Programme Status Breakdown
Delay Distribution (Weeks)
Announced vs. Current Cost — All Schemes (£bn)
Cost Escalation Forecast to 2035 — Active Schemes
HS2 — £43.6bn Spent, Phase 2 Cancelled
HS2 was announced at £33bn in 2010. As of March 2026, approximately £43.6bn has been spent on Phase 1 alone, with the full Phase 1 cost now estimated at £57bn — a 73% overrun. Phases 2a and 2b were cancelled by the Conservative government in October 2023, writing off £11.3bn in sunk costs and eliminating planned connectivity to Manchester, Leeds, and Crewe.
Transpennine Route Upgrade — 17-Year Delay
TRU — electrification and digitalisation of the Manchester–Leeds–York corridor — was originally due for completion in 2024. The revised delivery date is now 2041, a staggering delay of 884 weeks (17 years). Cost has ballooned from £2.9bn to £10.7bn — a 269% overrun. The project has been cited by the NAO and IPA as one of the worst-performing rail programmes in UK history.
Hinkley Point C — £30bn Overrun
EDF's Hinkley Point C was approved at £18bn (2016 prices) and is now estimated at £48bn — a £30bn overrun, the largest single cost increase of any scheme in this tracker. Completion has slipped from 2025 to 2030. At £48bn it will be the most expensive power station ever built. The UK Government remains committed to it as the cornerstone of nuclear energy policy.
Emergency Services Network — 10-Year Delay
The ESN programme to replace the Airwave radio system used by police, fire, and ambulance services was contracted in 2015 for delivery by 2020. The revised target is now 2030 — a 10-year delay at a cost increase from £6bn to £11bn. Airwave has been kept running at enormous expense. The NAO has repeatedly flagged this as a critical programme at risk. The UK's emergency services remain on ageing infrastructure.
A303 Stonehenge — Cancelled After £179m Sunk
The A303 Stonehenge tunnel — a 2-mile bored tunnel to relieve the ancient monument — was cancelled in July 2023 after the Supreme Court quashed the Development Consent Order for the second time. Approximately £179m in planning, design, and legal costs had been spent. The scheme had been announced at £1.7bn; cancellation avoided further cost but wrote off years of preparation and left the A303 problem unresolved.
Local Roads Cull — Funding Cut Unless the Case Is Strong
The Government is cutting funding for local road schemes to keep spending under control. Its review of the Major Road Network and Large Local Majors programme, announced in July 2025, tests whether schemes are “still needed, deliverable and affordable” and offer the “best overall value for money for taxpayers”; only 16 of the 41 schemes reviewed were kept (DfT Annual Report 2025–26). By October 2026, 24 schemes had been reported as dropped, including the £930m M5 J9/A46 Ashchurch upgrade, £303m Melksham bypass, £197m Chesterfield Staveley route and £185.3m Kendal Northern Access Route. Schemes are being culled unless a strong business case and funding can be shown; ministers have left the door open for Kendal and Isham only on that basis (Construction Enquirer, 14 Oct 2026; list compiled by Transport Action Network).
Lower Thames Crossing — £11bn and Counting
The Lower Thames Crossing — twin road tunnels east of Dartford — received Development Consent in April 2025 after the longest planning process in UK roads history (£800m+ spent on planning alone). The estimated cost has doubled from £5.7bn to £11bn. Construction is not expected to start until 2026 with opening in 2034, seven years later than originally planned. It will be Europe's longest road tunnel at 4.26km.
| Scheme | Status | Announced | Current Est. | Variance | Delay | ETI | Stranded | Detail |
|---|
Methodology & Sources
CPD Index (0–100): CPD-C (Cost Performance) measures the proportion of schemes delivered at or near announced cost, with a severity penalty for overruns greater than 25%. CPD-D (Delivery Performance) measures the proportion of schemes free from significant delay, with a minor penalty for smaller slippages. The combined CPD score applies a 60/40 weighting — 60% CPD-D (Delivery) and 40% CPD-C (Cost). A score of 100 indicates a perfect delivery record; 0 indicates complete systemic failure.
CPD-C calculation: 40 schemes tracked across the England portfolio. Cost performance assessed across all 40 schemes — schemes on or near budget receive positive weighting; severe overruns (>25%) apply a penalty. Current CPD-C score: 83. CPD-D score: 80. Combined (60% CPD-D / 40% CPD-C): 81 — Stable.
CPD-D calculation: Delivery performance assessed across all 40 schemes. Significant delays include LTC (364w), EWR (417w), ESN (520w), HPC (260w), TRU (884w), A66 (104w), RAAC (208w), HS2 Phase 1 reset, HS2 Euston. Completed-late: Crossrail (204w), Tideway (104w). Current CPD-D score: 80.
Clock: The live clock is computed from the scheme table on this page rather than from a stored total. It starts from the accumulated cost overrun on every scheme still live — any status other than Completed, Cancelled or Paused, with announced cost treated as zero where no published baseline exists — and then accrues construction inflation of 3.8% per annum (blended BCIS) on the live estimated portfolio from base epoch 30 April 2026. Completed, paused and cancelled schemes are excluded from the accrual. Both inputs are reproducible from the scheme table below, and the reconciliation panel shows the totals they derive from. Re-based 22 September 2026: the clock previously ran from a hand-selected subset of schemes that no longer reconciled with the published portfolio totals on this page.
Cost data: Announced costs are taken from original HM Treasury / DfT press releases and parliamentary statements. Current estimated costs are drawn from National Audit Office (NAO) reports, Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) Annual Reports, HS2 Ltd 6-Monthly Reports to Parliament, EDF financial statements, and BBC / Financial Times reporting.
Delay data: Weeks of delay calculated from original target completion year versus revised target year. Where no completion date was formally set, delay is classified as not quantified.
Primary sources: National Audit Office (NAO) · Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) · HS2 Ltd · HM Treasury · BBC News · Financial Times
ETI — recognised by infrastructure funders and development economists: The ETI framework mirrors the approach used by infrastructure funders, bond markets, and recognised development economists when assessing the productive value of public capital expenditure. Its components draw on HM Treasury Green Book benefit-cost ratio methodology, deprivation weighting consistent with Levelling Up Fund criteria, and network effect analysis aligned with WebTAG multi-modal appraisal guidance — the same analytical frameworks referenced by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, development finance institutions, and institutional investors when evaluating public infrastructure programmes.
Disclaimer: This tracker is an independent professional accountability tool prepared by QUINTIN QS. It does not replicate, replace, or compete with any official government appraisal process. ETI scores and Stranded Value figures are derived from publicly available benchmark data and established appraisal frameworks — they are not the output of scheme-specific transport models such as TUBA or WebTAG-compliant multi-modal assessments. BCR inputs are drawn from published or analogous benchmarks, not bespoke modelling. Deprivation weighting is adapted from Levelling Up Fund criteria and is indicative in jurisdictions that use different deprivation indices. Delivery certainty scores reflect professional judgement applied consistently across all schemes. The methodology is fully disclosed, reproducible, and grounded in HM Treasury Green Book principles as updated in 2026 — but it carries the status of an independent analytical indicator, not a statutory appraisal. All figures are drawn from publicly available sources and are correct as of the date shown. If any government department holds more accurate data for a specific scheme, QUINTIN QS will update immediately upon notification. 🍓 If you believe any figure or fact shown here is incorrect, please write to mail@kevinbarryqs.com with the relevant scheme name, the correct figure, and a source reference — we will review and correct immediately if the evidence supports it. We are, after all, still human.
CPD Index — cost cap: The cost overrun % contribution to CPD-C is capped at 50 points — schemes with overruns above 100% score the maximum on this component. This prevents extreme outliers (e.g. schemes with 200%+ overruns) from distorting the index beyond its intended range.
CPD — about this acronym: CPD stands for Continued Prolonged Delays — a deliberate reference to Northern Ireland's Central Procurement Directorate, rebranded as Construction, Procurement, Delivery — the NI Executive body whose mandate is to ensure public infrastructure is built on time and on budget. The name is intentional.