The cancellation of HS2’s northern leg – learning lessons
Lessons from the UK's recent failure
The magazine New Civil Engineering published an insightful article on the failure of HS2, warning that Britain cannot afford further infrastructure setbacks. Given that it is subscription based, I unfortunately do not have a link that I can share to my audience.
Megaprojects are capital intensive, and therefore they are inherently risky. But what is notably about H2S is that the project failed to deliver on time and on budget for the exact same reasons as other megaprojects.
The Institute of Civil Engineering’s Briefing paper titled “ICE Briefing Paper: The cancellation of HS2’s northern leg“ highlights the following lessons learned for future megaprojects.
Who is in charge of infrastructure projects must be clear.
Stronger client and departmental capability is needed – particularly on technical assurance and ‘owning the project’.
Any programme of this scale and significance needs more development time before commencing works.
The contracting approach should set up the project for best-practice delivery.
Major projects and programmes require clarity and consistency on outcomes to achieve political and public buy-in and deliver value for money.
Notice from the five points above that railway engineering itself, or the UK’s capacity to deliver a project on time, is not the root cause of the failure. Building railways is not a complex new technology requiring extensive R&D.
The failure lies in the process under which the project is being executed.
The report highlgihts the following three consequential decisions that resulted in the failure
January 2009 – Establishment of HS2 Ltd by the labour government
February 2020 – Following the publication of the Oakervee Review, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson decides to proceed with HS2
October 2023 – Then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decides to cancel HS2’s northern leg
Notice again, that these were political decisions and that the failure was across the political spectrum?
When will the decision makers learn that you need to appoint competent people to make competent decisions?