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The 'South London Overground' and the Mayoral election
On 25 Apr, 18:54, James Farrar wrote: On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:45:06 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T wrote: The Guardian story suggests that the Mayor has in essence won over central government. My question is thus a simple one - if Boris Johnson is elected next week instead of Ken Livingstone, would government ministers be at all keen to go ahead with a plan that allows TfL to takeover - or at least have a substantial role to play in the running of - the South London Metro routes, which would effectively hand him an early victory, one which was basically the result of Ken Livingstone's long-term game plan, or would they just pull the plug on it all? If they did, Johnson (and Cameron, in all probability) would absolutely slaughter them in the press for blatant party political point-scoring. I hope they wouldn't, but they are politicians. First off, I have no inside information. But if I painted this whole scheme as a done deal, then I'm sorry, because that's certainly not the message I intended to convey - I don't think it is a done deal at all yet (unlike the DfT funding ELLX phase 2) , and I get the impression that progressing this scheme from theory into reality is dependent upon the DfT and ministers continuing to give it a sympathetic hearing, bearing in mind there are substantial forces of opposition to it within both the railway industry and indeed with the DfT itself. It appears more to be a work-in-progress, and one that I am somewhat sceptical about Boris Johnson - should he become Mayor - (a) properly recognising the importance thereof and being willing to whole- heartedly take up, argue for and progress, and (b) whether he would actually get a sympathetic hearing from central government were he to do so. This is one of Ken Livingstone's pet projects, and is part of his long-term game plan to exert greater London influence over the rail network in the capital for the benefit of Londoners. I'm far from convinced that Boris would be able to continue this shift, not least because I'm far from convinced that he recognises how important it is. |
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