Mike Lyons, project director for HS2, has told a meeting in Telford that another £4.4bn must be added to the overall bill for HS2, to plumb it into the rest of the rail network.
In one of the meetings we have seen regularly recently, where businesses all over the country are being led to believe there will construction contracts for everyone, Lyons said that about £4.4 billion has been allocated to ensuring that towns and cities which lie off the main route can capitalise on the new route once it is up and running, according to the Shropshire Star.
How that £4.4bn will be allocated, and how it will go down in other areas which may well lose promised projects when the Hendy Review is eventually published, is unknown. What does seem to be the case is this is a cost which should be directly attributed to the overall costs of HS2, but hasn’t been.