The war of words between TfL and the DfT over who is actually responsible for withdrawing the South London Line service without funding the proposed Victoria-Bellingham partial replacement escalates slightly, as full-time Twitterer and part time Minister Sadiq Khan fires in a broadside [PDF] at City Hall. This is in response to a Boris-led effort to shove responsibility onto the DfT by way of a Mayoral Answer:
In his written reply to Ms Shawcross, Mr Johnson wrote: “It is important to point out that this decision was the DfT’s alone, and therefore it would be more productive to meet with them in order to lobby them.”
The Minister begs to differ:
It is important to point out that this comment is misleading and factually inaccurate.
That’s actually pretty hardcore – Khan is accusing Boris of lying in a Mayoral Answer, although stopping short of claiming it was deliberate.
It was TfL that requested the Victoria to Bellingham service was not implemented, with the £24m saved from that service being diverted to TfL to help fund the East London Line Phase 2 to Clapham Junction. TfL has the power to make requests for such changes to national rail services in London as a result of the Mayor of London’s Rail Powers consulted on by the Department in March 2006 and published in December 2008.
The £24m contribution is in addition to DfT agreeing to fund a £19m addition to Network Rail’s Regulated Asset Base and a further £20m increase to TfL’s grant to fund this and other transport projects in London. DfT is thus funding – at TfL’s request – more that [sic] two thirds of the cost of the East London Line Phase 2.
‘In your place, boy’ I think is the message here – the clear subtext is that Boris can’t play fast and loose with the PR here, on one hand claiming the good stuff is all his hard work while the bad stuff is down to the DfT when he was actually using the extra powers he’s just been given. Let’s refresh ourselves with how he announced the original ELLX again:
“This is tremendous news. We can finally get cracking on a vital section of track that will orbitise our Overground rail services. I promised Londoners that where funds were made available we would build the improvements they need. And it will be a real achievement when our Overground services are fully oysterised. I am delighted that a long hard slog of negotiations between ourselves and the Department of Transport has borne fruit that will result in a superb new service for thousands of Londoners.”
Hmm.
Khan concludes:
It is unfortunate that your reported statement has misrepresented the position to stakeholders regarding the background to these proposed changes, especially at a time when you are also seeking a further £7m of funding (which you initially rejected) for an additional station at Surrey Canal Road. The Secretary of State will write to you separately in relation to Surrey Canal Road.
Subtext: ‘play nice or you won’t see a penny’.
What’s hilarious about all this is that Boris apparently wants to have *more* control over the London rail network, when at the same time he’s trying to deny responsibility for decisions taken under those very extra powers he’s just been given. This must be that ‘cohesive’ transport strategy Kulveer was talking about in Manchester this week.
Tags: 8 Comments
8 responses so far ↓
What I also find completely halarious is the fact that Boris Johnson told The Tory Conference in Manchester that he will make a Efficiency Saving of 100 Million Pounds but he cannot tell us how much his ” Flag Ship Manifesto Pledge ” of removing The Bendy Bus is going to cost . The Mayoralty under Boris Johnson is well and truely Delirious and Deluded as others have started to point out .
John Brooks
Hear hear.
I am hoping the electorate will realise that what Boris say’s your getting doesn’t resemble what you actually get.
However, maybe Boris has already made that £100 milion efficiency saving as he started with about 50 ‘deputies’ and now they have all but gone!
Spotted this:
http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/tn/News.cfm?id=39063&headline=%27No%20need%20for%20South%20London%20Line%27
Anyone heard this about the signaling before?
Is this the reason the DfT also asked that the ELLX2 doesn’r run into Victoria for 10 years?
I cannot download the link to South London Today. Can you sumarise the issue here?
The Network Rail business plan probably has the tentative dates of all resignalling schemes for the next 10 – 25 years.
The Network Rail business plan talks of a Victoria resignalling scheme for 2012 onwards. This would affect the lines some way out on the south-eastern lines from Victoria, and there is the possibility of changes to the layout at the same time to increase capacity. (Changes to track layout should be done at the same time as resignalling, otherwise costs are inflated.)
I don’t think that the date is yet fixed for this, and I presume that someone is still working on potential track layout enhancements. Meanwhile the capacity for additional services is limited. However the ELLX is going to Clapham Junction because there is a demand for an orbital service, not because of capacity constraints.
There is only one police unit in London qualified to carry out HGV checks.
Boris plans to scrap it.
Questions going to the Mayor tomorrow include:
Will the cuts to the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit make London’s
roads less safe for cyclists?
HGVs in London have a dreadful safety record. Because the HSE refuse
to get involved in road deaths as opposed to deaths onsite, cyclists
deaths are ignored on London’s roads and penalties to killer drivers
are laughable.
The most dangerous vehilces, the ones that pose the greatest danger
and the ones that are involved in a disproportionate number of deaths,
are given even greater leeway to lumber around a medievel road layout
unimpeded.
City of London [Police] spot checks on HGVs [were] carried out on 30
September 2008 as part of the Europe-wide Operation Mermaid2, which is
intended to step up levels of enforcement of road safety laws in
relation to lorries.
On this one day, 12 lorries were stopped randomly by City Police. Five
of those lorries were involved in the construction work for the 2012
Olympics. All of the twelve lorries were breaking the law in at least
one way
Repeat:
a 100 per cent criminality rate among small random sample of
HGVs on the streets of central London. The offences range included
overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver
hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases),
driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case).
Boris is such a twat it’s untrue. The worst vehicles on the roads are being given carte blanche to drive illegally, in unsafe vehicles.
This may not be news, but according to this (pdf) old letter from the DfT to London TravelWatch, DfT actually imposed a condition on TfL that they ‘publicly propose’ the withdrawal of Victoria-Bellingham, including informing stakeholders on the route, in order to secure the decremented funding for ELL phase 2.
Since TfL have not only not done this, but have (in the form of their Chair) tried to abdicate their responsibility for the withdrawal, are there grounds for DfT to take further action of some kind? Or were these non-binding conditions?
Ah, I see from Boriswatch passim that it isn’t news. But fairly shabby behaviour from Boris if this was the original agreement.