London Banter - View Single Post - A London PTE - was Metrolink Matters

Mizter T · March 21st 12, 01:21 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 21/03/2012 14:02, wrote:

(Mizter T) wrote:

There's a whole long history as to why the arrangements in London
turned out as it have - it's a legacy of many things. What I'm less
clear on is how much of a debate there was, if any, about a
comprehensive 'London PTE' that would include rail back in the late
60's when the PTA/PTE concept was devised and the empowering
legislation, the 1968 Transport Act, was formulated.

At the time of the 1968 Transport Act which first created PTAs/PTEs London
Transport was still Government-owned but had been separated from British
Rail when the London Transport Board was created and the BTC abolished in
1963 or thereabouts. In 1970 municipal control of public transport was
returned for the first time since 1933 but only of parts of the LTB. Country
buses were hived off, initially to the National Bus Company and privatised
after 1985.

That's a fair enough interpretation - i.e. in London, the embodiment of
the late 60's PTE-style reforms that were happening elsewhere was the
passing of responsibility for London Transport - or at least the bulk of
LT that sat within Greater London - from central government, in the form
of the London Transport Board, over to the new London Transport
Executive, under the control of the GLC.

The question really is was anything more radical considered or discussed
at the time, in terms of the new (post-1970) LTE having some powers or
influence over heavy rail within Greater London? (i.e. in the way that
PTEs had rail powers & responsibilities elsewhere in the UK.) It must at
least have been mooted.