Sir Keir Starmer’s government has until the end of the year to decide whether HS2 will run trains to Euston station.
According to The Times, a deadline has been issued before 2025 for ministers to give the go-ahead for the section of high-speed track between Old Oak Common in west London and Euston.
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak said the London stretch of HS2 could only go ahead with private investment last October after plans to extend the line into the North were controversially scrapped to cut costs.
“Tweaks” to work plans at Old Oak Common have reportedly granted the new Labour government an extra four months to make a final decision.
Two tunnel boring machines will be delivered to the UK from Germany next month to create the 4.5-mile route from the new London station to Euston.
Delays beyond December to the tunnelling proposal will likely spike costs, said a source close to the project.
The National Audit Office previously warned that the decision was needed by summer 2024 to “avoid much higher costs in the future”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal some HS2 London plans when the budget is announced on 30 October.
At the Labour Party conference, transport secretary Louise Haigh said the party would “get HS2 back under control” and “deliver a ten-year infrastructure strategy”.
Original HS2 proposals planned an 11-platform design for Euston that was scaled back to 10 following a review to cut costs after they rose to £4.8bn – £2.2bn over budget.
Ms Haigh told The Standard: “Clearly, Euston is going to be part of the wider picture, but we will be making a decision soon on the tunnelling and the development.”
“Nobody would have designed it in the first place to go between Birmingham and Old Oak Common, and clearly, some wider decisions have to be made in the future both imminently around Euston but also around the terrible situation that they have left us north of Birmingham, by worsening the capacity issues that already existed,” she added.
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