Stephen Cresswell

"Former HS2 Whistleblower & Project Risk Expert

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

@CommonsPAC is running an inquiry on HS2 and Euston and requesting evidence.
The question I'd like put to @DfTgovuk and @HSTwo:

What is the BCR based on current costs and current planned benefits?

#HS2

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

The DfT has published Benefit Cost Ratio 'Transparency Data' supporting the decision to continue HS2 Phase 1.
Their own analysis shows: if current costs were known at Notice to Proceed (2020), the BCR would be 0.3-0.4.
That means 60-70% of taxpayer value invested in HS2 Phase 1 is destroyed.
In my opinion, this is translucence — not transparency.

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

Adjusting for both current costs AND reduced benefits, my estimate puts the true BCR at 0.1-0.2.
At that level, BCR ceases to be a meaningful metric. The project fails every standard HM Treasury test for public investment.
Full analysis here: https://t.co/YeoMWwTgMa

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

A competent government would mothball HS2 right now. The cost explosion was predictable — I know because I flagged it from inside the project and was fired for it.

Investment spending on the remnants of Phase 1 is equivalent to the entire road network. A massive sum for a tiny proportion of the travelling public.

Changes to working patterns arising from AI and technology might make this a completely pointless project, before it even opens.

I've just written on this for @TaxpayersUK — the problem isn't just the numbers, it's the political and governance system that made them inevitable.

https://t.co/1fR6fBVZ7Z

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

NVIDIA just unleashed SANA-WM and it’s an absolute MONSTER for the future of open source AI!

A blazing-fast 2.6B-parameter open-source world model that doesn’t just generate video… it creates controllable, physics-rich, high-fidelity worlds on demand.
Why this is insanely powerful:

• One image + text prompt + 6-DoF camera trajectory → generates 720p videos up to 60 seconds long with buttery-smooth, precisely controlled camera movement. You’re not just watching, you’re piloting the simulation.
• Runs locally on a single consumer GPU (RTX 5090 level) thanks to heavy distillation + NVFP4 quantization. Full 60-second clip denoised in ~34 seconds. No massive clusters required.
• 36× higher throughput than previous open models while rivaling (or beating) closed industrial giants in visual quality and consistency.
• Trained lightning-fast: ~213K public videos in just 15 days on 64 H100s.
• Built with next-level tech: Hybrid Linear Attention, dual-branch camera control, two-stage pipeline, and rock-solid metric-scale pose understanding.

This is a true open world model, the foundation for embodied AI, robotics, autonomous systems, and hyper-realistic simulations that can run anywhere.

Project: https://t.co/GBg4F8FWCp
GitHub: https://t.co/Q66j2UhofN
Paper: https://t.co/ktogIjtFdO

At our Zero-Human Company, we’re already running SANA-WM live in our core pipelines. It’s supercharging autonomous agent training, generating unlimited synthetic training data, and powering full end-to-end simulation loops, zero humans in the loop.

The speed and control let us test thousands of edge-case scenarios overnight, iterate at lightspeed, and push our fully autonomous operations further than ever before.

This is the kind of breakthrough that turns science fiction into daily reality. World models just leveled up — hard.

The age of personal, local, controllable universes is here.

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

New piece for @TaxpayersUK: HS2 and the broken political system.

I raised the alarm from inside the project. Got fired. Won at the tribunal. Now writing about why this keeps happening.

The system doesn't just fail — it's designed to.

🔗 https://t.co/1fR6fBVZ7Z

#HS2 #Whistleblower #PublicSpending

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

When the scales tip to protect HS2 Ltd instead of the public, something ... https://t.co/bSWhuou0Cj via @YouTube

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

Demand a Full Public Inquiry into HS2 Fraud - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/U9ipGDlDOk via @UKChange

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

HS2 is funded through government borrowing – and as borrowing costs rise , the real financial impact increases far beyond the project capital costs discussed in media coverage.

These costs compound over the project lifecycle starting from when work first begins. Strengthening the arguments for mothballing or finding alternative uses for Phase 1.

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

@kelvmackenzie Interesting article on role of post office lawyers in teh Law Society Gazette. https://t.co/FVsloA0POG - Post Office scandal: lawyers in the frame

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

I just joined Substack Notes
https://t.co/3FYhseUHQx

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

@gregsmith_uk @Telegraph Great article Greg, this is my analysis https://t.co/FO7P3uoqIU

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

HS2: Was the UK Parliament misled about costs?, by @Crezza999 https://t.co/FO7P3uoqIU

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

Big Projects, Bad Predictions: Crossrail - Should we be cross? Part 3 https://t.co/3ZE3iQ2uAd

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

As part of a personal modernisation programme I am combining my work and personal twitter accounts. Follow my profile at increzible

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

Just donated £5 to wikipedia - I'm a supporter of what they do and small price given the use I make of it.

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

@RichardTol You should also ask if there are any opportunities - e.g longer seasons, less heating (for northern climes)

[Stephen Cresswell @Crezza999]

In Camberley today - finishing my first days work for a new client