High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2020. The planned route runs between Handsacre in southern Staffordshire and London, with a branch to Birmingham. HS2 will be Britain's second purpose-built, high-speed railway after High Speed 1, which connects London to the Channel Tunnel. London and Birmingham are to be served directly by new high-speed track, with services continuing beyond the core route on the existing West Coast Main Line. When proposed in 2010, Phase 1 was expected to open by December 2026; however, as of May 2026, passenger services are not expected to begin before 2036.
The new track is being constructed between London Euston and Handsacre, near Lichfield in southern Staffordshire, where a junction will connect HS2 to the West Coast Main Line. New stations are planned at Old Oak Common in northwest London, Birmingham Interchange near Solihull, and Birmingham Curzon Street in the centre of Birmingham. The new trains are expected to reach a maximum speed of on HS2 track; on the conventional rail network, services will operate at speeds of up to .
The length of the new track has been reduced substantially since the scheme was first announced in 2012. It was originally to be split into eastern and western branches north of Birmingham Interchange. The eastern branch would have connected to the Midland Main Line at Clay Cross in Derbyshire and the East Coast Main Line south of York, with a branch to a terminus in Leeds. The western branch would have connected to the West Coast Main Line at Crewe and south of Wigan, with a branch to a terminus in Manchester. Between November 2021 and October 2023 the project was progressively cut back until only the London to Handsacre and Birmingham section remained. Work on the section between Birmingham and Handsacre was deferred for four years in October 2025 as part of a project reset.
Supporters of the project argue that HS2 will increase capacity on the rail network, while promoting a modal shift from road and air to rail to drive regional economic growth. Opponents argue that the project is neither environmentally nor financially sustainable. As of May 2026, HS2 is expected to cost between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion (in 2025 prices). Services between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street are expected to begin between May 2036 and October 2039, while services to London Euston are projected to follow between May 2040 and December 2043.
History
Modern high-speed rail was introduced in the United Kingdom in 2003 with the opening of the first part of High Speed 1 (HS1), then known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link between London and the Channel Tunnel. In 2009 the Department for Transport (DfT) under the Brown ministry proposed to assess the case for a second high-speed line, which was to be developed by a new company, High Speed Two Limited (HS2 Ltd).
In December 2010, following a review by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition, a route was proposed, subject to public consultation, based on a Y-shaped route from London to Birmingham with branches to Leeds and Manchester, as originally proposed by the previous Labour government, with alterations designed to minimise the visual, noise, and other environmental impacts of the line.
In January 2012, the Secretary of State for Transport announced that HS2 would go ahead in two phases and the legislative process would be achieved through two hybrid bills.Transport Select Committee HS2 Report – House of Commons, November 2011 . Retrieved 1 July 2012 The High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017, authorising the construction of Phase 1, passed both Houses of Parliament and received Royal Assent in February 2017. A Phase 2a High Speed Rail (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill, seeking the power to construct Phase 2 as far as Crewe and to make decisions on the remainder of the Phase 2b route, was introduced in July 2017. Phase 2a received royal assent in February 2021. The High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill for Phase 2b was paused under the Sunak ministry.
One of the stated aims of the project was to increase the capacity of the railway network. It is envisaged that the introduction of HS2 will free space on existing railway lines by removing a number of express services, thus allowing additional local train services to accommodate increased passenger numbers. Network Rail considered that constructing a new high-speed railway would be more cost-effective and less disruptive than upgrading the existing conventional rail network. The DfT has forecast that improved connectivity will have a positive economic impact, and that favourable journey times and ample capacity will generate a modal shift from air and road to rail.
Oakervee Review On 21 August 2019, the DfT ordered an independent review of the project. The review was chaired by Douglas Oakervee, a British civil engineer, who had been HS2's non-executive chairman for nearly two years. The review was published by the DfT on 11 February 2020, alongside a statement from the prime minister confirming that HS2 would go ahead in full, with reservations. Oakervee's conclusions were that the original rationale for HS2—to provide capacity and reliability on the rail network—was still valid, and that no "shovel-ready" interventions existed that could be deployed within the timeframe of the project. As a consequence, Oakervee recommended that the project go ahead as planned, subject to a series of further recommendations. After concluding that the project should proceed, the review recommended a further review of HS2 that would be undertaken by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and would concentrate on reducing costs and over-specification.
On 15 April 2020, formal approval was given to construction companies to start work on the project.
Integrated Rail Plan On 18 November 2021, the government's delayed Integrated Rail Plan was published. It significantly affected parts of the HS2 programme, including curtailing much of the eastern leg.
Under the original proposal for the eastern leg, the high-speed line would have been built with a link to the East Coast Main Line south of York for trains to continue to Newcastle. A branch would take trains into Leeds. There would also have been a branch to the Midland Main Line north of Derby for trains to continue to Sheffield. The original scheme also included a through station at Toton, between Nottingham and Derby. The HS2 eastern section was largely eliminated, leaving a branch from Coleshill near Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway station, just south of Nottingham and Derby, where the HS2 track would end, with trains continuing north onto the Midland Main Line to serve the existing stations at Nottingham, Derby, Chesterfield, and Sheffield. HS2 trains with high speed track and conventional track operation would serve the centres of Nottingham and Derby, unlike in the previous proposal.
Upgrades to the East Coast Main Line were proposed to offer time improvements on the London to Leeds and Newcastle routes. Services from Birmingham to Leeds and Newcastle were planned to use the remaining section of the HS2 eastern leg. The London to Sheffield service would remain on the Midland Main Line, equalling the proposed original HS2 journey times. The integrated Rail Plan proposed a study to determine the best method for HS2 trains to reach Leeds.
In June 2022 the Golborne spur was removed from the Crewe-to-Manchester Parliamentary Bill. Without this link, trains to Scotland would join the West Coast Main Line further south at Crewe, instead of near Wigan. The Department for Transport stated that the government was considering the recommendations of the Union Connectivity Review, which gave alternatives such as a more northerly HS2 connection to the West Coast Main Line than Golborne and upgrades to the West Coast Main Line from Crewe to Preston.
Cancellation of Phase 2
In July 2023, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority gave a red rating to the first two phases of the HS2 project, which it defined to mean: "Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed." HS2 Ltd's chief executive Mark Thurston announced his resignation on 13 July.
In October 2023, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced at the Conservative Party Conference that Phase 2 would be abandoned. The cancellation left a new high-speed track from London to Handsacre, northeast of Birmingham, with a branch to central Birmingham. The construction of Euston station would depend on private sector funding: if funding was secured for the station access tunnel, construction would be the responsibility of HS2 Ltd. Euston station was initially proposed to have 11 platforms to accommodate HS2 trains. There is a reduction to six platforms, as a proposal from October 2023 will cap the throughput to 9–11 trains per hour, rather than the 18 of which the HS2 track would otherwise be capable. Sunak said the £36billion saved by not building the northern leg of HS2 would instead be spent on roads, buses and railways in every region of the country, under the title "Network North".
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, in a January 2024 report, in relation to the revised planned route, stated "HS2 now offers very poor value for money to the taxpayer, and the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd do not yet know what it expects the final benefits of the programme to be". In January 2024, the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, said it would not be possible for any future Labour government to reinstate Phase 2, since contracts would have been cancelled. This was confirmed in April 2024 by Louise Haigh, the shadow transport minister.
New chief executive assessment and Stewart Review In December 2024, the DfT stated there will be no WCML extensions from HS2 until the current project is completed. The same month, Mark Wild was appointed as chief executive of High Speed Two Limited, and he undertook a thorough assessment of the programme. On 31 March 2025, he wrote to the Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, highlighting that "the organisation has failed in its mission to control costs and deliver to schedule" and summarising the overall situation as unsustainable. He stated there was no reliable earned value to date measure, and estimated the programme was currently about one third complete compared to the planned three-quarters complete.
He noted external events contributing to this – the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – but attributed the failure to three primary issues, briefly summarised as: Construction started too soon, before stable and consented designs were available; unrealistic schedules were the main driver rather than efficiency Many contracts were placed before construction risks could be quantified by the contractors, effectively turning the contracts into cost-plus arrangements; "as a result, contractors have not been sufficiently incentivised to hit cost targets, and HS2 Ltd failed to establish an effective contract management model. The contracts incentivised the prioritisation of short-term schedule over managing overall cost." HS2 Ltd was not set up to actively manage delivery, with "hands-on, commercially astute contract management"