The ill-fated, controversial and seemingly never-ending HS2 project has been revealed to be one of Britain’s larger landlords.
Mainly from letting out houses it compulsorily purchased for legs of the route which have now been abandoned, it rakes in some £14m a year in rent.
The figures have been revealed by the Daily Telegraph newspaper which says that of the 782 homes which have been bought along the HS2 route since 2012, some 602 have been let out.
Nearly half of the rental properties are on the cancelled legs – Phase 2 – of the project, from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds. This was scrapped in 2023 by then prime minister Rishi Sunak. Between Birmingham and Crewe, 121 of the 122 homes bought have been rented.
The average monthly rent for homes along Phase 1, between London and Birmingham, is more than £2,100, while for the second leg up to Manchester, average monthly rents are lower, at £1,733.
The Telegraph says: “Taking the average rent from Phase 1 and Phase 2, this means HS2 Ltd – the company responsible for delivering the project – is making more than £14.1m a year as a landlord. Meanwhile, the project is projected to cost the taxpayer £81 billion”. In fact this figure rises to some £100 billion if inflation was taken into account for the period since the project started some 13 years ago, when its cost was originally expected to be £33 billion across a much longer route than is now proposed.
Tenants in all these homes will not have the benefits introduced by the Renters’ Rights Act. This is because the properties are Crown tenancies.
Penny Gaines, chair of the Stop HS2 campaign group, tells the Telegraph: “£14m from rent might sound like a lot of money, but it is dwarfed by the ongoing cost of HS2. The latest figures show that HS2 cost the government more than £7 billion for the last year, so however much they have taken in rent, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the continuing cost of HS2.
“Meanwhile, the Government is about to start selling off land and properties it purchased for HS2. Stop HS2 thinks that they should be offered back to the original owners at the price HS2 paid for it.
“It looks like HS2 will end up being a vastly extravagant shuttle service from the suburbs of London to somewhere near the centre of Birmingham. They should put the whole project out of its misery and cancel it entirely as soon as possible.”
The Telegraph quotes a spokesperson for HS2 Ltd saying: “Rent charged on properties acquired for HS2 is income for the taxpayer – ultimately offsetting costs incurred by the project.
“Hundreds of properties spanning a variety of prices were voluntarily sold to the Government for the new high-speed rail network.
“Routing the line through less populated rural areas meant that large, detached dwellings situated on their own land formed a significant number of total purchases. As a result, the concentration of high-value properties in our rental portfolio affects average rental prices. Wherever possible, they are let out at market rates.”
HS2 will not be in operation until at least 2033, and will run some 140 miles.
This article is taken from Landlord Today