HS2 Construction Updates - Birmingham Area

[Nicholas Lewis]

Huh?

Thanks for highlighting corrected. Engineers aren't best at English!!

New drone video of the Delta junction area

the final viaduct of the northern part of the delta is progressing well, looks like just the southbound slow (or whatever track is called), it also appears there is another motorway closure weekend of 24-25 October, presumably to allow remaining parapets over the motorway to be installed

https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/HS2-notice-of-October-2026-M42-full-weekend-closures-between-J6-to-9-northbound-and-J9-to-7-southbound.pdf

Great video and nice to see close up the various bits of specialist plant used in its construction.

 

[Geezertronic]

Yes, the work rate has fallen in many locations further south so the average pace has slowed overall so structures are still completing but far fewer than anyone would have expected 12 months ago and some structures often go months without being touched from the end of 1 stage to the start of the next.
Road bridges seem to be focused on much more than foot paths or farm crossing bridges.

The pace of work has fallen off on the southern 3 contracts (south of Southam) much more than BBV sites where the pace of construction was typically slower than the others.

As an example the sites near Wendover have been slowed down massively as the Wendover Tunnel was way behind (15-18months) so they have forced on working at max sensible pace on the tunnel but moving at 1/4 - 1/3 pace of the former pace on other near by structures.

They seem to be closing Coleshill Heath Road and the M42/M6 a lot still though (and the A446 by Water Orton) so there's still a lot going on - the road closures are continuing to grate though...

 

[hwl]

They seem to be closing Coleshill Heath Road and the M42/M6 a lot still though (and the A446 by Water Orton) so there's still a lot going on - the road closures are continuing to grate though...

Going back to my comment before that one: North of the A45 the work rate is sensibly high (but not crazy high) as there is plenty to do as lots of structures there are very behind compared to many other section of the route (~18months-ish on average) which matches exactly what you are seeing. The pace of most works south of the A45 is being slowed somewhat to not end up massively ahead of the most behind structures overall unless it really is substantially cheaper to get on and finish the civils.
A key construction industry matra is quick build as it minimises the indirect costs of a building site.
If the pace hadn't been slowed in many more southerly sections we would be seeing far more completed bridges open and landscaping completed (including permanent fencing and temporary land take returned) by this point in time.