballooned significantly. Costs now range between £45 billion and £57 billion in 2019 prices, while the completion date had already been revised to 2033 before this latest indefinite delay.
Alexander cited a “litany of failure” and promised a detailed update on new costs and timelines by the end of the year. She also confirmed the appointment of Mike Brown, former commissioner of Transport for London, as the new chair of HS2 Ltd in a bid to reform the project’s governance and direction.
Two major reports were released alongside the government’s announcement. One, led by HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild, who was appointed last year, identified deep-rooted organisational flaws.
Wild found that HS2 Ltd suffered from a lack of early intervention, poor design planning, and an imbalance in staffing, with significant shortages in commercial and technical skills. “There is no single root cause,” Wild stated. “Rather, the failures are the result of an accumulation of systemic issues.”
Wild acknowledged that external factors—including the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine—contributed to the project’s challenges, but stressed that core mismanagement predated these events. His interim report noted that construction had started prematurely, without stable designs or a clear risk strategy.
A second report by infrastructure expert James Stewart assessed HS2’s governance structure and set out recommendations for improving accountability in future large-scale public projects.
Shadow Transport Secretary Gareth Bacon accepted that “mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2,” and blamed successive Conservative governments for overseeing cost increases and delivery failures.
In 2023, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled the leg between Birmingham and Manchester, following the earlier scrapping of the eastern route to Leeds.
Despite its original ambition to revolutionise UK rail travel, HS2 now faces an uncertain future. Alexander stressed that the government is determined to “draw a line in the sand” and apply lessons learned to ensure greater oversight and efficiency in public infrastructure projects moving forward.
The public and industry alike await further updates, with many questioning whether the downsized and delayed HS2 will ever fully realise its once-transformational promise.
