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Deduct from the cost the price they'd have had to pay for valuable land by going over-ground, maybe? I mean there's a reason the London Underground is underground.

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There's a lot of tunnelling in Buckinghamshire and other counties with open countryside because the mainly Tory voting areas close to London object to HS2

If there's one thing I've learned from the Heathrow third runway, it's that "fuck the locals, the nation needs this (according to its supporters)" does not appear to be the way to get large infrastructure projects done.

And with the current electoral situation, if merely being a Tory constituency got you a tunnel, HS2 would be in a tunnel from the M25 all the way to the outskirts of Birmingham.

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