Message received from the East London Line mailing list.........


Thankyou for registering with the project e-mail group. Please be
aware that there are now more than 800 members to administer and
approximately thirty new individuals are joining each week. In recent
weeks there has been much speculation about the project in the press
and I wish to provide you with a definitive update.

In February the project team passed final documentation to the
Department for Transport and is now awaiting approval to formally
approach the construction industry. If this is received an advert
will be placed in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU)
and the procurement process will have been initiated. The Department
for Transport remains adamant that the project will not approach the
commercial market until they are certain that funding has been
identified to reimburse the builder of the project when the
infrastructure is transferred to Network Rail on completion.

If we get a decision to proceed in the near future, we will be able to
deliver the project in June 2010. This date has been in the public
domain for at least eight months and was calculated once the full
impact of the legal challenges had been assessed.

At the current time there is only one method of delivery with the
Department for Transport and that is to build the whole project.
However as a contingency measure the project team has begun looking
into the impact of delivering the whole project in phases. The Mayor
of London has recently expressed interest in taking over
responsibility for the delivery of the project from the Strategic Rail
Authority. Although alternative funding mechanisms are being looked
into by Transport for London, it is unlikely that any firm decisions
will emerge until the outcome of the current rail industry review in
the early summer.

Please be reassured that if any change were to occur to the status of
the project you will receive an e-mail from myself.

Yours

Peter

PJ BOXELL

Head of Communications
East London Line Project

020 79417422