Britain's high-speed rail network link to central London may be scrapped as rampant inflation drives the scheme over budget, an insider has revealed.
Soaring construction costs could mean the first phase of the HS2 project — from London to Birmingham — going way over its £44 billion budget, with a price tag of £60 billion mooted.
One former HS2 employee said that could mean the fancy new terminal at Euston on the north side of central London.
"There are a number of options for getting the costs down and none of them are very nice," the source told the British tabloid press on Friday. "Either you scrap Euston, or you have to slow down the whole project and hope inflation comes down."
The high-speed link from the West Midlands city would instead terminate at Old Oak Common in the north-west of London, near the Willesden Junction interchange on the current main line route out to the West Coast Line.
Passengers would then have to change trains onto the Elizabeth Line — formerly known as Crossrail — to continue journeys to central London.
Doubt has also been cast on the future of the branch line from Birmingham to Crewe, Manchester Airport and Manchester Piccadilly station.
Speaking earlier on Friday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said it was a "source of national embarrassment" that the UK was 60 years behind Japan on opening its first high-speed line.
"I don't see any conceivable circumstance in which that would not end up at Euston," Hunt told TV reporters later.
The Department for Transport evaded the question, but said the government was "committed to delivering HS2 to Manchester, as confirmed in the Autumn Statement."
"As well as supporting tens of thousands of jobs, the project will connect regions across the UK, improve capacity on our railways and provide a greener option of travel," a ministry spokesman said.
HS2 is a flagship project of the government's 'levelling up' agenda for economic development in regions outside the capital and the wealthy South-East.
But a recent report by think-tank The Policy Exchange by former Downing Street transport advisor Andrew Gilligan argued that the scheme would cost more than the economic benefits it produced.
"HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver," Gilligan said. “The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money."
The report also calculated that scrapping all the phases beyond the under-construction London-Birmingham line would save £44 billion in the long term.