Mayor axes transport schemes in London

London mayor Boris Johnson has cancelled a clutch of significant transport schemes including the proposed £500m Thames Gateway Bridge, under consideration for nearly two decades. The mayor has acknowledged that East London requires another river crossing and signalled that that a new bridge at Silvertown was now in the frame.

As part of a programme of cutbacks in major schemes designed to save over £3bn in expenditure, Johnson has also decided to drop plans to bring back trams to central London.

This means the axe for the Cross River Tram scheme which had been planned to run between Euston and Waterloo, although Johnson has promised increased capacity and more frequent services on those parts of the London Underground network in the vicinity of the tram route to support local regeneration.

Also scrapped are plans for the extension of the Croydon Tramlink to Crystal Palace and the controversial plans for a tram or light rapid transit scheme along Oxford Street.

Johnson said the proposals were "unaffordable", insisting that the disruption during construction "would have been very substantial".

Another casualty is the proposal to extend the Docklands Light Railway to Dagenham Dock at a cost of £750m which had been planned to partly support redevelopment at Barking Riverside.

In addition the mayor has decided to ditch proposals to improve the pedestrianisation of a number of key London locations including Parliament Square, Euston Circus and Victoria Embankment.

The mayor said: "These schemes have been cancelled as they offered limited transport benefits and had the added disbenefit of restricting traffic flow at a time when London's road network will be under increased stress due to an increase in construction work and the need to deliver efficient transport flow for a successful 2012 Games."

Read the Mayor of London press release.

Roger Milne

13 November 2008