Croxley link cancelled

Pretty much the same story has now appeared in the Standard but with a quote from the Mayor's office (its outside London) which rather confirms they are washing their hands of this project. Meantime the Chancellor's recent Budget has inadvertently lost a heap of expected NI contributions so I rather doubt the Treasury will magically be finding another £50m for Croxley. Together it rather confirms the project is once again dead in the water - well at least for the next electoral cycle.

So what are the lessons? I am sure others have spotted that one aspect of the British political cycle is the rather wasteful feast/famine nature of central government readiness so spend on capital projects. Hence in the run up to almost any General Election it seems Chancellors can suddenly announce they are able to fund all manner of projects - only for many to be kicked into the distant future, dropped entirely or severely pruned once the election period is over. Like it or not - such is political reality so LUL need to factor this into their planning skills.

Inherently LUL need to look for ways to better scope projects both discretely and at minimal cost, and also work out how to concertina a project timescale to ensure that most if not all of the most costly elements are immediately ready to go - putting spades on the ground the moment that predictable supply of spare (electoral bribes) money becomes available.

For Croxley LUL need a signed off design with detailed planning permission and lined up a contactor(s) to supply all the big stuff especially that bridge in weeks not years. Sadly all manner of time consuming enabling work (diverting services) had not been started or indeed funded by Herts CC - despite their constituents being the prime beneficiary. The nature of "windfall" projects is they need to be completed in a very narrow window of opportunity or risk being put on the back burner. Inherently for Croxley to ever happen, Herts CC need to work with the LUL project team to ensure they have a clear run at delivering the project on time and budget whenever the Chancellor suddenly finds a heap of cash down the back of the sofa in the run up to the next General Election.

Inherently if a project gets off the blocks quickly, it can become too politically and financially expensive to cancel, so it will happen.

Unfortunately for Croxley the project was a long way from firm contracts being signed let alone spades on the ground or actual bridge spans being manufactured and delivered. Given the current unhelpful political stand-off between the Mayor and the Transport Minister, Croxley has unfortunately become a convenient political battle ground for finger pointing and political points scoring. Even once the protaganist's have moved to new roles, the ill feeling now surrounding this project, could delay what could be a really worthwhile project for many years to come. Indeed I am now tempted to place a fiver with William Hills that Watford Junction Station will not see any Met Line services before 2050.

Hey ho politics and common sense are rare bed-fellows.

If it is indeed cancelled what will happen to the additional S7+1?

So do we presume 25384 will end up being the spare car?

That would be logical, but this is the Underground!

I would love to see the revenue projections and to know how much of a basket case the Croxley link is from a financial viewpoint. I suspect that the Watford branch, north of Harrow probably currently costs a mint to operate. Turn it into a line with a commuter base at each end and it would not surprise me if commuter revenues went up by a third. Leisure/shopping journeys would also increase. Watford High Street station is probably better located for shoppers than any other station on the met.