Hearts & Minds: HS2 may be a meta crisis, but all is not lost

Crisis comms falls into three categories. There’s the immediate reputational threat needing rapid response; the chronic issue that will take time to address; and there’s the meta, transcending everything else and a by-word for endless reputational damage. This last is rare – usually someone calls a halt to the misery.

Britain’s HS2 rail project is meta. It’s been going on since 2009 and will not open until beyond 2033. No date has been set. What was meant to be the UK’s high-speed showpiece, linking the North-West of England with London and costing £32.7bn, is a much-reduced affair, only serving Birmingham and London yet still running up a bill approaching £100bn. That is an estimate, because with HS2, figures and dates long since became meaningless.

Which is the ongoing comms nightmare, of how to manage something that is the subject of national and international ridicule, and is constantly being pored over? This is how: don’t look back.

The mistake is to inherit and to explain the mistakes of the past and how, under your watch, things will be different. Already, you’re rehearsing the old stories, going over trodden ground. Couple that with saying you’re ‘drawing a line’, as many have done, and you’ve got yourself a noose.

Avoid issuing projections and attaching numbers to them, because that is all they are – they are not real, they have not happened, they are there to be broken. That is easier said than done – it’s public money and the public deserve information. But stick to what you know, which is what you’re doing and how construction is now progressing. Stay positive and forward-looking.

Personalise it. One problem has been the lack of an identifiable person in charge. It falls between government and contractors. Ministers like to have their say but they also come and go. They also like to blame the other lot for having created this mess – back to looking backwards again. The public want a face and a voice they can trust, who has authenticity, who will keep them appraised of how it is faring. A good example was the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena). It too was a joke. Over-budget, the opening night was a disaster, attendances at the exhibition were poor. Then P-Y Gerbeau was brought in to turn it around and he did. His confidence and enthusiasm were infectious; he won over the opposition and the crowds lifted.

Treat it as making reputations not destroying them.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.