TfL Confirm Gap in Croxley Rail Link Funding

In December 2016 we wrote about the curious absence of the Metropolitan line extension to Watford (the Croxley Rail link) from the TfL Business Plan. Sources at the time suggested that the extension was facing a funding shortfall that TfL were unwilling to meet. TfL have now officially confirmed that this is the case.

Taking the Met to Watford

Originally proposed and managed by Herts County Council, the scheme seeks to connect the Metropolitan line to Watford town centre. It will do this by using the alignment of the old Croxley Green Branch line. The current Watford Metropolitan line station will close and be replaced by three new stations before finally terminating at Watford Junction.

Since its inception, the scheme has had a troubled history. Projected costs continued to climb and eventually the DfT, one of the main contributors of funding, indicated that they would only continue to back the project if management passed to London Underground. Then-Mayor Boris Johnson signed off on this plan and also agreed that TfL would contribute additional funding from their Growth Fund.

From the words of David Hughes, London Underground’s Director of Major Programme Sponsorship, at the time, it was clear that TfL themselves weren’t particularly enthused by the idea of taking it over:

Late last year, faced with significant project slippage and cost escalation, the government asked us to consider stepping in and taking over responsibility for delivery of the scheme. We were clear that a suitable funding package needed to be in place before we would be prepared to take this on.

Nonetheless, work on enabling works for the project began.

Costs continue to climb

Hughes’ lack of enthusiasm was in no small part due to the suspicion that further costs were lurking on the horizon. After TfL’s initial, rough cost scoping exercise it was clear that what had been originally forecast by Herts as a £115m project was already likely to run closer to £280m.

By December 2016, when Herts’ initial contractors Taylor Woodrow were removed from the project, LR sources were suggesting that TfL’s final, full scoping of the project costs ran even higher than that:

The removal of Taylor Woodrow from the project was the first public indication that Croxley may be facing funding issues. Such a drastic change to project is nearly always a sign of increasing costs to come. Indeed sources suggest that this is the case on Croxley and that whilst the public estimate is still £280m, current thinking within TfL is that this may perhaps rise to as much as £350m once a full post-contractor-change cost review is completed.

This leaves a sizeable funding gap that will need to be bridged before anything beyond the current enabling works can be completed.

We suggested at the time that this meant a funding gap now existed. More critically, we pointed out that if this were the case it would be a gap that TfL themselves would likely not want to fill.

The clue as to why can be found in the fact that Croxley was originally put forward by Herts rather than TfL themselves. This is because, by TfL’s own metrics, the primary benefits of the scheme accrue to Hertfordshire (more specifically the citizens of Watford) rather than London. They weren’t alone in this thinking. Indeed a GLA report into the way in which TfL’s Growth fund (from which Croxley was drawing its TfL contribution) was governed highlighted that Croxley actually had the weakest case for funding from this particular financing pool (you can find more details on our previous post).

This left Croxley in a perilous position. In a new age of austerity, it’s financial future now depended on an organisation who had always been lukewarm about its benefits to the citizens to whom they were accountable. Worse, its transfer, as a project, to that organisation had been as much a political move as a logistical one. At the time, with an election looming, London was run by a Conservative Mayor sympathetic to the issues of a Conservative MP and local council, and to a Conservative DfT and Treasury. This is not the situation today.

The cost overrun becomes official

Despite these changing circumstances, back in December both the Mayor’s office and TfL refused to officially confirm that a further funding gap existed. They acknowledged that it was under review, but indicated that its absence from the Business Plan was simply due to space.

With the current general election now having passed, however, a discreet update on the TfL website finally, officially confirms both the new project cost and that they are unwilling to meet the funding gap (bolding ours):

Since taking over responsibility for designing and building the extension from Hertfordshire County Council in 2015, we’ve done detailed design work and reviewed the costs of the project.

This work now shows that the project cannot be completed with the current funding package of £284.4m agreed at the time. Our current estimate is that more than £50m will be needed on top of that.

We do not have the funding to cover these additional costs. The Mayor of London believes that the Department for Transport and the other funding partners need to agree how the additional costs will be met. This is now being discussed between the funding partners.

The critical sentence in the update is the one in bold, because it highlights what will likely decide the future of this Metropolitan line extension – politics.

The simple truth is that since costs began to escalate Croxley has largely been dependent on the continued support of the Mayor’s office. Whilst that office was held by a Conservative Mayor, that support seemed all but guaranteed. For Sadiq Khan, however, the mathematics are different. On one side of the equation stands a project that he can easily argue yields no direct benefit to the voters to whom he is accountable, although he would need to weigh up whether the optics of being the first Mayor to cancel a Tube extension would be negative in a broader sense. On the other stand the manifesto commitments (such as the fares freeze) he made and a need to reduce costs in order to meet them. When combined with the severe lack of love that exists between Khan and newly-returned Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, the latter is likely looking a far more acceptable option to the current Mayor.

The final, potential, fly in the ointment

There is, however, one final hurdle that TfL will need to overcome if no further central government funding is forthcoming and they wish to cancel the project entirely. This is the wording of the letter written by Boris Johnson when he committed TfL to support the project.

In Parliament back in December Andrew Jones of the DfT made the department’s own position on Croxley clear (again, bolding ours):

Since taking over management of the Croxley Rail Link in November 2015, Transport for London (TfL) has been reviewing the main work contracts. From discussions between officials in the Department and in TfL, we are aware that, as a result of prices received from the supply chain, the costs of the scheme are currently higher than the agreed budget. We understand TfL is considering how best to deal with this.

At a meeting with the Mayor on 5 December the Secretary of State for Transport re-confirmed the importance that the Government attaches to the scheme which will deliver significant transport benefits and significantly boost economic growth in Watford and the wider north west London area. Indeed, the Government, together with local councils and the Local Enterprise Partnership, has already committed substantial funding to this scheme and nearly 85% of the total budgeted cost.

Under the terms of the funding agreement in place for the scheme, TfL committed to the agreed budget of £284.4m and so agreed to meet any costs incurred over that budget. Conversely, they would retain the full amount of any cost savings. The Department will not be providing any additional funding for the scheme and expects TfL to complete it as agreed.

The commitment the DfT seem intent on holding TfL to was made by then-Mayor Boris Johnson in this letter. Reading it highlights just why the DfT feel safe in pushing any extra cost back onto TfL.

It also highlights, however, just how clearly the decision to pass the project over to TfL was as much political as logistical. It reveals that the original cost, which the Mayor accepted on TfL’s behalf, was based on a a P50 estimate – something that the Treasury’s own Green Book would suggest is not really appropriate.

Indeed the Green Book says that no one should form an agreement based on a project budget which contains a level of uncertainty when significant elements have yet to be reliably assessed. In other words, a P50 estimate isn’t really enough.

As one of our commentors pointed out back in December:

[W]hy on earth did the parties sign up to an agreement with such a poor level of certainty on the estimate (P50)… one therefore must ask why the former Mayor effectively forced TfL to accept a budget which was still based on relatively uncertain numbers *and* to carry the cost overrun risk. Did he understand what he was taking on on behalf of TfL?? The DfT, HCC, Watford Council and the local LEP must have thought Christmas had come when they were all relieved of any cost risks on their respective contributions.

The betting at LR Towers is that if Grayling and the DfT try to rely too heavily on the wording of the former Mayor’s letter, then the current Mayor may well start asking the same question very loudly, and publicly, indeed.

 

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104 comments

  1. I Note that the actual letter, rather than the DfT’s spin on it, says (my bold):

    “Transport for London has agreed to meet any eligible project costs incurred over £284.4m”

    I’m sure that magic world will give TfL sufficient wiggle/negotiating room when it comes to the project costs they accepted.

  2. Quoting costs at p50 is appropriate for the Economic case for a scheme (which is the bit where a Benefit Cost Ratio, or BCR, is calculated). However, for funding to be secured for a scheme, five cases must be passed – Strategic, Economic, Financial, Management, and Commercial. The Financial case (which is the case relevant to much of the discussion in this article, and considers where money will be coming from) requires costs at p90. I suspect someone got ambitious here, and just shoved the economic costs into the Financial case and hoped for the best.

    For the uninitiated, p50 and p90 refer to probabilities of different outcomes under a Quantified Risk Assessment (QRA). This involves identifying all risks as costs and the likelihood of them materialising, and then, typically, running a ‘Monte Carlo’ analysis, whereby thousands of random states of the cost outcome are generated according to likelihood x cost. This produces a typical bell-shaped curve of possible costs, with the cost at the 50th percentile (i.e. the most likely cost in the round) being p50, and the cost at the 90th percentile (representing a cost that would only be likely to be matched or exceeded in 10% of scenarios) being p90.

    Using p90 in the Financial case is analagous to the use of ‘optimism bias’ in an Economic case, in that there is good evidence to show that things tend to work out slightly worse than estimated, even where a QRA is undertaken as well as possible.

  3. Just as politics has led to this impasse, might politics not also be its saviour? The local Conservative MP, Richard Harrington, was returned in the recent election with his majority slashed. Given his propensity to claim credit wherever possible for local improvements, if central government were to shore up the funding gap, that would be something tangible for him to sell to the local electorate ahead of the inevitable forthcoming GE. Pork-barrel politics, yes, but with a marginal seat at stake, the new minority government perhaps can’t afford to maintain its previous position.

    THC

  4. It would be interesting to understand how those costs breakdown. It does seem like a very large amount of money for such a short length of line, most of which is on an existing alignment.

  5. “that he can easily argue yields no direct benefit to the voters to whom he is accountable,”
    It’s an easy argument, but one that should not be made as it’s not only easily debunked (Northwood and Pinner benefit from quality PT access to Watford Town Centre), but politically problematic.

    If it’s being cut because it’s “not London”/”not TfL’s remit”, then Surrey and Kent councils initial objections to Overground coming to their counties is a valid one: that Transport ‘for London’ has the problem of being ‘for London’ and thus won’t improve service outside London (other than as a side effect of improving it inside London) as it has no reason to do so. Plus Grayling now can point to Exhibit A in justifying blocking any expansion of TfL outwith the GLA boundary.

    And this idea that Northwood and Pinner are not places that the Mayor is accountable too is going to create problems. Ken acted as such was the case, but ended up neglecting such a big ring of outer London that the Boris Doughnut ousted the mayor of Inner London.

    That the fares freeze (though the Mayor should probably not mention that) and other funding issues that TfL face allows no money for schemes with poor business cases is a sensible reason not to proceed with the scheme. The cost overruns undermine the business case, and so the scheme cannot proceed. Add in the Foreign Secretary’s involvement for party political points and we have a winning argument.

  6. “sympathetic to the issues of a Conservative MP and local council”

    To be clear – the county council is Tory run, but the borough councils affected (Watford and Three Rivers [just!]) are both run by Lib Dems.

    Obviously the county council is responsible for Transport, but Watford Borough council had committed to contribute to the cost (£10m I believe, not clear how much has been spent) and has made plans (e.g. the Health Campus) conditioned on the existence of the Rail Link. Locally the Lib Dem mayor of Watford, Dorothy Thornhill, appears to be copping most of the flack for this mess, even if her involvement is, at most, limited.

  7. I’m probably not the only one who thinks that if London had a Tory mayor, then a lot of pennies would suddenly appear down the back of the sofa!

  8. So, for want of a nail …
    £50m isn’t really that much in the greater scheme of things, but the political, erm, shall we say “posturing” by many if not all of those concerned does not bode well.
    I think THC has the right sow by the ear – a political compromise & face-saving beneficial to the tories is the essential thing that might save this scheme.

    Though I, for one, would really like a detailed analysis of how costs have escalated so badly – shades of GW, I suppose?

  9. Perhaps TfL would be sympathetic to DfT’s desire for them to support schemes that are nominally “outside London”, if they hadn’t been so punitively blocked by the very same DfT last time they tried to do that very act…

  10. Perhaps the job of building the extension shoulds be given to one of the preserved railways ? The Bluebell seem to have built their extension to East Grinstead (along an existing alignment but with a cutting filled in with landfill material) at a much lower price. No 3rd / 4th rail but an interface with National Rail rails and signalling had to be included. Only two new stations though at Kingscote and East Grinstead. Cost estimated to be £11m. It did take 39 years though !

  11. With the Croxley Rail Link in jeopardy and the golden opportunity to run the Met line into Watford Junction rapidly receding, where does this now leave Hertfordshire County Council’s counter-intuitive and somewhat left field proposal to turn the Abbey Line (St Albans Abbey to Watford Junction) into a guided busway? I’d say it strengthens the authority’s case, as the increased benefit cost ratio (BCR) that would have been achieved by turning a relatively lightly used single-track ‘local’ railway into a direct link to the London Underground system disappears. I would say this bodes badly for the future of rail services of any kind on the Abbey Line.

  12. @JohnM: Kingscote was the terminus for a long time before the extension to Kingscote happened. So I doubt it could treated as a new station… Otherwise I’m well up for that, as long as they run steam trains!

  13. Doh! Replace the second Kingscote by East Grinstead….

  14. I’m going to seem like a grouch (what’s new?) but the TfL website update doesn’t say anything new. The stated position reflects what was leaked to the Watford local press months ago and also what has been stated in (I think) a Mayor’s Answer to an Assembly Member in the last 3 months or so. Unsurprisingly purdah stopped anything new being said in public and I suspect post election government turmoil will not help get us any closer to a fast resolution. It’s hardly a priority for a minority government, that may collapse at any moment, which is overwhelmed by Brexit related legislative matters.

    The Mayor and TfL Commissioner appear in front of the entire Assembly next week on transport matters so I wonder if it will crop up there in amongst the myriad of other matters.

  15. @Ryan – the causation isn’t there: the Mayor met the Minister to talk about the fact that TfL couldn’t fund MLX cost overruns (ie the ‘news’ described in this article), and the DfT weren’t going to allow devolution, on the 5th of December.

    Neither party left that meeting thinking the other had reneged on the previous post-holder’s promises, despite the meeting being called by both to try and get out of the obligations agreed to by their predecessors.

    TfL are just slower to confirm the news they sought to convey in that meeting than Grayling – who wrote it in a newspaper on the 6th of December.

  16. I have a draft of the original Environmental Statement, dated 1996, that out the total cost of the extension at £15 million. This didn’t include a new train, as the current plans do, and nor did it have costs for the upgraded electrical supply. It does include all three stations though. I’d love to know how the costs have escalated by around 1,900% in 21 years…

  17. Martin 21 June 2017 at 10:46

    It would be interesting to understand how those costs breakdown. It does seem like a very large amount of money for such a short length of line, most of which is on an existing alignment.

    +1

  18. @Southern Heights (Light Railway),

    I included Kingscote as the price (and timescale) quoted on the Bluebell Railway website is for all the work North of Horstead Keynes . Of course some of the work was done for ‘free’ by volunteers but they also had to buy the land back.

  19. @ Southern Heights (Light Railway)

    I wonder if you could convert the S Stock they have brought for the extension to be hauled by a steam loco ??

  20. John M
    A cheaper option would be to ask that nice Mr Shooter for a couple of A-trains (!)

  21. @ SI – I don’t think it is TfL being “slow” per se. I think it is them seeking to meet and to be seen to be meeting their obligations to properly assess the extent of the extra costs. There may also be other grant related obligations that have to be met. They may very well have stated a number very close to £284.4m + >£50m to the DfT in December but I assume they now have a clear view of the increment and can support it in accordance with the Green Book rules.

    Looking back at past articles and letters I am astonished to see that *the Treasury* accepted the P50 estimate as the basis for a financial agreement. That looks awfully to me like Mr Osborne overruled officials in order to support a deal concocted by Boris on political grounds. As JB says – this is all going to be decided by politics. The numbers are almost irrelevant other than being “too high”.

    Ho hum will this saga ever end? It’s getting as bad as the wretched Garden Bridge. Someone needs to humanely end both of these irrelevant schemes ASAP.

  22. Given the extension route is primarily that if the former BR line and in accessible condition I’ve been assuming that the majority of the extra costs are associated with the high-level bridge and connections. And that the soon-to-be-ex station can’t be sold off for housing to make lots of moolah.

  23. it would be great to understand where exactly this £350m would be going. Like many others have said, it seems like an extraordinary figure for relaying a branch line and building a couple of hundred metres of viaduct.

  24. Comments already made noted and apologies for any repetition.
    There are a number of things going on here.

    First we have an example of how London’s ill-thought out border impacts on transport policy. This seems to me an area well worth further exploration.

    Perhaps we need ‘softer’ borders (and perhaps shared control) for services that have very wide social impacts. Transport is not like bin emptying because people’s zones of interest and lifestyle span artificial political borders. Interesting how Mayor Khan would like control of train services in other parts of London that operate beyond the border and which (had he been successful) would inevitable have required coordination with non-London local authorities. Whole study area here.

    We then have the business case for Watford link which from my reading of the story was always based around benefits to the people of Watford and had marginal or neutral benefits outside. The proposed connection with the Metropolitan (which I have traced to before WW2) was a mere mechanism to supply trains with possible savings from closure of Watford Met. In these circumstances hard to see why TfL would want the extra aggravation unless there was a lot more in it for Londoners, and that is as true under present circumstances as since mayor took over the Underground (but NOT the same as when LU was under DfT). The link would not improve service reliability over the Met Line core and introduces new points of failure and delay. Are there really no new and desirable service opportunities that could be looked at to support the scheme, from a wider transport perspective, without overloading the Met (perhaps from the Ricky direction and perhaps not driven by TfL)?

    A cheaper scheme would be to abandon the expensive link bridge and just reopen to the old Croxley Green where there has been much development since the line closed. That would surely satisfy the Watford business case? Could use the cheap VivaRail trains, or even cascaded pacers, as already noted. Not helpful, but really, Suppose the line had not actually closed in the first place. We would almost certainly be much better off as existing rights and standards might have been preserved.

    Thirdly we have the ever increasing costs. This is surely worth some forensic investigation into how a ‘cheap’ scheme became so expensive. How these things happen should be discovered and disseminated as a lesson to us all since such things keep happening and it always seems a mystery. I am sure we will find project creep lurking somewhere. Optimism bias has been mentioned, but it is a term that actually means incapability of scoping and costing schemes properly in the first place. Transport professionals should be getting it right in the first instance and I want to know why consistently this is not the case. Surely an article here? It has a whiff of scandal about it (or could).

    A question not asked (as far as I know) is whether TfL’s involvement increased costs. For example, whose standards were used when the original scheme was drawn up, did these change to TfL standards when they took over and did that have an impact. This would be most instructive. At any rate it would be interesting to dissect the numbers sitting behind the estimates when they can be ascertained and identify which ones changed and why. Was it poor specification, poor estimating, change of scope, reassessment of risk or what? As it is, the present TfL hand-wringing is very unhelpful and just creates endless speculation about how this not-really-very-useful scheme was allowed to get as far as it did and whether there is anything to be recovered from the money already sunk.

    So. Plenty to go at then. This is a first class case study.

    Just thoughts.

  25. I have been waiting for this link to save driving to Watford for over 10 years,
    Herts CC has been cutting their Watford bus services in drastically in the past year giving no off peak bus connections from Watford Met Stn to the town. Subsidy was also cut to the two most frequent routes in Watford run by TfL(142 & 258). With Arriva losing these two routes on tendering and transferring the blue bus operation to Hemel garage, one doubts if the town will still have a local bus garage.
    If the inhabitants of Watford want this link they must increase their contribution not the tax payers of Greater London.

  26. For the London Overground, were not national rail signalling etc standards adopted as a mechanism to cut costs? Clearly there has to be an interface somewhere.

  27. I too would like to understand where the money is expected to be spent. Just up the road from me, Lea Bridge station was re-created last year for just £6.5m and that’s with much longer platforms than required for the Metropolitan Line, but with a footbridge.

  28. @Mike Horne: Are there really no new and desirable service opportunities that could be looked at to support the scheme, from a wider transport perspective, without overloading the Met (perhaps from the Ricky direction and perhaps not driven by TfL)?

    An earlier version of the project documentation talked about the potential for Chiltern services to Aylesbury etc but that this would require resignalling Watford High Street to Watford Junction which wasn’t within the project scope. At some point resignalling this stretch (which would have to be done by Network Rail) seems to have been added back into the scope of the project after all, which would be one source of the cost escalation. Plus the need for interim signalling due to the delay in the SSL resignalling and its change in rollout strategy from outside-in to inside-out.

    Was it poor specification, poor estimating, change of scope, reassessment of risk or what?

    The cost escalation has been so consistent and dramatic you would have to assume “all of the above”?

  29. @Firstwave59: Given Herts CC’s now proven track record at underestimating costs for novel infrastructure projects (not just the Croxley link but also the Abbey line tram-train scheme), added to the Cambridgeshire experience of what can go wrong building busways, it would be a truly courageous government that gave Herts money to build a busway.

  30. Having moaned on previous articles about the costs of this, it still makes no sense whatsoever. The Ordsall chord currently being built in Manchester connects two electrified railways, with all the signalling changes implicit, and also needs a much bigger and more complicated viaduct. It is shorter and doesn’t include any stations, but it is only quoted as costing £85m.
    Two very simple stations and a mile of track on an existing formation should not cost £260m!

  31. Homophone spotting: the update on the TfL website was certainly discrete (separate, distinct), but I think our attention is actually being drawn to the fact that it was discreet (unobtrusive, subtle).

    [Discreetly updated. Ta. PoP]

  32. With the exception of John (JOHN 21 June 2017 at 23:03), I don’t get the impression that people in Pinner and Northwood are that exercised about the benefits they will reap from the new link to Watford. I suspect that those who do make the journey mostly travel by car; it would certainly account for the chronic traffic congestion in the town.

    They might get more interested though if they knew that many of their healthcare services were likely to be moving there. Especially as the area has an ageing population.

  33. If a significant part of the cost increase reflects the need for interim signalling because of the delay to the SSL signalling, then an obvious place to look for some cost reduction would be to delay implementation of the project long enough to avoid the need for the interim signalling. Or is that too simplistic?

  34. I’ve read somewhere that the first 3 miles of New York’s Second Avenue Subway cost $19,000 per foot – which would give us $100m for a direct tunnel from Watford to Watford Junction…

    More sensibly, how does the £350m compare to the cost of Whitechapel – Dalston and Surrey Quays – Peckham?

  35. There’s no mention of the Metropolitan Line extension in the new Mayors Transport Strategy (draft published yesterday) which doesn’t bode well….

  36. The Programmes and Investment Cttee meeting papers include on the TfL Growth Fund.

    http://content.tfl.gov.uk/pic-20170628-item11-tfl-growth-fund.pdf

    The estimated final cost for the Met Line extension is £355m. (in app 1)

    There is little discussion of this scheme as it’s on the list of already identified investments. The paper also allocates £70m to the Sutton tram extension – subject to other matters progressing with this specific project.

  37. This seems to be a case of ignoring the advice that ‘if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing badly’.
    It would appear that the project is being gold plated; with disabled access throughout and major signalling works.
    The disabled would not be any worse off if the project went ahead without provision for them, and surely a temporary, simplified signalling system could be provided with ‘manual’ handover from LT to BR? Improvements could be made later if the traffic justifies it and when funds become available.
    Presumably there is now no one actively driving the project who actually wants it to happen.

  38. Phone CSS looks to have been broken? The comments now go off the right of my screen unless I “request desktop site”.

  39. @WW (15:56 yesterday)

    Well, yes, to a large extent, TfL have been slow because they sought to be certain that they cannot pay for it, having the desire to make it work.

    Not that the Mayoral spokesperson’s comments to the Watford Observer express that. Those comments seem to be more about promoting TfL as a parochial organisation that doesn’t care about what’s outside the boundary and views this whole thing as “not our problem and nor should it be”.

    After reading those comments, not only can I not see a way through for MLX, but also for anything new that involves TfL gaining responsibility for providing rail service outside the GLA border – Overground conversion of inner suburban routes, Crossrail 2 to Broxbourne, Epsom and Hampton Court. Saying that constructing a railway line that your subsidiary will be sole operator on and that you have contractually said you would project manage is the Government’s responsibility to deliver and not yours is brilliant way to show the DfT that you cannot be trusted to do stuff outside the boundary.

  40. RogerB says “The disabled would not be any worse off if the project went ahead without provision for them”.

    This argument will not wash. (Quite apart from the minor side-issue that “the disabled” is these days a much-disliked formulation).

    The point of anti-discrimination legislation is to expressly forbid provision of anything that unnecessarily disadvantages minorities, such as people with disabilities. No-one is forced to convert something currently existing to allow use by these minorities. But no-one is allowed – on a new piece of infrastructure – to save money by using the sort of argument presented here.

    If provision for people with disabilities could be demonstrated to be the only thing preventing the project proceeding, then perhaps a derogation could be sought. But such demonstration seems extremely unlikely.

  41. I think it is highly unlikely that the additional measures needed to accommodate the “disabled” are the source of the cost inflation. Indeed it is when you are having to make changes to Victorian infrastructure that costs rise but new build stations are not a problem. I can understand that Hertfordshire made an original miscalculation but the current figure of £355 million seems excessive and I think deserves a formal explanation. Something does not seem right and I wonder if our old friend Network Rail may be the source of the additional costs. They have had a reputation in the recent past for runaway costs on what appear to be relatively minor projects..

    I suspect no one is going to own up to this. If the project is buried the existing budget money will quietly disappear on the basis that the early preparatory work incurred larger than anticipated expenditure and to press for an accounting will just be seen as unhelpful to all parties.

    In the grand scheme of things I suspect the project will be forgotten and I don’t see DfT pushing TfL to meet the obligations Mayor Johnson so happily agreed to. It’s a real shame.

  42. @ RogerB – as Malcolm says TfL have no scope to remove accessibility provision from new infrastructure. It can’t escape the intent and effect of leglislation and I don’t believe the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Transport would ever support such an omission.

    @SI – You will not be surprised to hear I disagree with your prognosis. TfL have done what was asked of them. They’ve properly evaluated the cost. They are not allowed to proceed without revised authority and budget that at least covers the EFC. I also doubt the governance arrangements allow them to proceed without securing agreement from the funders *even* if they have been saddled with the cost overrun risk. Therefore we are at the point of the bad news having put forward and now the politicians must slug it out. I would also just say that letters from the DfT in 2015 asked TfL to specifically identify any adjustments or extra costs to permit the operation of Chiltern Railways DMUs into Watford Junction. Therefore the link may not be solely operated by LU in the future.

    I also do not think that the mire that the MLE is in gives any steer whatsoever as to the likelihood or otherwise of TfL being trusted with services beyond the Greater London boundary. They contract and operate many such services today. Do we hear repeated howls and screams from the County and local councillors in the areas served? No we do not. Anyway we have done this futile debate to death umpteen times and it’s evident there are entrenched views at both ends of the spectrum. Let’s just see what happens with the project.

  43. I think to fair to TfL and the Mayor, both would be rightly roasted in the GLA and the media for throwing another £70m of London’s transport budget at a scheme outside the boundary, especially after the garden bridge was cancelled for being short of £70m.

  44. @Christian Schmidt: The Second Avenue Subway first phase was apparently $4.45bn for two miles, which I reckon at $421,000 per foot – so the Croxley Link is still cheaper – but so it should be, land prices in Vicarage Road being a little lower than those on the Upper East Side…

    As for the East London Line, from here:

    In October 2006, TfL awarded a £363m contract to the Balfour Beatty and Carillion joint venture (BB/C JV) for rebuilding the East London Line (ELL) between Dalston Junction and West Croydon. The scope of work involved the replacement of 7.4km track, installation of signalling equipment on the Whitechapel and New Cross stretch, construction of a 3.6km new trackbed from Whitechapel to Dalston Junction and four new stations at Shoreditch High Street, Hoxton, Haggerston and Dalston Junction.

    The work also included the refurbishment of 14 stations, and construction of a train maintenance facility and a new rail bridge in the north of New Cross Gate, which connects to the national network. All the existing stations in the overground network were also upgraded.

    So the cost of the Croxley Link is now roughly the cost of the civils for the whole East London Line extension.

  45. @RogerB: The disabled would not be any worse off if the project went ahead without provision for them

    If parallel local bus services are reduced because of competition from the tube, then disabled people will be worse off.

  46. @SI not only can I not see a way through for MLX, but also for anything new that involves TfL gaining responsibility for providing rail service outside the GLA border

    Better cancel Crossrail 1, then…

  47. If costs have risen on a project, and there appears to be no reason why, I would look in the direction of the signalling. If the supplier gives you a quote for signalling and you think it’s too high, where do you go? Clue: there are not many signalling contractors.

  48. Mike Horne: “Transport professionals should be getting it right in the first instance”

    Except that this scheme was first specced by Hertfordshire cc. Not transport pros.

  49. I want to know why “Questions” are not being asked ( In both County Hall & the House ) as to why this is costing more than the Ordsall Chord.
    Something really smelly there, methinks.

  50. @ Mike Horne – I doubt that LU standards are much of an issue. Even when under HCC control it was clear that LU standards had to apply to the infrastructure and subsequent operation. As I am sure you know work has been going on and continues inside LU to scale back the costly impacts of the standards regime and to move asset requirements much more to standardised products. These moves should all *reduce* the cost of assets and their subsequent maintenance / renewal. They should ease acceptance and assurance activities. There may, of course, have been a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the standards by HCC or whoever they employed to pull together the project estimates and business case. That’s a different issue with responsibility in a different place.

    If I was to make a guess I suspect there are three or four likely areas that have affected the cost.

    1. A poor set of initial estimates that put expectations as to the project cost and timescale in the wrong place.
    2. Issues related to signalling and how the line “connects” into the NR network south of Watford.
    3. Possibly unresolved scope issues about whether the DfT do or do not want the infrastructure to be capable of accepting Chiltern Railways DMUs. I’ve not seen a published letter that clarifies this issue.
    4. Changes related to the “buildability” of the line within a set of changing local constraints (including timing of NR possessions for signalling and track works).

    I expect transport professionals, of differing types, have been involved since day one. However professionals rarely speak with one voice so while you may expect a professional end result I dread to think what level of “debate” has gone on on this project. We all loved a “debate” in LUL when I was there so unless a radical cultural change has taken effect since then I expect a heck of a lot has been said about the MLE. Multiply that by 4 or 5 to reflect the stakeholders and funders and you’ve got a lot of discussion and you’d need a strong leader to be able to bring all of that to consensus and agreement.

  51. I fully understand the awkward position that the mayor finds himself in, but I think that arguing that the benefits of the scheme are mostly for the inhabitants of Watford or thereabouts, is misunderstanding the situation.

    If you live in Watford going on the Metropolitan to Central London is not the obvious choice. The Metropolitan will be much more interesting for people of Watford travelling to destinations in North-West London and for those going from North West London to Watford, including to make connections to trains serving stations in the Midlands and the North-West of the UK, without having to go via Euston.

    Of course the fairest way to save the project would be to share the overrun between the parties involved.

  52. Mike Horne makes a very valid point about the boundaries of London. If we were talking about the London Borough of Watford, this scheme would be hugely desirable. Until we are, it takes money out of London and as such should be mothballed.

  53. Ian S
    This sort of petty parochialism is what bedevils many transport schemes.
    It needs stamping on, because, usually, both “sides” will benefit, but each wants the other to pay for all of it …
    And, usually, nothing gets built.
    A recent audio post in these pages mentioned commuting into Jersey City ( & NYC, of course ) & the similar refusal to even contemplate spending money on it by (IIRC) NJ’s state governor – a very similar case, maybe?

  54. If a job’s worth doing…..
    Surely the benefits described by Mr Singh mean it is worth doing? But does it have to be gold plated? Why not design down to budget like the Borders Railway or original DLR to Stratford? Single track and platforms on the new link, only 4 trains an hour to Watford Junction, reversing additional rush hour trains at Croxley (or Watford Met. if that’s going to be retained anyway)
    Let’s see the costs and benefits.

  55. RogerB 25 June 2017 at 13:50

    “Single track and platforms on the new link”

    Would that save much cost on the new viaducts? And wouldn’t the overall cost of widening viaducts later add up to more than double-track viaducts in the first place?

  56. Yes it would cost more if you went for the full scheme eventually but wouldn’t it be better to have something now rather than nothing?

  57. Could they consolidate the two new stations – either equidistant and double-ended, or just build one and leave the other, for now? Possibly with the ability to build, like Wood Lane was.

    Croxley is grandfathered in, and Watford High Street too. I always thought it was a lot.

    Other than that, I don’t see anything else to be trimmed. It’s only worth it as a high frequency service.

    I do like the potential for NR via Rickmansworth, but if the signalling is hugely expensive, then again, leave it and revisit if demand spikes with the basic extension. They could run Met trains to Chesham instead surely, and cover that branch off.

  58. It’s not just rail infrastructure that has seen costs skyrocket. The estimated costs for a new runway at Gatwick and Heathrow are some £6-9bn and £17bn respectively. By contrast, back in 2001, Manchester airport built a new runway for just £0.2bn. Outside the UK, at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, a new £46m runway was opened last March.

    On motorways, the cost of widening the M1 (building a whole new lane, rebuilding bridges, etc.) was around £21m/mile in 2007-8, which was much criticised at the time. But less than a decade later, the cost of converting the M3’s hard shoulder into a “smart motorway” lane in 2015-17 was around £10m/mile, despite not requiring nearly as much land take.

    Over on the continent, the nice people of Nice are getting a new tram line for €770m (similar price/length as Edinburgh); but some 3.6km of the central section will be underground, so it strikes me as better value.

    What’s going on with construction costs in the UK?

  59. I doubt that Akrotiri has a *new* runway in the way that is implied – more likely it is the old one renovated/rebuilt so the costs are not really comparable.

  60. The LHR runway costs include diversions and/or tunnelling for several major roads, and acquiring quite a large chunk of west London. I am not sure whether the £17bn you quoted included the construction of terminal 6, but if so that requires further road and rail construction as well as being a substantial building in its own right.

    Compared to all of that, I would imagine the actual cost of building a runway is negligible.

  61. One reason why construction costs have risen is due to Sterling’s decline over the past 12 months (most of which occurred last summer). We import most of our materials, machine and equipment from abroad. Another likely factor is labour costs which have been rising for some time in the construction industry. Finally, land prices have ballooned since 2010, so any projects involving land purchases will have seen their bill jump if initial cost estimates were made a few years ago.

  62. I can’t speak for Heathrow, but I know the Gatwick “runway” budget of £9 billion included a new terminal, a big upgrade to the station, a new transit to move passengers between terminals, substantial changes to the M23 and the airport spur, putting the A23 underground, moving a couple of streams…

  63. From the recent London Travelwatch policy meeting is this paper about the Met Line extension. Seems they are taking the “Mayor not to be trusted with devolved services” position in how they are assessing the risk of the scheme not proceeding.

  64. @WW – For me, it’s not that the Mayor/TfL have renaged on the Boris-era agreement to take on the project managing (and cost overruns) of the MLE project that shows their unfitness to run services outwith London – my argument with TfL not building MLE has always been that it can be read that way, and will be by those who have sought to stop devolution. There’s legit reasons not to carry on, but where someone put a boundary in 1964 isn’t one of them.

    The statement from the Mayor’s office, however, is a massive smoking gun for the anti-devolutionists: one sentence on “Outside London, thus the DfT’s remit”, one on the cost overruns, one blaming Boris’ bad deal and a second on “Not London, we’re not paying”. Half the statement’s sentences (and something like two-thirds of the words) are about the scheme being outside the border – it’s exhibit A for why TfL shouldn’t get devolution that creeps outside the GLA border, And as a user of TfL services outside the GLA boundary, it makes me worried about the continued quality of my service (and deeply concerned about whether even small improvements to stations will happen). It was totally an own goal politically.

    TfL are very capable running services outside the borders and do deal with issues (at least eventually – cf the couple of years to deal with the Amersham-Chesham timetabling issue from 2012-15) and this problem of accountability can and has been overcome, but the parochial mindset displayed by comments from the Mayor’s office is undermining that case, and playing into the fears of Grayling, Kent CC, et al.

  65. Si
    There’s a *cough* – – “logical” answer to this ..
    Stop all Met-line services @ Moor Park, all Central line services @ Woodford & demand that Dft & National Rail take them over, at less than a month’s notice.
    Otherwise, stop posturing …
    Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen, & I suspect, neither do you, but the hypocrisy, on both sides, is breathtaking.

  66. @SI: Remember that a big chunk of the money for the Croxley Link wasn’t coming from the main Transport for London budget, but from the TfL Growth Fund: a fund that exists solely to support urban regeneration in ‘Growth Areas’ in Greater London. Hertfordshire has its own Local Enterprise Partnership and Growth Deal that it could tap for money to support regeneration in its own area. The rest of the TfL contribution came from borrowing against future fare revenue.

    A GLA committee were critical of the decision to use the Growth Fund at the time, and TfL told them that they only did it because the then Mayor directed them to:

    The decision to allocate Growth Fund support to the Croxley Rail Link raises further questions about the selection criteria the ITEGG used. In this case, the majority of the benefits accrue outside London. While several TfL services extend beyond London’s boundary, TfL has explicitly established the Growth Fund to drive growth in London, and the decision to fund the Croxley Rail Link seems at odds with this aim. Furthermore, TfL’s knowledge of the project’s ‘chequered history’ should – arguably – have been a red flag. TfL itself acknowledged that the Croxley Rail Link may not be an obvious ‘first call’ on a fund such as this, but explained that the Mayor took it over in 2014, and he chose to support it with the Growth Fund:

    ‘It was clear in the last budget round that there was a funding gap and there was a direction issued to us to plug that funding gap of circa £16 million from the Growth Fund […] It does facilitate growth, albeit just outside the London Capital, in terms of extra homes and jobs.’

  67. @Ian J – are you suggesting that TfL are pulling the 70 million they already committed to help get Londoners to and from their local shopping, retail and employment centre? – that goes further than anything that has been said so far!

    The growth fund source for the initial share, while silly, makes no difference to further sources for additional finance for the MLE – there’s no reason why additional TfL money must come from the growth fund, or even London taxpayers! TfL could raise several million a year just by putting the fares in zones 7-9 on the TfL scale (not affected by the freeze) up to the fares on the NR-1 fare scale. That will affect me negatively, but would create additional revenue to help fund the scheme. And obviously there’s other sources, though given the reluctance of TfL and (more so) the DfT to give money to this project, Herts CC have used up most of their sources of income available for this scheme, of which they are currently paying the majority of the costs for.

    The key issue isn’t that TfL are breaking an agreement wrt a scheme outside London (though that would be enough for some), but that are breaking an agreement wrt a scheme seemingly because it is outside London – made especially galling that there’s much more valid (and much more true) reasons of lack of money to deal with the cost overruns that are stopping progress.

    @ Greg – that would obviously be terrible. But we all know that it’s what Grayling seems to want. And Khan, via his spokesperson’s comments, seems to be saying the same too now. I wish they would stop posturing, but like you say, that just won’t happen.

  68. Khan’s response – not supporting a rail service crossing the GLA border – is clearly a response to Grayling’s, with hindsight probably short-sighted, reluctance to allow him to do just that in other areas – notably Epsom. So it is not that Khan is showing a lack of interest in cross border services, but a reaction to central Government telling him to keep his hands off.

    Sauce for the goose, and all that.

  69. The cost of the extra train is now irrelevant, as it has been built and the money can’t be unspent if the project is cancelled. Same for any other work done to date. The BCR can only be defined by how much more money needs to be spent to complete the project (and whether any money will have to be returned if it is cancelled).

  70. A few comments.

    I still do not buy this argument that TfL are somehow acting irresponsibly. They are under direct Mayoral control. There may well be heated debates with City Hall behind closed doors but they have no option but to do as the Mayor instructs. I am very sorry but Boris Johnson is the person who created and left this mess. If he had stayed on to win a third term it would have been illuminating to see what he would have done with the fall out of his own decision. TfL’s stance will change to reflect the prevailing politics and as we’ve just been through a change of controlling party at City Hall it was inevitable a different view on the MLE would emerge. The alternative to this is to put public transport provision entirely outside of politics but that is completely impossible given the way the transport network underpins so much of the economy and railways, in particular, have been “political” almost since they were invented.

    TfL have no scope to deal with the fares to / from the major traffic generator on the extension i.e. Watford Junction. This is a London Midland pricing responsibility and will reflect DfT and any franchise specific pricing conditions. We can therefore expect fares to Watford J to keep rising at least in line with inflation for many years to come. That, of course, will cause some rather abrupt “steps” in fares if the current Mayoral fares freeze persists until 2020 and there is not a massive readjustment in TfL fares come 2021. I suspect that whatever assumptions were made about fares levels and income for the extension may well need “adjustment” in the light of events.

    It is perfectly clear from the new Draft Transport Strategy that the Mayor and TfL are going to keep pressing for devolution of suburban rail services. They clearly have not accepted any sort of “defeat” and are just waiting for the current incumbent at Horseferry Rd to depart and a “saner” policy to emerge. I also suspect that they don’t view the outcome of the MLE as having any bearing whatsoever on their wider aspirations to control suburban rail services.

  71. @WW: Quite agree that this mess can only be placed at one door… But I’m sure that the Magic Money Tree would have been located, if the right candidate had been elected in 2016…

  72. @ SHLR – I suspect you may be correct but a lot has changed politically since May 2016. Given the regime change at nos 10 and 11 Downing St I think the prioritisation of spending for London would have changed anyway.

  73. @WW: Possibly so, but as Watford is a marginal seat (and borough I believe) I think this would magically slip through, especially if it nears completion around the time of the next election.

    Or maybe I’m just redefining the cynicism paradigm!

  74. @SI the 70 million they already committed to help get Londoners to and from their local shopping, retail and employment centre

    What 70 million? According to the funding letter linked to above TfL promised 16 million from the Growth Fund plus 30 million in farebox borrowing. They were already on very shaky ground using the Growth Fund, whose purpose is to provide transport links that support redevelopment, not to provide transport in general (for which TfL has its own appraisal process and a plenty of worthy projects with higher BCRs). It is significant that the current Mayor has put in place new governance arrangements for the Growth Fund.

    I should have been clearer that any extra TfL money beyond the growth fund was to come from borrowing against extra fare revenue that would come about from the extension itself – not from TfL’s general fare revenue. This was part of the funding arrangement for the extension right from the start – except that originally TfL were going to hand over the profits from the link to Herts County Council who would borrow the money.

    Herts CC have used up most of their sources of income available for this scheme, of which they are currently paying the majority of the costs for

    Not so – according to the funding letter about £200 million of the £285 million was coming from central government – some routed via the Herts LEP, some from the Department of Communities and Local Government, most from the DfT direct. Which makes sense given where the political benefit lies.

    @SHLR, THC, WW: I suspect part of the issue is that a couple of months ago the government didn’t think that Watford would remain a marginal seat, and were concentrating their attention on seats further North.

  75. A bunch of excuses about funding, just “get on with it”. Instead of delaying the project, with costs rising due to inflation, why not start and worry about the funding along the way. Who cares about the inner details of where the money comes from (HertsCC, WatfordBC, Three RiversDC, DfT, TfL – they are all public organisations), it is so pathetic squabbling over it. Anyway isn’t there a rather obvious pot of money available on completion: i.e. fares and the excess space and site that is Watford Met station.

  76. LUtimetabler: “Just get on with it”. How often have I heard that, usually from someone who does not have to deal with the consequences.

    The “pot of money available on completion” (to the extent that such a pot even exists) is already spent and committed in the plans that were made before the costs ballooned. And Watford Met station site could only be sold if some other plans were made (at a price) to do the train-stabling for which it is currently destined. And eye-watering though London land prices (per hectare) may be, it is not a very big site anyway.

  77. @LUTimetabler -why not go the whole hog and just give the project a blank cheque? That’ll do wonders for cost control.

  78. @ LUTimetabler – just give me access to all of your bank accounts, assets and sources of cash and “I’ll just get on with” spending it on your behalf. The fact you’ll be bankrupt within hours is of no consequence. Oh and it would be helpful to have access to your family’s and parent’s finances too. After all they’re all just related to you so it doesn’t matter if I spend all their money as well.

    Sorry to be rather facetious but real life, especially in local government, doesn’t work like that. I know we can all quote our personal favourite examples of waste but TfL does not have a bottomless budget and the other bodies involved (barring DfT) certainly do not. You may personally favour the Croxley Link scheme but at the current stated levels of cost there is simply no justification for the scheme. The business case has imploded. TfL cannot put such a scheme through its own governance process unless the Mayor directs or overrides the Board. I simply cannot see Mr Khan doing that for this project. Given we are now in holiday season I will be astonished if we see any progress on this scheme before the party conference season is finished in early Autumn. It may even have to wait for the Autumn Budget (the govt have changed the timings of Budgets / Spending Statements from this year).

  79. @Graham H

    why not go the whole hog and just give the project a blank cheque?

    Like Boris did, you mean?

  80. Just wondered whether anyone had thought that completing this project would provide a very useful alternative route to London when HS2 construction causes reduced capacity at Euston. It is surely conceivable that a train could cross from WCML at Watford Junction follow the new link route onto the Met mainline and at Harrow-on-the-Hill join the Chiltern Line tracks to gain access to either Marylebone or Paddington, that surely would be a very useful diversion route if needed. (Yes I know that WCML A.C. supply would not suit this route, so it would likely only work for diesel units, but it is still a possibility) Also if London Midland services are disrupted passengers would more likely be better served on the Met rather than the incredibly slow London Overground.

  81. @LUTimetabler – apart from anything to do with power supplies:

    (1) the crossovers at Harrow North Junction go the wrong way for what you want to do. However, you could address this by remodelling Watford South Junction and using the fast tracks between Moor Park and Harrow-on-the-Hill;

    (2) I don’t know how you envisage accessing Paddington, without either
    – reversals at Neasden and Northolt, followed by the use of single-track sections between Northolt and Old Oak Common, or
    – using the Dudding Hill line via a modified junction at Neasden, followed by a reversal at or around Acton Main Line;
    Either of these routes would interfere heavily with other services and would probably be of such a length as to trigger a loss of the will to live;

    (3) I doubt there’s any useful platform capacity available at Marylebone.

  82. @ Greg – the Mayor has held meetings with people who have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for taking the required decisions. Also Ms Pidgeon is now deputy chair of the Transport Cttee as they change cttee chairs each May in the London Assembly. If the Mayor had met with the DfT, Treasury and the Mayor of London or relevant deputy then that would carry more weight. She’s just saying what she has to say even though she’s pretty powerless.

  83. Had another look through the Croxley link TWA decision letter dated 24.07.13.

    It states construction must commence within 5 years of the date of the order. With less than a year to go, does that mean the project would have to go through the process again (should funding be found) or could it be argued that the enabling works count as it starting & there’s no timelimit on project completion? Probably one for the lawyers if this ever gets going again.

  84. @jim r
    A single reversal at Aylesbury would do it. Watford Jn – Paddington in 2 hours. OK, you can do it in about 45 mins with a same-platform change at Queen’s Park onto a train that calls at *both* Paddington *and* Marylebone, but think of the intermediate journeys. There must be suppressed demand between Croxley and Little Kimble due to the lack of a direct service.

  85. @moosealot
    I knew the Watford North Curve would come into its own one day…

  86. @Greg

    What’s the current political balance in Watford & Herts & the local Parliamentary seats, again?

    The parliamentary seat in Watford is held by the Conservatives with a majority over Labour of 2092. It’s Labour target 37. It used to be a three-way marginal with the Lib Dems within 1150 of the Labour victor in 2005, but they are now in third place, over 21,000 votes adrift.

    Dorothy Thornhill is Lib Dem and the elected mayor – they run the council by a majority of 26 to 11 Labour. Obviously, if anything close to what we saw at the general election happened in a council election, that position would be threatened. Whether it’s the frailty of her and her party’s position prompting her to keep pressing on the MLE or simply that she is doing her job, it’s not for me to say here.

  87. Re Watford politics. To add to the above comments I would say that the Lib Dems on Watford Borough Council have been on the whole immune to the Lib Dems’ national woes. That said, long time elected mayor Thornhill won’t be standing for re election as she has a seat in the Lords (its the prize for second placed lib dem Parliamentary candidates!). Lib dems have majority on Watford Borough Council, Tories struggle to gain and hold seats. Labour hold a few. Tories have a good majority on Hertfordshire County Council.

  88. And here is the Mayoral Decision directing TfL not to take on any additional financial risk and to start planning to “shut up shop” on current works if funding is not put in place by 31 December 2017.

    https://www.london.gov.uk/decisions/md2170-metropolitan-line-extension-mlx-tfl-funding

    It is well worth reading the pdf of the full decision which is at the bottom of the above linked webpage.

    The ball, so far as TfL and the Mayor is concerned, is very much with the other funding partners. It is worth noting the appalling benefit / cost ratio set out in the document which will get even worse with the expected higher costs. Any decision to proceed with this scheme will be a political one as it can’t demonstrate large scale development opportunities nor is there a business case that passes DfT or TfL criteria.

  89. It’s a terrible shame, because of the connectivity that this link-up would have brought, along with (hopefully) a large reduction in road-congestion.

  90. @ Greg – It would have added a little bit of connectivity. Have to say I’m sceptical that it would have much impact on traffic congestion. This is largely because there are so few decent bus services that would link people from their homes to the Tube. Once people are in their cars they stay there in places like Watford. Ironically the impact on congestion would probably be more marked if either LU or Chiltern ran round the north curve at Croxley to link Rickmansworth / Amersham directly with Watford.

  91. WW
    That was exactly what I was thinking of, actually – the bus services to the W/NW of Watford are dire, the roads between Chorleywood/Ricky & Watford are crammed & there’s this railway …..

  92. Slightly random thought, but why not build the new viaduct and line as far as the new Watford West station, and then not complete the connection to the DC line until such time as resignalling occurs, or political pressure to finish the job gets too much? A lot of the cost seems to be signalling, so not doing that bit immediately would cut the budget by a bit and would get the work started before the TWAO deadline

  93. Herned: Although your scheme might be legally within the TWAO permission, it is essentially a different scheme. With somewhat lower costs, yes, but also with lesser benefits. It would have to be justified by a new Benefit/Cost calculation, and somehow I do not see that working out any more favourable than the existing one.

  94. TfL are financing step free access at Taplow etc, more remote from London than Watford. I can’t believe this would have a positive result in a conventional B/C calculation.
    However, the cost of providing full accessibility on the Croxley Link is presumably included in the B/C Calc. I wonder how the ‘Link’ would look financially if accessibility was not included in the B/C Calc costs, and accessibility was then provided by whichever budget is covering Taplow etc?

  95. Apparently DfT are ignoring the Watford General Hospital in the Cost Benefits calculations which beggars belief as this will attract thousands of visitors and staff to use the line

  96. “London was run by a Conservative Mayor sympathetic to the issues of a Conservative MP and local council” implies the council was Tory-controlled (which it isn’t). It’s currently run by the Lib Dems; if there is a snap election and Harrington is unseated, will Khan perform yet another U-turn?

  97. @Rhys Benjamin

    Transport is a county council matter, and Hertfordshire County Council is, and always has been, Conservative controlled.

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