HS2 celebrated finishing its first tunnel… then months later sealed it back up

A one-mile tunnel built below ancient woodland for HS2 has been resealed a year after railway bosses hailed it as a “tremendous feat of engineering”. The twin-bore tunnel at Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire was the first to be completed on the £100bn high-speed rail project in February 2025. The contract for the section of HS2 including the tunnel was given an original estimated cost of between £900m and £2bn. But The i Paper understands the entrance and exit have now been sealed back up by contractors while they await the rest of the “civil works” phase of the project – where viaducts, cuttings and sidings are constructed – which is significantly behind schedule and not yet complete. HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild has admitted it will be another four years before the first piece of track for the line is laid, because the civil phase remains only 70 per cent complete. Speaking at the Rail Industry Association last week, he said he does not expect to start laying the first piece of track until 2030 – 10 years after construction was first started on HS2 in 2020. The north tunnel portal at Long Itchington Wood on September 19, 2023 (Photo: Chris Gorman/Big Ladder/Getty Images) The tunnel entrance in 2026, which has been sealed up (Photo: Google Earth) Conservative councillor Andy Crump said HS2 construction has been causing “chaos” for local residents near Long Itchington Wood for years and road closures continue to occur. He said the resealing of the tunnel is “completely ridiculous”. “How can countries like China and Japan [build infrastructure] far more quickly and far cheaper?” he told The i Paper. “It’s been allowed to drag on for too long – they need to grasp the nettle and get on with it and get it done as soon as they can.”Critics blame spending cap for slow progress Labour ministers confirmed in May that the 140-mile high-speed railway between London and Birmingham is now expected to cost more than £100bn – more than Nasa’s Artemis mission to the moon. The Government said that as of February 2026, around £43.6bn had been spent on the HS2 programme so far. The original budget was £32.7bn in 2012 prices for a Y-shaped network that would take trains to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Wild, who is carrying out a “reset” of the beleaguered project, has told ministers reducing HS2’s speed will help cut costs but the opening of the railway will have to be pushed back by at least another three years, to 2036. Critics told The i Paper they believe progress on HS2 is being held back by a cap on spending set by the Treasury. When will HS2 open? Phase One of HS2 between Old Oak Common in London and Curzon Street in Birmingham is set to open first, between 2036 and 2039, with three trains an hour running. This will be followed by the extension in London to a new station in Euston, and in Birmingham to Handsacre junction, the strategic link where HS2 connects with the existing West Coast Main Line just north of Lichfield in Staffordshire, allowing trains to run north to Manchester. Labour agreed a new four-year funding deal at the 2025 Spending Review worth £25.3bn. But rail expert and campaigner Chris Howe said he is “convinced” HS2 could be opened years earlier if more funding was released sooner. Howe, who has visited dozens of HS2 locations in his capacity as a freelance writer, said most main structures such as bridges and viaducts on the line are now complete, but claimed that the project could be built faster if there were more construction workers employed at the sites. “Construction was started six years ago and they’ve achieved a phenomenal amount,” he said. “But you can tell when you go to those structures that they’re spread quite thin. The delay is not though lack of engineering ambition.” Inside the tunnel at Long Itchington Wood, Warwickshire (Photo: HS2) Gareth Dennis, railway engineer and writer, also believes the cap in spending on HS2 is leaving much of the project effectively mothballed. “Some of the strcutures that are being built – it’s incredible work and we should be seeing more of that across the country,” he said. “The fact that we’ve got infrastructure sat there bone idle for the best part of a decade is bonkers.” The Government said claims work was not getting done at construction sites were “untrue”, adding that while it wants to save time and money on HS2, it will not “compromise on safety”. HS2 says it will not take ‘crazy risks’ with safety Wild admitted that some may see the current HS2 timeline as evidence of the project being “sandbagged” – meaning an effort to deliberately lower expectations – but he insisted there is no way of speeding up the building of HS2 without taking “crazy risks”. He compared the project with Crossrail, the 73-mile line between east and west London, which was delayed by three years. “The truth of the matter is, we need to get the civil engineering done,” Wild said. “Civils is going to take 10 years and cost double the amount. And I am really committed that we don’t start laying the track until we get the civil engineers off the park.” One railway expert who has visited several HS2 sites said construction workers appeared to be ‘spread quite thin’ (Photo: Jacob King/PA) Wild has repeatedly blamed the delays to HS2 on politicians starting the project too quickly when it launched in 2009 – when some sections were only eight per cent designed – as well as his predecessors signing contracts which put too much of the risk on the taxpayer. “Money is not the constraint,” Wild insisted. “Actually, the constraint is the delivery and making everybody stick in synchronism.” HS2 Ltd declined to comment any further. A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Following years of mismanagement and gold-plating of the project causing delays and spiralling costs, this Government has taken decisive action to reset HS2. Under Mark Wild’s leadership, HS2 is being delivered more efficiently, with six major construction milestones hit earlier than planned just last year. “We will look for every opportunity to save time and money, but we will not compromise on safety, reliability, or value for taxpayers.”