[DrBazza]

Rob Holden, who lead HS1, and delivered it under budget said HS2 has been such a disaster, paraphrasing, because HS2 publicly declared its budget for each section, so the Cotswold tunnels, for example had a budget of, say, $10bn. So the contractors bidding to do it, bid... $9.9bn. Whereas HS1 invited bids from contractors who had no idea how much the government was prepared to spend.

Absolute idiocy.

More details in this and the links in the story: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sun...

[AlecSchueler]

I remember they started doing it this was because there was concerns about companies with insider information being unfairly advantaged in the bidding stages.

[DrBazza]

Interesting. I'd assumed it was something to do with the Office for Budget Responsibility and "transparency" of Government spending. I guess not.

It's still absurd that the Government would announce how much they're prepared to pay in advance, and act surprised when bids come in at or above that amount.

[fennecbutt]

Not unlike the Tories to be focused on getting money into their mates' pockets rather than getting the job done.

Construction in the UK seems ridiculously expensive now, as a foreigner the whole country seems frozen in place when it comes to any new major infrastructure...