"Despite being eight years into planning the High Speed 2 station at Euston, the Department for Transport (the Department) still does not know what it is trying to achieve with the station and what sort of regeneration it will support. It is clear now that the £2.6 billion budget HS2 Ltd set for the project was completely unrealistic, even before the impacts of inflation are considered. The Department will now need to reset the project for a second time in order to find a design that is realistic, affordable and provides value for money. The Department does not know what the additional costs and impacts will be from its decision to pause construction at the station for two years. Working alongside HS2 Ltd, it now has a big task to identify what these costs and impacts are, including the impact on the supply chain and on local residents. It is essential for the Department to collect this information both to help it and HS2 Ltd manage the additional costs effectively and also to better inform any decisions in the future on whether to pause major projects. Disappointingly, HS2 Euston station is yet another example of the Department making the same mistakes and failing to learn lessons from its management of other major rail programmes. Parliament has also not had the full transparency it needed on the likelihood of cost increases at Euston, despite the improvements the Department and HS2 Ltd have made in reporting on progress"
