HS2 boss reveals £100m bill for bat 'shed' to protect bats

HS2 is spending much than £100m connected a "shed" to support bats connected a conception of the line, adjacent though determination is "no grounds that high-speed trains interfere with bats", the task company's president has said. 

Sir Jon Thompson said the 1km (0.6 mile) curved operation astatine Sheephouse Wood successful Buckinghamshire volition make a obstruction truthful the creatures tin alert implicit the railway without being affected by passing trains arsenic each bats are legally protected successful the UK.

Mr Thompson told the Rail Industry Association's yearly league successful London connected Thursday HS2 is calling the gathering "a shed", and it is being built to appease Whitehall advisory body, Natural England.

He warned his assemblage they would not judge it, but the shed "cost much than £100m to support the bats successful this wood".

It was, helium said, an illustration of the UK's "genuine problem" with completing large infrastructure projects, explaining that the government-owned institution has had to get 8,276 consents from different nationalist bodies related to planning, transport and the situation to physique signifier 1 of the railway betwixt the superior and Birmingham.

He said: "People accidental you've gone implicit the budget, but did radical deliberation astir the bats [when mounting the budget]?

"I'm being trite astir it but I'm trying to exemplify 1 illustration of the 8,276 of these [consents]."

Other, costlier options were besides looked astatine portion the High Speed Two (London to West Midlands) Act was going done parliament, helium said, including boring a passageway and re-routing the railway distant from the wood.

Even aft Natural England approved the design, the institution had to walk "hundreds of thousands of pounds" connected lawyers and biology specialists due to the fact that the section assembly did not o.k. the work, Sir Jon said.

"In the end, I won the readying support by going supra Buckinghamshire Council's head," helium explained.

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Sir Jon, who has led the task since Mark Thurston near his relation arsenic main enforcement successful September 2023, warned successful January that the estimated outgo for signifier 1 has soared to arsenic overmuch arsenic £66.6bn.

In 2013, HS2 was estimated to outgo £37.5bn (in 2009 prices) for the full planned network, including now-scrapped extensions from Birmingham to some Manchester and Leeds.