John Redwood asks ‘Where has all the money gone?’

Today, John Redwood asks “HS2 – Where has all the money gone?”. He points out that

“In the two years to March 2014 HS2 Ltd has spent  £384,000,000 of grant aid from taxpayers. What is remarkable is that after such a high spend the balance sheet of the company doing all that spending shows zero net assets. The best part of £400 million has gone and the company has  nothing to show for it of more permanent value that gives us some net assets on its balance sheet….

“…In addition, most of the money has gone on wages and salaries, not on physical assets. All land and building  purchases ahead of works are in addition to these figures  and are made by the government, not HS2 Ltd.”

HS2 Buzz is even more critical than John Redwood:

“It seems that despite shelling out mega millions, some could argue that the only benefit to the public, has been the creation of 395 jobs by HS2 Limited. By my calculation that means each job has cost us about a million pounds, give or take…

 “… there have been several odd costs that we could have done well without. With not as much as a sleeper laid, we have already had to pay off one staff member to the tune of £35,000. “A nice little earner”, as Arfur would say!