Local Tories urge Grant Shapps to save ‘vital’ Bakerloo Line extension
Conservative councillors have urged transport secretary Grant Shapps to guarantee the future of long-awaited Bakerloo Line extension to Lewisham after it was thrown into doubt.
Transport for London (TfL) warned last week that the Bakerloo Line extension may “be unable to progress” unless a new funding model is agreed.
It is one of four major infrastructure projects that cash-strapped TfL has cast doubt over as it warned of a gaping £3.5bn deficit due to coronavirus.
The other projects are the Crossrail 2 rail link, the extension of the DLR to Thamesmead, and the West London Orbital line.
TfL said: “We need to be realistic in discussions with the government about what will be affordable over the next decade and we cannot currently afford to progress them all.”
In a letter to Shapps, Lewisham Conservative councillor Charlie Davis asked him whether the Department for Transport (DfT) would secure the project’s future during negotiations with TfL.
“The future of this vital infrastructure project is now in doubt following the need for a government bailout of TfL resulting from the current mayor’s financial mismanagement”, Davis wrote.
“We wanted to write to you with regards to the future of this project to ensure the plans are not pushed back or cancelled due to the mayor’s poor leadership of TfL”.
Davis told Morning Wire deputy mayor for transport Heidi Alexander had confirmed the Bakerloo Line extension was not on the table during May’s negotiations for TfL’s initial £1.6bn bailout.
But the councillor said Alexander had told him she could not guarantee the future of the project.
In the agenda for TfL’s upcoming board meeting, it says that safeguarding the route is one of the body’s priorities.
But it also warned that “significant funding support would be required to meet the capital costs of the scheme”.
Currently TfL faces a £5bn bill to extend the line to Lewisham and the project is expected to lead to the development of 35,000 homes.
Davis said that Lewisham, which has no Tube stations, had been “underserved and underrepresented for far too long”.
“We really do seem to have been getting a raw deal from the current mayor in south east London,” he said. “It’s just a failure to look after those outer London boroughs.”