“HS2 is real and happening.” This was the response from the government-owned HS2 Ltd to our questions about progress on the £56bn infrastructure project. And it backed up this statement with compelling evidence: there are 62 live sites – the most visible at Euston and Curzon Street stations – while the project has created 7,000 jobs and worked with 2,000 companies. And this week it appointed firms for the main construction works at Euston and Old Oak Common stations.

A project involving 330 miles of new track as well as all the station infrastructure (construction contracts are worth £1.65bn for Euston and £1.3bn for Old Oak Common alone) has to be good news for the construction industry. HS2 predicts that at its peak there will be 30,000 people working on the programme. More than this, the government argues this is the great leap forward this country’s infrastructure needs, cutting journey times, improving capacity on the network and boosting economic growth. The claim is that for every £1 spent on HS2, the country is up £2.30 in benefits.

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