Responsibility for building two new Metropolitan line stations at Watford Junction and Watford High Street has been passed to Transport for London after the project encountered “considerable” cost overruns and delays.
The Croxley Rail Link scheme was to be overseen by Hertfordshire County Council which was working in partnership with London Underground and Network Rail.
However according to City Hall documents, the “[Department for Transport] has made it clear that, given project performance to date, it has fundamental concerns over the current HCC led delivery structure”.
The Mayor has now agreed to a DfT request that Transport for London takes over full responsibility for delivering the project which is currently estimated to cost £284m – up from an original project cost of £65m.
Under a deal agreed with ministers, TfL will be responsible for any future cost overruns but will also be able to keep any underspend should the project be delivered for less.
Work is due to start this September with the first trains running in May 2019.
Commenting following publication of our story, LU’s David Hughes said: “We have a track record for successfully delivering major projects – the recent signalling upgrade of the Northern line, which has boosted capacity by 20 per cent, being the latest example.
“Until now the Croxley Rail link project has been managed by Hertfordshire County Council, who along with Government are providing the bulk of the project funding.
“Late last year, faced with significant project slippage and cost escalation, the Government asked us to consider stepping in and taking over responsibility for delivery of the scheme. We were clear that a suitable funding package needed to be in place before we would be prepared to take this on.
“As announced in the Budget, those discussions have now concluded, and the Mayor has confirmed that LU should take on overall delivery responsibility for the project. We have agreed to contribute £16m, which is the approximate cost of the additional train services required to support the link when it opens in 2019.”
Nigel Savill says
March 27, 2015 at 1:34 pmI’m an employee of TfL – I work for London Underground – and we’re being constantly badgered about the need to save money. It was one of the reasons given for closing ticket offices. Now I read TfL are taking over this contract without any obvious regard for whether it offers value for money.
Somebody needs to ask two pertinent questions.
Firstly how can a project cost jump from £65m to £284m, a 400% increase.
Secondly why exactly, given that it is to be built on existing unused tracks, is it going to cost £284m?
There is absolutely no chance that this project will ever ‘make money’, so why are TfL so eager to get involved?
Peter says
March 27, 2015 at 10:09 pmA 400% increase in costs is an indication of something being wrong. At best, the original costing was completely unrealistic. At worst, it’s been fiddled up. Actually, for TfL, lets hope it’s the latter – bring this in under budget could be a nice earner!
Regarding the cost and reuse of tracks – this is slightly incorrect. In essence it is only the corridor of land and many of the earthworks that can be reused.
In detail:
Due to the condition of the existing track it will all need completely relaying. The present track is single track until it joins the DC lines, where an entirely new junction is needed, the previous one having been removed some years ago. Several of the bridges on the line are also only single track – fortunatly the cutting and embackment should be wide enough as the line was built with space to lay an additional track and in some areas had been – although mostly since removed.
This is all information gained from when I was a local resident in Watford – I am quite familar with the disused line it’s proposed to use.