please empty your brain below

I last visited the planned link a couple of years ago and saw then that the trackbed appeared to be nearly ready. It would be mad to now abandon this project that would have been great for Watford and then spend millions on the ridiculous Battersea extension that is being built to satisfy the owners of those bland new apartments.
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed this scheme was missing - interested to see if anyone raises it an ideal question for twitter or London Reconnections?
They did tell you in the business plan.

I mean they told you in a rather "canary clause" way...
RIP MLE...
The Mayor, Sadiq Khan, despite his initially refreshing image, turned out to be a bit of a liar and a weasel.

What a shock. No wonder he's tipped as a future Labour PM, if they leave him a Party!
I often make the joke when discussing transport schemes that in this country very have the foresight and will to link Watford to other bits of Watford in only 40 years. Seems that as usual I am being over optimistic.

If it really is being canned it does send a message that the mayor / GLA can't be trusted with services outside the GLA area.

Then again, how long before a Tory government with a Labour mayor and assembly 'Kens' the GLA and or TfL?
Crazy to not announce this through the press office, no wonder it hasn't been picked up by newspapers yet
Sadiq Khan in not delivering shocker!
Never ever trust ANY politicians.
Which ties in with the fact that when the 192nd S7/8 train was delivered last week, it was being trumpeted in many areas as "the final train" - rather than the final train of the main order, excluding the extra 1 train ordered for the Watford extension.
I was wondering where the extra money would come from to fund all his recent announcements... now I know.
If the plan is being dropped, it is not "crazy" not to announce it through the press office. The function of the press office, any press office anywhere, is to release information in the most favourable way possible. Favourable for the organisation, that is. In this case, the most favourable way is "as quietly as possible". And you don't get much quieter than complete silence.
Nothing to do with the mayor - everything to do with accountants.

Somewhere, someone balancing the books in TfL had questioned the validity of the amount of money that it's going to cost, and the return from it. And the figure don't add up - so something, somewhere has got to be cut.

But hang on - why is there a shortfall. Bus Hopper? Fare "Freeze" (not really a freeze, weekly caps), which are - OK - yes coming from the Mayors office. So maybe he has got something to do with it.

But really (as with everything in life) it just comes down to money.

Whether of course railways should be run at a loss, for the convenience of the travelling public, and not the profit of the operator, then that's a different discussion altogether...
@Jordan D

According to this stakeholder presentation the one new train has already been delivered (October 2016).

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/threerivers-clg-presentation-161005.pdf

Frankly, this makes a lot of sense - it would have been crazy to stop production, then tool up a few years later to build just one more train.
Diamond Geezer, I think you have just got a major scoop here.
The new hospital link road, Thomas Sawyer Way, has the bridge in place for the line route. No mention of the omission in Watford local news.
No doubt Chris Grayling will be delighted that the good people of Hertfordshire have been saved from falling into the clutches of the evil London mayor !

Local democracy has been valiantly saved because the fearless member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys will bravely represent their interests...
Hit the nail on the head there Gerry. And in such a world, why should the Mayor of London care about delivering extensions to rail links outside his patch, if those in a the national level don't seem to think he should.
Its galling how long these things take. Either do it, or not. How much has been spent on this already? Could we have built it for this cost if we'd just got on with it x years ago? What would the benefits have been?

I'm not saying we should ride roughshod over the planning process just get on and build things once the decision has been made.

See also Stonehenge tunnel, Crossrail, airport capacity, GWMLE etc. etc. So slow. I feel as if I'll be dead before HS2 opens. Still, there's always another generation . . .
While not denying the points DG makes here are a few thoughts about what hasn't happened that would support a cancellation of the projects.

1. TfL are responsible for any cost overruns on the project. It is completely understandable that they may want to reduce the risk of that by revising the procurement approach now and by doing more detailed planning. Time spent planning now can save a lot of heartache later.

2. The Mayor has not formally announced any project review or cancellation.

3. There has been no paper to the TfL Board requesting the suspension of the project.

4. There has been no Mayoral Decision published that instructs TfL to stop work. This would be needed given Boris issued several Decisions requiring TfL to take on the works.

5. Any cancellation would require the Government's approval given the Treasury are putting up almost all the money. I can't imagine they'd have kept quiet if an opportunity to criticise a Labour Mayor had materialised. Chris Grayling would also have been unable to resist some "megaphone diplomacy" given this remarks on LBC today about the Mayor.

6. The extremely vocal local MP for Watford would have been hollering from the rooftops if the scheme had been cancelled.

7. Lack of comment in the Business Plan may simply reflect uncertainty while the procurement approach is reviewed. Difficult to quote numbers when they're under review.

I'm not suggesting there are not issues or that trouble may not lie ahead for the project. It is just that at this stage the absence of formal steps to suspend the project is more telling than some silence while a cost and procurement review is under way. I hope the scheme proceeds but clearly it's a case of "watch the TfL and City Hall websites" for more news.
London Reconnections says it is in a "growth fund" https://twitter.com/lonrec/status/808657216219860992
The Northern Heights project was well advanced when it got canned. Different reasons, obviously, but cancellations do happen.
The project's been in the Growth Fund since last year.

Other projects in the Growth Fund (as of 2015) include:
• £30m Barking Riverside Extension
• £32m Tottenham Hale station
• £13m West Ham station
• £70m Elephant & Castle Northern line ticket hall
• £15m Elephant & Castle northern roundabout
• £12m Bromley-by-Bow
• £43m Croydon Fiveways
• £33m Wandsworth Ram Brewery
• £38m Vauxhall Cross
• £24m Woolwich Crossrail station
• £11m White Hart Lane station
• £10m STAR four-tracking
• £9m Beam Park station
• £16m Croxley Rail Link

Eight of these projects are specifically mentioned in the latest TfL Business Plan, including the Barking Riverside extension. Croxley's one of the six that aren't specifically mentioned.
Good spot DG. I thought you may be the first person to spot this... the lack of mention of Met ext is deliberate but this doesn't mean there won't be some funding nor that it won't happen.
Read through the business plan. Quite a lot on diversiteeeee.
I may be wrong but I took the attitude the business plan was primarily about how [TfL] money was spent. So as TfL won't be contributing (if all goes well) but merely overseeing and facilitating the project then, to me, logically it doesn't form part of the business plan.

TfL may well have a strong vested interest in delaying it. Currently, the plans involve conventional signalling then re-signalling it as part of Subsurface Lines upgrade (aka Four Lines Modernisation). So stalling it a bit might well help the finances - if the treasury don't demand that any saving be repaid to them.
In the March TFL Business Plan forwarded by Boris Johnson, Mike Brown, Commissioner TFL, is smileing. In the December TFL Business Plan forwarded by Sadiq Khan, he isn't!
TfL have committed to contributing £16m to the Metropolitan line extension from their Growth Fund, plus another £30m of "TfL Prudential Borrowing", plus another £3m Herts County Council thought they'd be contributing via a land swap now deemed worthless.

Throw in any increase in costs that may arise from a change of building contractors, and there are significant financial implications... which might now be holding the project back.
You've got a scoop I think.
Well it's only a line for poor people in Hertfordshire, so why bother?

The other terrible news is the cancellation of tfl's plans to take over London metro services. Are you planning to write something about this DG?
Sounds reasonable not to spend millions on rerouting a line not even within Greater London when large swathes of the city aren't served by any sort of rail transport.
I think you deserve a commendation for not only sleuthing this out, but also for going to Watford to take a photo of a roundabout to illustrate it. If journalism wasn't dying, I'd suggest maybe a change in career.
Looks like the local MP has noticed.

https://twitter.com/Richard4Watford/status/808743314501619714
Well done for spotting so soon! I'll be watching this very closely.
With the wheels falling off the Piccadilly line it's not a good news week for the Tube anyway, but a cancellation or scaling back of a new bit of Tube line – the kind of project that seems the biggest to Joe Public even if it doesn't cost as much as other upgrades – would probably be too much bad news to be able to be buried under the Picc troubles.

One possibility is it's being quietly delayed so that it doesn't open until the SSL resignalling (or 4LM or whatever it's renamed to keep people noticing how long it's been going on) is complete and running. The extension is planned to be upped from 4tph to 6tph (to fit in with 3tph on the Overground), and it may be the case that by the time the extension would open in 2019/20 we're into the full hell of SSL construction works and the full service wouldn't work; TfL might then say it's better to wait and launch a full service late, rather than what may feel like a temporary downgrade earlier.

Just a theory, in the absence of any real evidence.
No official statement by anyone? Have questions been asked?
Ah, I see the good folk at London Reconnections are on the case. Some recent comments on their most recent post on the link, three years ago.

Apparently this issue Cannot Be Discussed there any more until tomorrow.
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/14965616. Have_plans_to_extend_the_Metropolitan_Line_derailed_
It would have been courteous for the Watford Observer to have linked to DG's item seeing as if I hadn't pointed them to it they wouldn't have been aware of it.

https://twitter.com/Tetramesh/status/808638829552947200
Chris Grayling said today - in response to Kahn pushing to take control of the Southern franchise "..he's running out of money for projects already in the pipeline.."

see https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/14/sadiq-khan-southern-rail-strike-chris-grayling-transport-for-london
Chris Grayling. Possibly the worst Lord Chancellor in living memory. Given the ones after him are Michael Gove and Liz Truss, that says something.

He seems to have the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to ... er, "not gold".
Scheme is still over-budget according to this article.
Khan is in a cleft stick on this one. Budget problems might suggest cutting his losses and cancelling, but that would add grist to the mill of the Transport Secretary (and MP for Epsom and Ewell), who believes that the Home Counties will always play second fiddle to Greater London voters if TfL run the services, and put the kybosh on any chance of TfL getting their hands on any suburban services which stray even slightly across an arbitrary border drawn half a century ago.
Ah, so reading between the lines, the current contractor has sucked his teeth (post-Brexit?) and increased his estimate, and it is turning into a blame game about who bears the cost overruns.

The DfT says it is very important, but won't pay a penny more.

No doubt the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wants to do it, but can TfL pick up the tab?

Is there a way to cut the cost? Yet further delay is unlikely to make it any cheaper in the long run.
@Geofftech - who says it has anything to do with cost-cutting in TfL?

It's a project with funds coming from Herts County Council, TfL and the DfT, with TfL managing the project.

Any one of those three could refuse to increase their contributions to cover the increasing costs, and the only one to do so publicly at this stage has been the DfT.

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/dft-refuses-to-provide-extra-funding-for-over-budget-croxley-rail-link
@TiC

Indeed, but it is fairly normal in any project, whether it is building a conservatory or building HS2, that the project manager, who has most control over costs, should be able to quote a fixed price from the parties commissioning the work. They then have to cope with any budget under-run or over-run. When HCC handed over management responsibility to TfL, they also handed over budgetary control and therefore risk.
Unless TfL can plead some "force majeure" makes the original funding promises unrealistic, they will ether have to find the money or pay back anything already spent.
London Reconnections have a helpful article up now:

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/one-extensions-missing-precarious-status-croxley-rail-link/
Today it's being reported that TfL say they need twice as much money to deliver the extension as they originally budgeted.

https://twitter.com/lonrec/status/841637926408769536
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/15153065

"This does not mean the extension has been cancelled and we remain open to helping assist the Department for Transport in finding an alternative funding package, or alternative schemes that may be more affordable."

I think I'm most perturbed by the sudden mention of 'alternative schemes'.
When were they thinking of telling us?

June, as it turns out.
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/tfl-confirm-gap-croxley-rail-link-funding
From TfL committee minutes, February 2024:

"An example of a scope change was the cancellation of the MLX project in January 2018. The £16m Fund monies allocated to the project were instead invested in an additional train which was ordered for MLX as part of the Four Lines Modernisation project contract for new trains. That train has been delivered and is in passenger service."

i.e. instead of an extension we got 1 train.










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