THE government does not know what it is trying to achieve with the “floundering” multibillion-pound HS2 railway project after more than eight years of planning  and spiralling costs, MPs found in a damning report today.

The public accounts committee (PAC) urged the Department for Transport (DfT) to “finally establish” its expectations for Euston after the central London station’s upgrading costs ballooned to £4.8 billion from an initial budget of £2.6bn.

This prompted works there to be paused for two years in March, with Euston now not expected to run HS2 trains until 2041 — 15 years later than scheduled.

Describing the initial budget set in April 2020 having been “wildly unrealistic” for what the DfT wanted to deliver, PAC said: “Despite spending over eight years on planning and designing the HS2 Euston station, the department still does not know what it is trying to achieve with the station.”

Previous updates to Parliament on cost pressures at Euston did not disclose that construction costs could be significantly higher than expected, the committee added as it called for greater transparency in its six-monthly progress reports to MPs.

The project involves integrating HS2 services with the existing mainline railway and London Underground.

The original £55.7bn for the whole project set in 2015 soared to up to £61bn in 2019, excluding the eastern leg of Phase 2b from the West Midlands to the East Midlands.

HS2 Ltd — the government-owned company responsible for building the high-speed railway — first proposed an 11-platform design for Euston in 2015, to be built in two phases.

The DfT instructed the company to change to a 10-platform, single-stage design following recommendations from the Oakervee review in 2020.

Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier said: “The HS2 Euston project is floundering. This is a multibillion-pound scheme — which has already caused major disruption to the local community — put on pause.

“The pause, ostensibly to save money, is not cost free. Mothballing and possible compensation for businesses which have lost work will all need to be added to the HS2 tally.

“The government must now be clear what it is trying to achieve with this new station, and how it will benefit the public.”

The DfT said it remained “committed to delivering HS2 from Euston to Manchester in the most cost-effective way for taxpayers” and will respond to the PAC’s recommendations in due course.