The mega-project’s plans have had a huge impact on homes and the landscape around Euston

“WE knew that it was b******s from day one,” Margaret Hodge, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee from 2010 to 2015, told Sally Gimson.

This did not stop successive governments wasting countless billions on what is now a less than half-built white elephant. High Speed 2 highlights the inability of government to spend public money wisely or efficiently.

It is a test case in which the public sector has comprehen­sively failed, inflicting untold collateral damage on the economy and on the thousands of people unlucky enough to be on HS2’s projected route.

Camden knows only too well the cost of HS2. The area around Euston has been turned into a wasteland, with massive disruption, noise and pollution. Many long-term residents have been driven out and no end is currently in sight.

Astonishingly, despite a billion pounds being spent in planning fees, no solutions to either Euston station itself or the engineering problems posed by the approaches to it have yet been found. These problems may indeed prove insoluble. The assumption that HS2 will have its own station at Euston means, however, that it may never be possible to rebuild the mainline station.

Sally Gimson’s timely Off the Rails will not be the last book about this disastrous megaproject, which is fast becoming a public laughing-stock. Although subtitled “The Inner Story of HS2”, there is a great deal more information yet to emerge, including the truth about alleged corruption and fraud inside HS2 itself. We are also still in the final phase of the nightmare. Tellingly, little of Gimson’s detail comes from inside HS2, which specialises in combining the issue of vast amounts of impenetrable information with a culture of extreme secrecy, reinforced by non-disclosure agreements.

Off the Rails, which is at times surprisingly sympathetic to HS2, starts with a brisk summary of the history of railways in Britain and a survey of other high-speed lines. Some of these, notably the Japanese Shinkansen, have been both highly successful. Other countries have had a more mixed experience. California’s projected line between San Francisco and Los Angeles is unfinished and may end up costing $128billion.

Like most disasters, HS2 has had many contributors (though very few willing to take the blame) and many ingredients, notably magical thinking about “rebalancing the north and south”. Its business case, based on businessmen not using the train for work, never made sense and now makes even less sense in the age of Zoom. The railway was misrouted and massively overdesigned, being made to run faster than anyone else’s.

The consultation process was on an epic scale, with the House of Commons and House of Lords committees sitting interminably. In common, however, with many modern “consultations”, the aim was to go through the process and then impose what had already been decided – rather than to listen to the many reasonable points made by petitioners. This was particularly noticeable in Camden, which received very little redress in the commit­tees’ recommendations. Because all the parties, with the exception of UKIP and the Greens, backed the project, HS2 never received proper scrutiny in parliament.

At a local level, residents have been fobbed off with meaningless meetings with HS2 representatives.

An indication of the contempt for those whose lives it was affecting can be seen in its refusal to agree minutes. HS2 hates being recorded.

One clear difference between Camden and the Chilterns was the success of the latter in getting major changes, including miles of cuttings and tunnels, accepted. This was the result of a more or less unified response, combined with support from ecological directives. One of the latter is responsible for the infamous bat-tunnel at Sheephouse Wood. Camden, in contrast, where there was no united opposition, was again short-changed. It has not been well served by its current MP, Sir Keir Starmer, who might at the least have been expected to cancel HS2’s Euston leg.

Even if not a single yard of track has yet been laid, there is no doubt that HS2 is a wonderful gravy train for those on board. The chief executives of HS2 have been the highest paid civil servants in the land, with many of their juniors being also lavishly rewarded. For the consultants, architects and engineers involved, their fees have been out of all proportion to their achievements. Because of the long-term uncertainties of the project, and the frequent changes of plan, HS2’s contracts have been issued on a “cost plus” basis, with the government, or rather the taxpayer, picking up the ever more eye-watering tab.

As the failure of the project finally hit home, first the eastern leg beyond Birmingham then the western one were jettisoned, leaving the stump of what has been dubbed the “Acton to Aston Line”.

If this stump, between Birmingham’s Curzon Street and London’s Old Oak Common, is finally built, it will run at a huge loss. The main factor keeping HS2 from cancellation is the loss of 30,000 jobs of those working on the project. They would probably be better employed digging a deep hole and then filling it in.

If there are many villains and incompetents in Gimson’s account, as well as innumerable snouts in the trough, there are a few heroes, including Cheryl Gillan, Andrew Gilligan, Margaret Hodge and Christian Wolmar. While apologies are seldom forth­coming nowadays, it would be fitting if Lord Adonis of Camden Town, the main proponent of HS2, apologised to the people of Camden for the harm he has inflicted on them. Adonis has taken his title from Camden Town. It is as if Bomber Harris had been ennobled as Lord Harris of Berlin.

The final size of the black hole is still unknown. The latest chief executive of HS2, Mark Wild, managed to keep a straight face recently when telling the Transport Select Committee that he would be unable to come up with final figures before 2026 – at the earliest.

• Off the Rails: The Inside Story of HS2. By Sally Gimson. One World, £18.99