The government has recently launched an investigation after it discovered that civils projects in the UK cost as much as it would on the continent.
James Stewart, Chief executive of government body, stated today, estimates by the team working up plans for High Speed 2, were that the project could cost nearly double what equivalent high speed rail projects cost to build in Europe.
His comments follow the announcement in budget documents that the body was commissioning an “investigation into the cost of civil engineering works for major infrastructure projects in the UK.”
Stewart also said: “It has come to our attention it appears to cost double in the UK to put infrastructure down than in Europe. Since we’ve been given this evidence, we have tested this with industry, with the ICE, and no-one disagrees. Now we’ve got to do a proper piece of work to understand it.”
“The one thing we can say,” he continued, “is there absolutely isn’t one single reason behind this, there’s lots of things playing in to it.”
Source: Building.co.uk
