The tunnel is one of the longest ‘cut-and-cover’ tunnels on the project, and required work to be done on a section of the A361
The HS2 Chipping Warden tunnel will stretch for 2.5km, and has reached a milestone with the reopening of the A361 carriageway over the top of the tunnel.
This marks the completion of the section of cutting (the process of creating the tunnel and placing earth back on top) that disturbed and required adjustment to the A361.
The A361 was closed for 11 days
The section of road running from Banbury to Daventry was closed to allow work to take place, re-aligning the road and joining the section to the new relief road completed in 2022.
View video footage of the tunnel here.
Work can now continue on the tunnel without interruptions to local traffic.
This work will consist of creating the missing sections of the tunnel to join up the two parts that have been built so far. This involves cutting the tunnel, placing concrete segments, and then placing the earth on top of the tunnel.
The tunnel will be in an ‘M’ shape, and will have two separate halves for northbound and southbound trains.
HS2 Ltd’s senior project manager, Hugo Rebelo, said: “We’ve had some serious challenges with the Chipping Warden green tunnel, so it’s great to see the A361 permanently diverted and a clear path ahead for the completion of the tunnel.”
“The improvements we’ve made to construction processes over the last year have helped us turn a corner – but we still need to keep up the focus on productivity, while delivering the work safely and to the necessary quality.
“I’d also like to thank our neighbours for their patience during the road closure, which was necessary to complete the realignment of the road and our site teams for working so hard to get it reopened on time.”
HS2 undergoing a ‘fundamental reset’
In February, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released a scathing report detailing “a litany of failures and unheeded warnings” that was costing the project up to £80bn.
Criticism in the report was levelled at the disagreement between HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport, who could not agree on a price for Phase 1 of the project, as well as the handling of Euston station’s redevelopment, having no plan in the wake of project changes, and even the infamous bat tunnel, which doubled the cost of that section of track to £100m.
The chief executive of HS2, Mark Wild, has since promised that 2025-26 will focus on a fundamental reset of the project, which “will deliver a clear, realistic budget and timeline for HS2 that the government supports” through:
- Establishing a realistic and deliverable cost and schedule baseline, aligned with government expectations.
- Rebalancing commercial relationships to share risk more effectively and provide strong incentives to boost productivity.
- Ensuring HS2 Ltd has the right skills and capabilities in place to get the programme firmly back on track.
- Focusing construction efforts on priority areas to safely accelerate progress and support the reset.
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