The Socio-economic Impacts of HS1: Towards a Re-assessment

With a route length of around 108 km, High Speed 1 (HS1) is the only high speed rail line in operation in the UK. This chapter attempts to provide a socio-economic assessment of HS1, building on the earlier work of the author and of others. International services failed to attract the demand levels that were forecast and instead domestic passenger traffic has filled the capacity gap. However, the user benefits to these domestic passengers were less than that forecast for international passengers and as a result HS1 has failed to achieve a Benefit Cost Ratio in excess of unity, based on conventional transportation costs and benefits. This shortfall might be made up by regeneration benefits, as HS1 was specifically designed to stimulate economic activity in central and east London and in Kent. Some impacts in terms of land values can be detected, initially in central and east London, but subsequently spreading outwards to Kent. There is also some evidence of population gains but, like the changes in land values, these could be abstractive rather than generative. Moreover, evidence of increased productivity in terms of Gross Value Added per capita is difficult to find. The policy issues in terms of future high speed rail development in the UK are discussed.