Tunnel projects are a vital part of road and rail infrastructure, relying on effective conveyor belts to move materials to and from the construction site.
Over the past two decades, there has perhaps not been a more widely discussed tunnel project in the UK outside of the now-cancelled Stonehenge Road Tunnel than High Speed 2, a series of multiple tunnels that will deliver a high-capacity railway from London to Birmingham.
Following a tumultuous start to construction, several compromises to the route and spiralling costs partly caused by these shifts in scope, it was unclear following the General Election to what extent the HS2 project would continue outside of the work that had already been completed.
The announcement in the Autumn Budget that Phase One would incorporate an additional extension from the initial terminus at Old Oak Common to London Euston helped provide an emphatic answer.
It is important for its own sake, as connecting to London Euston means a direct link to High Speed 1, also known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, providing high-speed rail access from Birmingham potentially to the rest of Europe.
However, at the same time, it is also a commitment, albeit one that comes alongside a commitment to control costs, to a rail and tunnel project that has been a lightning rod of controversy for the better part of two decades.
A Y-Shaped Dream
After the completion of HS1 in 2003, which provided a link from London to the Channel Tunnel in Dover and allowed for frictionless travel from London to continental Europe, the next step was a potential High Speed 2, which would extend high-speed rail from London to the north of England.
The idea was that it would not only improve travel times but boost capacity and potentially convince people that domestic and potentially even continental travel could be done via rail rather than via air or road connections.
The report was initially commissioned in 2009, but it was only released amidst a global financial crisis and a General Election that resulted in a coalition government, leaving the potential for HS2 in considerable doubt.
The initial proposed route consisted of two phases that created a Y-shaped route, that would span from London to Birmingham via two new stations, London Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange.
From there the route would split in two and terminate at Manchester and Leeds, respectively, connecting to the rest of the rail network from there.
Remarkably, despite not being a project started by either of the political parties in charge, HS2 would be approved in two phases; Phase One was the trunk route from London to Birmingham, whilst Phase Two was the split route from there, ultimately being split again into Phase 2a and 2b.
A planned link to HS1 via London Euston was cancelled in 2014 before being reintroduced in 2024, but the other two links were given Royal Assent in 2017, by which point only one of the two parties that introduced the bill was still in office, the PM had quit and the European relationship that justified the link to HS1 had changed drastically.
Whilst strongly criticised from the very start by pressure groups, some MPs and (until September 2024) the Green Party due to potential damage to ancient forests and biodiversity in the regions where TBMs and cut-and-cover tunnels would be created, it was officially supported by the three political parties that have overseen it, to varying degrees of enthusiasm.
In 2019, following concerns about spiralling budgets, it was argued that it was the only shovel-ready option and better than upgrading 19th-century rail routes.
By 2021, following another change in PM and dramatically different global circumstances, HS2 dramatically reduced in scope, with ultimately every part of the project but the main trunk route being cancelled by the end of 2023 after an attempt to split Phase Two in half again.
This led to a damning 2024 report that argued that HS2 offers “very poor value for money” as a result of the changes to the route, which were replaced with alternative projects that are yet to be finalised.
Following yet another change in PM and despite claims that the route could not be restored due to the cancellation of contracts, a campaign by Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham and the restoration of the link to HS1 does provide hope that the tunnels can be extended across the full route.
It is a sign of commitment to a project nobody appears to want to champion.
