In a startling revelation, Sir John Thompson, chair of HS2 Ltd, disclosed that the price tag for a sprawling “bat shed” designed to shield a colony of Bechstein’s bats along the London-Birmingham high-speed rail route has now surpassed an eye-watering £100 million. Speaking at an industry conference, Thompson lambasted the 1km-long mesh structure as a “blot on the landscape” that was mandated by Natural England despite “no evidence” suggesting bats were endangered by passing trains.
Staggering Costs and Competing Interests
Thompson, when pressed about the ballooning expenses of constructing HS2, attributed the railway’s budget woes partly to legal constraints, conflicting demands from various agencies, and government indecisiveness. He noted that the project requires over 8,000 distinct permits along its route, illustrating the byzantine web of bureaucracy ensnaring the high-speed rail initiative.
This shed, you’re not going to believe this, cost more than £100m.
– Sir John Thompson, HS2 Ltd Chair
The Sheephouse Wood bat protection structure, which Thompson wryly dubbed a “shed,” emerged as his prime example of the conundrums plaguing HS2. He argued that the Bechstein’s bat, while safeguarded in the UK under the Wildlife Act 1981, is “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe” and not afforded the same protections elsewhere.
Navigating Regulatory Quagmires
HS2’s struggles to secure planning permission from the Buckinghamshire county council for what Thompson characterized as a £100 million “eyesore” underscore the project’s precarious dance with local authorities and environmental regulators. Faced with intransigence from the council, HS2 had to “reach for the lawyers and the environmental specialists and hydrologists and so on and so forth,” a process Thompson said “stretches out the time” and balloons costs.
The impasse over the bat shed is but one instance of the myriad obstacles confounding the high-speed rail endeavor. As Thompson pointedly observed, “People have this simplistic way of saying: ‘Oh, you’ve gone over the budget. Oh, yeah. OK. But do people think about the bat?'”
Seeking Solutions Amid Spiraling Expenses
HS2 maintains that it exhaustively explored over 20 alternative proposals for bat protection, but found them all either more expensive or falling afoul of legal requirements. A 2021 government-commissioned review also concluded that the current “bat shed” scheme, while costly, remained the most feasible option.
As cost estimates for the first phase of HS2 from London to Birmingham surge as high as £74bn, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has acknowledged overruns of £10-20bn. Despite the swelling expenses, new Chancellor Rachel Reeves has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to funding the tunnels into Euston, a move seen as pivotal for the project’s fortunes.
Thompson, for his part, urged the government to “be a better client and make quicker decisions” to help rein in HS2’s escalating costs. The bat shed saga encapsulates the intricate tangle of environmental protection, local planning intricacies, and budgetary realities that HS2 must navigate as it forges ahead with its ambitious high-speed rail vision. As the UK grapples with striking a balance between ecological preservation and infrastructure modernization, the fate of both Bechstein’s bats and HS2 hangs in a precarious balance.
