East London Line - negotiations update
So, the current situation is that Boris Johnson and the government are still hammering things out over the funding for the East London Line extension through Peckham, but things have moved on somewhat.
Previously Boris said the funding gap was £30m and said he'd stump up £15m if the government paid the other £15m. The government pointed out they'd already given him £40BILLION for transport in London, but would consider his proposal.
As I understand it the government has now agreed to hand over an extra £15m, but are insisting that the new Surrey Canal Road station is reinstated in the plans. It seems that to reduce the cost of the extension to the bare minimum Boris had planned to cut the new station from the initial works. The new station would be between Queens Rd and Surrey Quays and serve parts of Bermondsey and Deptford as well as Millwall Football Club.
I'm not sure how much this increases the cost by, but I can certainly understand why Deptford MP Joan Ruddock is pushing so hard for it. The area is really run down and has terrible transport links. There are plans to improve the area, but they need the new station to be financially viable. Whatever Boris says, if the station doesn't get built as part of the main works the likelihood is that it will never happen.
So now we wait. Will Boris find the extra money? Will the government back down and let him drop Surrey Canal Road Station? Will the whole scheme fall through? Who knows?
I think Boris should stump up the extra money, he's cancelled so many projects for south and east London that I really think he owes us (though I'd rather have the extension without Surrey Canal Rd than not at all).
And when he says he can't afford it let's remember that he can afford
- £2.8m extra PER YEAR to replace perfectly good bendy buses with ordinary (not routemaster) double deckers on the 38 bus route
- Estimated £20m extra PER YEAR to 'debendify' all the bendy bus routes (thanks Boriswatch)
- £50-70m PER YEAR income to be lost by removing the western extension of the congestion charge zone
Further reading
South London Press article
January update from TfL in response to Val Shawcross
Kulveer Ranger (Mayor's Transport Adviser) comments at GLA Transport Committee
Labels: Queens Road, transport
posted by Fiona on Saturday, January 31, 2009
2 comments
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2 Comments:
Fiona, suggestion by Caroline Pidgeon that Boris had answered a question about the ELEX Phase 2 just a couple of days ago and sounded very optimistic ! Typically Boris he said "we are on the verge of great things!" If TFL and DfT have agreed then I hope, as Caroline says, that the Surrey Canal Road station has been reinstated into the plans. Any more info would be gratefully received.
Hi Turnbulk
Yes, I think both Caroline and Val asked Boris about phase 2 at the budget meeting on 28 Jan.
I still tend to think this is such a good project at such a reasonable price (tens of millions, not billions) that it makes too much sense for it not to happen.
The campaign has had a further boost with the London Assembly Transport Committee recommending that the project goes forward asap in the report on Rail Overcrowding
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/transport/rail-overcrowding.pdf (see page 25).
My big worry is the timescales, as the report says, time is running out "to roll this work on from the completion of phase 1. This will undoubtedly offer economies of scale and cost savings compared with returning to the site after a period of inactivity".
The big pressure at the moment is that the decision can't be left much longer if those economies are going to be made, but if the funding isn't resolved in time then that urgency will be lost.
Fiona
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