Transport for London (TfL) must pay its share of the Elephant and Castle station upgrade as part of its latest government bailout.
The station upgrade had previously been a source of controversy, as it emerged that Southwark Council had ploughed upwards of £35 million into the project – despite TfL saying it currently did not have the money to fund it. Southwark was slated to spend another £25 million on the project over the next nine years.
The work, which includes a ticket office, new escalators, lifts and entrance, as well as connecting tunnels from the Northern line to the Bakerloo line, is supposed to be paid for by developers Delancey, who are building on the site of the former shopping centre, Southwark Council and TfL.
Asked by the News about the Bakerloo Line Extension, which the Elephant and Castle station upgrade is supposed to be part of, TfL said significant work on the extension would not take place in the next two years. A spokesperson added that they did not expect the extension to be delivered “until into the 2030s”.
This condition is part of a £1.2 billion bailout to keep London’s Tube, tram and bus network going until the end of March 2024.
http://southwarknews.co.uk/news/transport/elephant-and-castle-tube-southwark-council-spending-63m-on-undeliverable-station-upgrade/
The part that covers the Elephant and Castle station upgrade is separate. The government said that TfL must commit to £3.55 billion in spending on infrastructure over the same period.
As part of the bailout, the government had also agreed to keep funding the transport agency if passenger numbers do not keep recovering as expected, and the new deal should mean no “large-scale cuts” to services.
It also means that TfL will restore its ‘Healthy Streets’ programme, with £80 million per year of funding for walking and cycling schemes.
http://southwarknews.co.uk/featured/could-the-possible-new-tfl-deal-mean-the-bakerloo-line-extension-is-revived/
The deal brings the amount of emergency funding given by the government to TfL over the past two and a half years to more than £6 billion. TfL’s finances were cratered by the pandemic, with people told to stay home and avoid using public transport.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “For over two years now we’ve time and again shown our unwavering commitment to London and the transport network it depends on, but we have to be fair to taxpayers across the entire country.
“This deal more than delivers for Londoners and even matches the mayor’s own pre-pandemic spending plans but for this to work, the mayor must follow through on his promises to get TfL back on a steady financial footing, stop relying on government bailouts and take responsibility for his actions. Now is the time to put politics to one side and get on with the job – Londoners depend on it.”
But London mayor Sadiq Khan called the deal “far from ideal,” adding that TfL still had a £600 million gap in its budget.
He said: “The government is still leaving TfL with a significant funding gap, meaning we will likely have to increase fares in the future and still proceed with some cuts to bus services.”
http://southwarknews.co.uk/featured/the-battle-to-get-bermondsey-its-own-tube-station/
Conditions imposed by the government as part of the deal could affect TfL’s pension scheme, he warned – which is likely to lead to more strike action by transport unions.
Khan said that the deal would not stop “some cuts to bus services”. TfL did not mention the Bakerloo Line Extension in its list of infrastructure projects that the new deal would revive.