London is to receive a major infrastructure boost in the government’s budget next week, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves expected to announce her long-awaited backing for an extension of the Docklands Light Railway into Thamesmead.
The funding deal, which will enable the railway to reach one of the capital’s largest regeneration areas, is expected to draw in around £18 billion in private investment and lead to up to 25,000 new homes built.
Sir Sadiq Khan has welcomed the move as “a massive vote of confidence in London”, having previously expressed disappointment that no major infrastructure deal for the capital was included in Reeves’s spending review package, announced in June.
“I look forward to working hand in hand with ministers to deliver this vital project as we continue building a more prosperous London for everyone,” he said.
Reeves appeared to snub London in her spending review speech, saying she agreed with the complaints of politicians in the north of England that “areas outside London and South East” had been underinvested in.
However, as On London reported, transport secretary Heidi Alexander, formerly Mayor Khan’s deputy for transport, wrote to Transport for London to inform it that the government recognised the “potential housing and economic growth” a DLR extension could stimulate and acknowledged the “substantial work” already done.
Alexander added that she would be working with TfL and City Hall to finalise a business case “by the autumn”. TfL plans show the extension going from Gallions Reach station in Newham via another new station in Beckton and into Greenwich south of the Thames
The subsequent recommendation by the government’s taskforce that Thamesmead be designated a London New Town area made the case for giving a green light to the DLR project seem overwhelming.
With a deal now apparently done, City Hall has quoted a Treasury source saying: “This budget will choose growth over austerity by supporting renewal in every part of the country.”
Backing for the DLR extension was one the principle requests Khan made of the budget for London, backed by BusinessLDN, which represents some of the capital’s largest companies, and by the Peabody housing association which is leading a major improvement and redevelopment of the wider Thamesmead area, part of which is in Bexley.
Writing for the BusinessLDN website last week, Peabody chief executive Ian McDermott underlined the case for the DLR scheme, saying Thamesmead “offers one of the most exciting and deliverable opportunities for housing and economic growth in the UK”.
Reeves is also expected to give City Hall and other London leaders the powers needed to raise levies on people using the capital’s hotels and other stay-over accommodation, another measure the Mayor along with some borough leaders has been lobbying for.
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