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Bruce Wayne, Batman, Didn't Spend As Much On His Batcave As This…

Bruce Wayne, Batman, didn't spend as much on his Batcave as the British government spent on this bat shed as part of HS2.

Published Thu, 19 Dec 2024 07:57:11 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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Article Summary

HS2 spent £100M on a bat shed, more than Batman's lair, to protect Bechstein’s bats in the rail's path.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticized UK's infrastructure delays, highlighting the costly bat tunnel.
Skeptics call the bat shed a "blot" with no proof trains harm bats, but it's legally required.
HS2 defends the shed's cost, citing legal compliance and long-term benefit despite public uproar.

I don't think I'm the only person to have thought this when I read the news in British politics. That the developers of the massively overbudget and now truncated high speed rail link HS2 had spent £100 million on a bat shed, as part of the planning procedures for the railway linking West London to Birmingham, but no longer Manchester. And that this was probably more than Bruce Wayne, Batman, would have spent on nhis entire Batcave. The shed was built as part of what the developers saw as a legal commitment to preserving natural wildlife from the impact of the trains. A one kilometre-long mesh structure, being built where the tunnel emerged in Buckinghamshire, to protect a colony of Bechstein's bats.

Writing for The Times newspaper, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "In the past 14 years, the Tories decided fewer than 60 infrastructure projects. We haven't built a reservoir in 30 years, not least because the time it takes to secure planning permission for major infrastructure projects has almost doubled in the past decade. Every road, pylon and mast — which connect people with opportunity — must jump through endless hoops, only to be opposed, dragged out, before eventually, if lucky, approved. That's how we ended up with the absurd spectacle of HS2 building a tunnel for bats that cost £100 million."

Director at the Financial Reporting Council Sir Jon Thompson has described it as a "blot on the landscape" and that it was built with "no evidence, by the way, that high-speed trains interfere with bats" and confirming that "This shed, you're not going to believe this, cost more than £100m." Adding that Bechstein's bats are not endangered, that they are "generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe… But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it's deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there's lots of them."

HS2 director Mark Wild says "I understand why that would raise public concern; it seems an extraordinary amount of money. But I would say this: I have actually visited this structure myself in my first weeks to see it, it is of great concern to me to understand. This is a considerable engineering structure. It is on a railway that will travel at over 200 miles an hour, so the engineering of this whole structure is quite considerable. At the end of the day, HS2 Ltd must obviously comply with the law, and the law says that we must mitigate damage, harm, to protected species… I can't apologise for complying with the law. This structure is the most appropriate. It is an extraordinary amount of money but it is in the context of a scheme that is costing tens of billions and it's built for 120 years."

What is HS2 anyway?

HS2 is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2017, planned between Handsacre, in southern Staffordshire, and London, with a spur to Birmingham. HS2 is to be Britain's second purpose-built high-speed railway after High Speed 1, which connects London to the Channel Tunnel. The trains are being designed to reach a maximum speed of 220 mph when operating on HS2 track. The scheme was originally to split into eastern and western branches north of Birmingham to the Midland Main Line at Clay Cross in Derbyshire and the East Coast Main Line south of York, with a branch to a terminus in Leeds. The western branch would have had connections to the West Coast Main Line at Crewe and south of Wigan, branching to a terminus in Manchester. The project was progressively cut until only the London to Handsacre and Birmingham section remained.

What else is there room for in the bad shed?

As for the bat shed, according to HS2, more than 20 alternative proposals were considered but discounted as even more costly or failing to protect the bats. And that a UK Treasury-commissioned review in 2021 undertaken by DfT, Defra and Arup concluded the "bat shed" remained the most viable solution. And also plenty of room to store the Batmobile, Batplane, Batcycle, Batcopter… and of course the Battrain.