Building Transport In Britain Doesn't Have To Be This Hard

26th August 2023

It costs more to build new roads, railways and tramlines in Britain than it does almost anywhere else in the world. With major infrastructure projects like HS2 at risk of cancellation due to spiralling costs and frequent delays, it is worth reflecting on the fact that it doesn't seem to be this hard everywhere.

The figures are stark. Britain Remade, the pro-growth campaign I work for, compiled a database of 240 road and rail projects from 14 countries indexed for inflation to 2023. Expanding underground and metro lines in the UK is 97% more expensive than in France, 129% more than Italy, and a whopping 405% more expensive than Spain on a per mile basis. At the same time as the 10 mile Jubilee Line Extension was nearing completion in London, Madrid was building 47 miles of new track. London paid 8.5 times more than Madrid on a per mile basis and took two years longer.

Or take Manchester's Second City Crossing tram extension. At a cost of £203m to add just under a mile of track, it was not far off the £260m that the French city of Besançon spent on its entire nine-mile tram network. On a per-mile basis, the latter was almost nine times cheaper. Whilst the Second City Crossing was particularly expensive, the newest extension, the Trafford Park Line, still costs four times more than the French tram on a per-mile basis.

Railway electrification projects in the UK are also more expensive than European counterparts. The Great Western Electrification Programme between London and Cardiff went over budget and had to be scaled back. It ended up costing four times more per mile than the average for electrification projects in Switzerland and double that of Denmark or France. It is no wonder why, with such high costs, the UK trails behind the rest of Europe when it comes to the amount of railway that is electrified. Only 38% of Britain's network is electrified compared to 71% in Italy and 100% in Switzerland. This means slower services with worse acceleration, higher maintenance costs due to heavy diesel engines, and more pollution.

Expanding underground and metro lines in the UK is 405% more expensive than in Spain.

Every French city with a population greater than 150,000 has a light-rail system.

British exceptionalism shouldn't mean worse infrastructure, less connectivity and lower growth.

Author
By Ben Hopkinson

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