Cost-cutting TfL axes seven infrastructure projects

Seven major infrastructure projects will be cut as Transport for London (TfL) tries to save £2.4bn to pump back into the Tube.

Construction of a new Thames Gateway Bridge, extensions to Croydon’s Tramlink and the mythical Oxford Street tram will all go in favour of increasing capacity on the tube by 30%.

Unveiling TfL’s 10 year business plan, London mayor Boris Johnson said the projects, all of which are still in design stages, were not being “scrapped” but “let go” because they lacked funding for completion.

“I have not nicked, axed or whacked any scheme,” he said.

“I just won’t continue to waste our money, and taxpayer’s money, on consultants and planners [working]… on schemes [that are] either impractical or that simply do not have enough funding.

“We’ve already paid out £61m to gestate these schemes, on top of the £40m the previous mayor spent.”

Also to be scrapped is the cross river tram project, East London transit and Greenwich waterfront transit programmes, Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension to Dagenham Dock and public space proposals at Parliament Square, Euston Circus and Victoria Embankment.

TfL claims the axing will save more than £70m in design work and at least £2.5bn in implementation costs.

It will also save £2.4bn through efficiency savings including job cuts.

TfL commissioner Peter Hendy warned  "several hundred" jobs would go within TfL including some of its 1,000 consultants.

Johnson said TfL’s priorities over the next 10 years would be to increase capacity on the Tube, construct Crossrail, extend the DLR and London Overground and support the 2012 Games.

Labour London Assembly member John Biggs said Johnson had abandoned outer London and wasted £350m and 20 years of work by axing the Thames Gateway Bridge.

He said: “It has been in the pipeline for over 20 years. Work was due to begin, subject to final planning approval, in 2009.

“But – for all the mayor’s platitudes about the need to invest to stimulate London’s economy – when it came to the crunch, he has done the complete opposite.

“£350m of PFI credits will all now be lost for crude political purposes.”