If phase 1 of HS2, the high-speed rail project connecting Britain’s capital to its second-largest city, is ever finished, it will be the world’s most expensive such scheme, coming in at a cool ￡396mn for each mile of track. 

It didn’t have to be this way. When neighbouring France opened a new 188-mile stretch of its high-speed network in 2017, it cost ￡46mn per mile in today’s money, just over a tenth as much, and took 12 years to deliver from the start of planning to the first passenger-carrying train, half the anticipated 23 years for the initial phase of HS2.

This may be a particularly notorious example, but it’s also representative of a wider pattern: building infrastructure in the UK costs far more than in most other places. Averaged over a dozen recent major rail projects, and adjusted for inflation, British schemes cost ￡262mn per mile, compared with ￡145mn per mile for Japan’s bullet train network, ￡92mn in Sweden, ￡74mn in Italy, ￡42mn in France, and ￡34mn in Germany.