The ‘Bat Tunnel' Is the Least of HS2's Sins
If there is a mascot for Britain's greatest infrastructure shambles, it's Bechstein's bat. A colony of the rare mammals, which are listed as vulnerable to extinction in Europe, inhabits an ancient woodland in the path of HS2, the blighted high-speed railway program. Disclosure that HS2 Ltd. planned to spend about £100 million ($128 million) on a 'bat tunnel' to protect them spurred equal measures of outrage and ridicule. The controversy shouldn't overshadow more serious questions over the historic mishandling of a landmark project.
The tunnel was singled out for mention in a damning report released last week by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, whose job is to scrutinize spending and hold the government and civil servants to account. The tunnel didn't strike the right balance between protecting wildlife and the burden on the taxpayer, the cross-party committee said, in pronouncing HS2 a 'casebook example' of how not to run a major project. The Department of Transport had failed in its oversight, and the project now posed a 'reputational risk' to the UK, it said. The report called for responses before summer on what value can now be salvaged for taxpayers from an investment approaching £80 billion.
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