Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has insisted the Excessive Pace 2 railway will end in central London as officers on the challenge connecting the capital and northern England look at measures to forestall an additional surge in prices.

The estimated price ticket for Britain’s greatest infrastructure scheme has soared from £33bn to greater than £100bn because it was first conceived a decade in the past, prompting alarm inside the Treasury the place ministers are decided to forestall additional price escalation.

Consequently, senior figures contained in the Division for Transport and HS2 have mentioned options starting from dropping the surviving stretch of the jap second leg of the challenge or axing the redevelopment of Euston station in central London, the place prices have risen by greater than £1bn in simply two years.

“Clearly there are inflationary pressures . . . and which means the federal government is having to work via these challenges,” stated one individual concerned within the challenge.

The Solar reported on Friday that HS2 executives had been contemplating terminating the road at Outdated Oak Widespread on the outskirts of London, as an alternative of Euston. Commuters must use the Elizabeth Line to journey into central London to complete their journey, decreasing the benefit of a high-speed service.

However Hunt rejected that concept in media interviews on Friday morning, saying: “I don’t see any conceivable circumstances through which that might not find yourself at Euston.”

Redeveloping Euston is essential to the controversial 225mph challenge, which was first offered as a substitute for a 3rd runway at Heathrow or an extension to the present high-speed hyperlink to Europe, however now has no direct connection to both.

The state-funded scheme, which has confronted protests and criticism since its inception, has been repeatedly scaled again and is now deliberate to run from London to Birmingham in its first part after which to Manchester airport, Wigan and Crewe within the north-west.

In 2021, Boris Johnson’s authorities introduced it was axing many of the jap second leg of the challenge — from East Midlands Parkway, simply south of Nottingham, to Leeds — to search out price financial savings.

Now, nonetheless, some senior authorities figures have mentioned killing the remaining a part of the jap leg, from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, to chop prices even additional.

Euston additionally stays a possible goal for financial savings as a result of, regardless of important preparatory work, the design has but to be accomplished.

Estimated prices for the Euston redevelopment have risen from round £2.8bn to almost £4bn in 2019 costs, in keeping with an inside doc offered final yr to HS2’s board by Sir Jon Thompson, the previous head of HM Income & Customs who grew to become deputy chair of the challenge in April 2021.

That report additionally warned that HS2 was operating “billions of kilos” over price range in its first part, which started in 2020 and is because of be accomplished between 2029 and 2033.

Henri Murison, chief government of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership foyer group, stated a London terminus for HS2 ought to be “centrally positioned”, including: “Even for the north of England, not going to Euston has plenty of important disadvantages.”

Greater than £4bn of enhancements to different components of the UK’s railway system have already been axed due to a governmental choice to focus spending on the high-speed line.

The DfT stated: “The federal government stays dedicated to delivering HS2 to Manchester, as confirmed within the Autumn Assertion.”