HS2: Cameras travel through completed tunnel for first time

Transport Secretary Mark Harper has made the first official trip through a tunnel on the HS2 high-speed rail route.

A 2,000-tonne tunnelling machine finished its task in July, after seven months of digging the one-mile-long tunnel at Long Itchington in Warwickshire.

It represented the first tunnel breakthrough on the London to Birmingham route and now VIPs have gone 33m below ground, as they travelled end to end in a tunnel on the network for the first time.

The scheme at Long Itchington has been opposed by environmental activists, who highlighted the nearby wood's status as a site of special scientific interest.