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The final price tag for the infamous high speed 2 bat tunnel is on the way to the fifth of the previous thoughts than the statistics received by the Financial Times Show.
HS2 Chair Sir Zone Thompson told a railway industrial conference in November that it would cost £ 100mn for the conservation project – a number that had entered publicly in public awareness.
Thompson’s estimate was based on the $ 95 million worth of 2019, the information was found by the HS2 from HS2 by the information freedom request show.
By adjusting for inflation, according to the FT calculation, the sum on today’s price will be $ 119 million. In addition, the structure is not supposed to end till next year, which means that the final cost with inflation may increase further.
Until January this year, about £ 65.5 million has been spent on the price-billometer long steel mesh structure in 2021, which is designed to protect the trains of the Buckinghamshire railway tunnel from hitting the bats.
Statistics indicate that the project still has about $ 53.5 million to spend. However, experts warned that the nature of the public agreement means that even if the ministers canceled the agreement, they would struggle to focus on all the unexpected money.
Despite the growing expense, the contracts will be very expensive, the Economy Director of the Construction Products Association, Nobel Francis, who added that learning lessons for future projects was necessary.
“Going forward, the government needs to make sure that these national issues have been well resolved before the construction of large infrastructure projects,” he said. “Many unnecessary like bat tunnels, extra construction work is done to uninterrupted, resulting in more construction costs.”
The tunnel, designed to protect a colony of rare Bakestain’s bats, has become a totemic symbol of Britain’s strict planning system and exceeds extreme expenditure on HS2.
Environment Secretary Steve Reid told FT that it was “ridiculous” that the taxpayers were spending “huge amounts” on the bat tunnel.
“The rules retained the houses and infrastructure buildings, blocked economic growth and are doing little work for nature,” he said.
“That’s why we are launching new plans to block the construction of houses and infrastructure and improve the results for our natural world, reforming new plans and a nature recovery fund.”
The charity Wildlife Trust has said that more than a decade ago, the government ignored the evidence provided to the high speed preparation bill, which highlighted the cheap, better option to protect the bats in the region, which is a scheduled site of special scientific interest.
One of these included the government’s decision not to do “strategic environmental evaluation”, legal requirements for testing the wildlife effects of any plan or program.
Becky Pullinggar, head of the Wildlife Trust land use plan, says the bat tunnel has shown that HS2 “has taken an engineering solution for an environmental problem and the law does not require it.”
He also added: “What is needed for the law is to avoid the loss of the population or actually other protected species. In this case, it may be involved in choosing a route that can avoid damage to the forest of a beautiful medieval victim. “
HS2 Limited says: “The demands of the UK planning and environmental consent process come at a high cost, mainly beyond the control of HS2 Limited.”
The first episode of the railway connection between London and Birmingham was one of the Bat measures of the 8,27666 between the required HS2 required by other government agencies. The UK government has begun a big review of how the planning methods can speed up.
The cost of the entire railway between London and Birmingham is increasing further and now about $ 67 billion is estimated and can be corrected upwards in the coming months. There is still no agreed plan or price tag for a high-speed railway terminus at the Easton Station in central London.
Last year, Mark Wild Bat, who appointed HS2 chief executive, defended the tunnel, said a committee of MPS earlier this year that he could not apologize for the construction of the bat tunnel as “obeying the law” as “the most suitable” way.
Asked if he regretted the decision, Wild added: “It’s a wonderful meaning, but it is a project that spends a few billion and it is built for 120 years.”
According to the Bat Conservation Trust, Bakestain Bat in six villages is one of the most rare mammals in the UK and its population has decreased drastically due to habitat destruction.
The bat tunnel is being constructed by EKFB, a joint venture between engineering companies Eiffes, Kier, Ferovial Construction and Left Nottle. EKFB refused to comment.
