At a glance
- London Assembly urges the mayor and TfL to restart lobbying and development work on Crossrail 2
- Rreport says London could cut major transport project costs by 20–50% by adopting European-style planning and financing methods
- Crossrail 2 would link South West London and North East London and beyond
Crossrail 2 should be put back on the agenda and London should learn lessons from Europe in cutting the cost of major new transport schemes, according to a City Hall report.
It urged London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to restart work lobbying for Crossrail 2, which would link South West London and North East London and beyond in a similar way to the east-west Crossrail, now known as the hugely popular Elizabeth line.
Preparatory work on Crossrail 2 was paused by the then Tory government in 2020 as part of its emergency covid bailouts for Transport for London.
At the time, Crossrail was yet to open – it eventually did open almost four years late and £4bn over budget in May 2022 – and Crossrail 2 was thought to be twice as expensive, with an estimated cost of about £40bn.
Crossrail 2 remains unfunded and firmly stuck in the sidings – so much so, that TfL does not expect construction work to begin within the timescale covered by its capital strategy, which stretches to 2044.
But a report published on Tuesday, from the London Assembly budget committee, said Sir Sadiq and TfL should restart work on lobbying for Crossrail 2, including setting out how it could be built more cheaply.
It said major transport projects could be 20-50 per cent cheaper if London copied systems in place in other major European countries.
The report recommended: “The mayor and Transport for London should restart the promotion and development work of the Crossrail 2 project with a particular focus on how delivery costs can be minimised and how the project will be financed.
“We ask the mayor to respond to the committee by the end of 2025-26 to set out his plans to do this.”
According to the report, TfL had been at an “advance stage” of planning for the delivery of the line, working in partnership with Network Rail and consulting on proposals in 2015.
Professor Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, told the committee: “TfL needs to be a bit more ambitious and put Crossrail 2 back on the agenda.
“The thing about these bigger projects, these game-changing projects, and there is no doubt the Elizabeth line was that, that unless they are put on the agenda and successive mayors or city leaders in London push for them, they never happen.
“You have got to keep the pressure up, and eventually the stars will align and the Government will allow Crossrail 2 to happen and Sutton will be linked to northeast London, and that would be a good thing.”
Budget committee chairman Neil Garratt said that the delay and cost involved with the original Crossrail resulted in a legacy that “includes the powerful aversion to building another”.
He said London should build big projects quickly, and in stages. “A slow project generates more risk and more opposition, as each passing year provides new reasons to object but no tangible benefits,” he said.
Mr Garratt said that by keeping costs under control, transport projects effectively “paid for themselves” as they generated higher fares income and made the surrounding land more valuable – allowing more to be generated in taxes or business rates.
Hammersmith bridge is another major project without funding to allow it to be reopened to vehicles. At present, after £48m of repairs, it can only be used by pedestrians and cyclists. The bill for enabling it to return to 2019 use, when cars and buses used the bridge, is in the region of £250m.
According to the report, a 35-mile extension of the Madrid metro between 1995-99 cost £2.1bn. The Jubilee line extension, which opened in 2000, cost 10 times as much per mile.
The campaign group Britain Remade looked at 138 tram, metro, and rail projects across 14 countries. It found that tram links in the UK were four times the cost of those in Germany, while the UK pays three times more for a single mile of track than Germany for electrifying railways.
HS2, which is undergoing a comprehensive reassessment of its budget, could be nine times more expensive per mile than the Tours to Bordeaux high speed line in France.
The report, which took evidence from TfL and infrastructure experts, said: “Based on [international] comparisons, there is a clear consensus that infrastructure schemes could be delivered for significantly lower costs than they have been in the past.
“It opens up possibilities for approving new projects that might currently be considered unaffordable.”
The committee also examined proposals including the Docklands Light Railway extension to Thamesmead, the Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham and £1.2bn West London Orbital rail scheme.
In last week’s Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves backed the £1.7bn DLR extension to Thamesmead but said the “majority” of costs would be paid by TfL and the Greater London Authority. She did not specify how much the Government would contribute.
Mr Garratt said: “Delivering new transport infrastructure has wide-reaching benefits for London, Londoners, and the wider country, yet challenges remain with funding and spiralling development costs.
“We have seen some highly successful schemes delivered in recent years, but have now seen a number of schemes stall for varying reasons.
“Through our investigation, we sought to understand how major cities in other countries are delivering large scale transport infrastructure projects, at a fraction of the cost we seem to face here in London.
“We heard evidence that shows London could deliver major infrastructure projects between 20 and 50 per cent cheaper if we adopted some of the planning and financing processes in neighbouring countries.”
A TfL spokesperson said: “We note this report into how the public and private sector can work better together to help unlock new developments and regeneration across London and will respond to the assembly in due course.
“TfL has a wealth of experience in London of delivering transport infrastructure projects, from new lines and extensions like the Elizabeth line, the Northern line extension the London Overground extension to Barking Riverside, and the Silvertown Tunnel.
“Many of these have been unlocked through innovative financing agreements with the private sector which we continue to consider for major projects on a case-by-case basis.
“We also continue to exchange learnings with other transport authorities and major projects across the world to help ensure our schemes are delivered efficiently, affordably and safely.”
