Phase 1 of the route from London to Birmingham includes 16km of tunnels running under the Chiltern Hills, a giant project that will be carried out by two 170m long tunnel boring machines and more than 1,000 workers. Santa Barbara, the patron saint of tunnellers, will oversee the works, Tom Lowe reports
The first press visit to HS2’s immense South Portal site since covid-19 restrictions were relaxed did not get off to the smoothest of starts. Seconds after arriving at the headquarters of the project to build not only the £100bn railway’s longest tunnels, but also the UK’s longest rail viaduct, Building was informed that there had been a power cut.
The cause of the outage was unknown, but a member of HR, while leading reporters through an unlit corridor to a changing room, was quick to make it clear that only the visitors’ induction centre was affected. A few minutes later, as the press were changing into bright orange overalls, the staff member reappeared to insist that the rest of the site was definitely operating as normal, just in case we had misheard.
It is clear that the controversy surrounding HS2 – not only over its staggering price tag, but also from environmentalists campaigning against perceived damage to natural habitats along the route – has put the project’s comms team on high alert. And, after the debacle of Crossrail, the prospect of another major UK taxpayer-funded infrastructure project descending into farce is simply not an option.
Manufactured by German firm Herrenknecht, the TBMs comprise six sections or “gantries” which were shipped to the site in pieces and assembled before being transported to the tunnel portals
It is a pressure felt throughout the whole project’s 176km phase 1 route from London to Birmingham, but maybe nowhere more so than at South Portal. At 136 acres, it is HS2’s single biggest site. It is also the headquarters of Align, a joint venture between Bouygues, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzPatrick which is one of the project’s four main contractors. Situated to the north-west of London just inside the M25, it is where two of the line’s biggest components converge – both being built by Align on a £1.3bn contract.