Will ‘Crossrail 2’ ever be constructed? Rail line working north-south by London has been paused for 4 years amid fears over funding for £41billion value

A £41billion ‘Crossrail 2’ project running north-south through London may never be built due to lack of funding having been paused more than four years ago.

The line would run between Surrey and Hertfordshire – from Epsom, Shepperton, Chessington and Hampton in the south to Broxbourne and Southgate in the north.

Trains on Crossrail 2, which was first proposed 50 years ago, would go underground between Wimbledon and Tottenham – using a new tunnel through Central London.

The project gathered momentum in 2016 when £80million of development funding was confirmed by the Government, to be matched by Transport for London (TfL).

Ministers indicated support for a bill for Crossrail 2 to go ahead, but it then faced an affordability review in 2018 and was paused indefinitely in October 2020 because of TfL’s dire finances during the pandemic after a collapse in passenger journeys.

This summer, TfL and the Department for Transport (DfT) held talks to protect land on the tunnel route from infrastructure development that would stop it being built.

But funding is not expected to be secured soon, and therefore Crossrail 2 is unlikely to be built in the short term. Now, campaigners fear it may never happen – after costs for the chaotic High Speed 2 (HS2) spiralled out of control before it was scaled back.

It also comes as TfL and Network Rail battle to improve reliability on the Elizabeth line which eventually opened in May 2022 four years late and £4billion over budget.

And Crossrail 2 is said to be a low priority as TfL also works on plans for the new West London Orbital Railway and extending the Bakerloo line and Docklands Light Railway.

Ben Curtis from the Campaign for Better Transport told MailOnline: ‘While Crossrail 2 would almost certainly ease congestion on key railway routes into London and unlock huge economic growth, it’s critical that the issue of funding is addressed. 

‘There is perhaps a more pressing need to advance schemes such as the DLR extension to Thamesmead or the Bakerloo Line extension, to stimulate the same economic growth for a fraction of Crossrail 2’s estimated cost. 

‘Once those are complete, delivery of Crossrail 2 should be prioritised.’

A London TravelWatch spokeswoman told MailOnline: ‘We support Crossrail 2 in principle and want to see continued safeguarding of its route, but we do not see the line being built any time soon, not least with the post-pandemic shift in travel demand and patterns.

‘There are more important priorities for transport capital spending right now. One is to make good years of under-investment in renewing the existing network so that it functions well and is fit for purpose.

‘The other is on delivering key projects such as new trains and improvements to the Bakerloo line, Piccadilly line signalling, the West London Orbital and the extension of the DLR to Thamesmead.’

And Neil Garratt, leader of the City Hall Conservatives, told MailOnline: ‘The Elizabeth Line was a huge success, quickly used by far more people than expected, showing the pent-up demand for transport investment. But we know from research that big projects in Britain cost more and take longer than in other countries, which was sadly also true of the Elizabeth Line.

‘The Mayor’s begging-bowl politics ignores all this. Instead, if we could build new railways as quickly and cheaply as others, we could fund them from private sector investment or by unlocking redevelopment such as in Battersea. That would get more built, get Britain moving, and cost the taxpayer less.’

Plans for a north-south Underground line were first proposed in 1974 by the London Rail Study, with various proposals put forward over the following decades.

But these were superseded by a series of projects including the north-south Thameslink network in 1988, the Jubilee line extension in 1999 and then the £19billion east-west Crossrail project, known in operation as the Elizabeth line.

The most recent route plan was put forward in autumn 2015 after plans came under serious discussion following a TfL consultation in 2013.

The idea was that towns across Surrey and Hertfordshire would be connected via a tunnel from Wimbledon in South West London to Tottenham Hale in North London.

This new line would connect directly with the National Rail terminus stations at London Euston and St Pancras, while also linking up with the Elizabeth line at Tottenham Court Road.

Existing railway lines would be used for four branches going to and from Epsom, Shepperton, Chessington and Hampton towards to Wimbledon, and the line would then go underground through Balham to Clapham Junction.

The next stop would be a new station on the King’s Road in Chelsea, before trains call at Victoria, Tottenham Court Road and a new interchange connecting both Euston and St Pancras.

Angel and Dalston would be the next stops travelling north, and it would then come out of the tunnel at Tottenham Hale before running on an existing line to Broxbourne.

There would also be a spur off at Dalston towards New Southgate via Seven Sisters.

A potential future eastern branch from Dalston to Hackney Central and further east was also suggested.

The DfT announced £80million of development funding for Crossrail 2 under the Conservative government in 2016, to be matched by TfL – and there was support for a bill to get the project going.

That same year, the National Infrastructure Commission said Crossrail 2 should happen ‘as a priority’ and the line could open by 2033. 

But a Treasury affordability review was then carried out in 2018, and the project was eventually mothballed in October 2020 as part of a TfL funding deal with the DfT.

This deal, which came at a time when TfL nearly had to declare itself bankrupt during the pandemic, also included a promise by ministers to support any ‘safeguarding activity’.

The following year, New Civil Engineer revealed that £115million had already been spent on developing proposals for Crossrail 2 in the six years to December 2020.

Then Mr Khan pledged in his re-election manifesto for May ‘to continue work to safeguard the Crossrail 2 route so that this much-needed project can be brought to fruition in the future’.

In the summer, the DfT and TfL held talks on updating the project’s ‘safeguarding directions’ relating to legal obligations first put in place in 2015.

The bodies want to ensure these orders are protecting the land along the proposed tunnel route from any developments that could prevent the line from being built.

The Standard reported in September that negotiations on this were ongoing, and TfL described it as ‘a long-term aspiration’ but not an immediate priority.

The Mayor’s office said at time that discussions were ‘subject to TfL agreeing statutory blight payments and the necessary programme for lifting the existing directions and replacing them with new directions to reflect the current Crossrail 2 scheme design’.

MailOnline spoke to people outside Wimbledon station about the scheme, where some local said improving transport connections was necessary but others decried the estimated cost and said the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Sue Bernardin, a former resident whose mother still lives in Wimbledon, rubbished the idea of Crossrail 2 ever being built.

The grandmother-of-two, who has five sons, said: ‘I don’t think it will go ahead because it’s too expensive. I think it will get smashed again. They keep changing it; it’s going to go here, now it’s going to go there.

‘I think it could have been done less expensively. It’s far too much money to spend on it. They have taken away housing and infrastructure to build it already.

‘They have taken away people’s homes and it’s still not come to fruition. I hope it happens, so all the money they’ve poured into it goes to something, but I’m sceptical.’

Lindzi West, a secondary school teacher who has lived in the Wimbledon Village area since 2015 and has one child, said the money could be better spent in other areas – such as improving education.

‘It would be good for Wimbledon, but the transport isn’t bad anyway – you’re in central London within 15, 20 minutes,’ she said.

‘Is improving the transport links necessary? If it’s costing £1 per person that’s not an issue, but if it’s costing £3,000 per person it is an issue.

‘There are other things to spend (£41billion) on. To spend it on education would be fantastic. But you have to keep upgrading transport, otherwise everything will fall apart.’

Lauren Ockenden, 36, said the money should be spent on improving the aged transport links already in existence across London instead of investing in new schemes.

‘I don’t think the country’s got the money for Crossrail 2,’ she said. ‘I think the money could be better spent on sorting out the transport we already have at the moment.

‘There are often problems here – for two weeks straight there was a problem at East Putney on the District Line that made me late to work every day.’

Ms Ockenden, who works in a hair salon, added that strikes meant she often had to get rail replacement buses – which often didn’t even show up.

‘I buy a monthly Oyster card for £200 and I end up having to get buses,’ she said. ‘There are rail replacement buses that just don’t turn up.

‘If I would have paid for the buses I wouldn’t have paid as much as the monthly Oyster card.’

However, Emad Hammad, a 54-year-old who works for TfL and lives in Wimbledon, says upgrading transport was always a good idea.

‘This is what we pay taxes for,’ the father-of-one said. ‘The transport can be bad from here when there are issues with the lines. ‘There’s lots of demand around here, that’s for sure. It’s always a good idea to improve the transport network.’

Local Phil Hungley claimed Wimbledon’s well-to-do residents wouldn’t stand for their comparatively quiet corner of London becoming a major transport hub for the city.

The 55-year-old also questioned where Mr Khan would get the money to pay for Crossrail 2.

‘The transport connections are pretty decent from here anyway,’ Mr Hungley said. ‘I’m sure we could spend £41billion on something else.

‘You’re going to get a backlash as well from local residents – Wimbledon is quite a rich area. Where’s (Sadiq Khan) getting the £41bn from? I think he will get it from the tolls on the tunnels and Ulez.’

Mr Hungley jokingly added: ‘He’s probably doing it here for the tennis. The All England Lawn Tennis Club have probably got £40billion, so they could pitch in.’

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has long been a supporter of project and urged the Government in an article for the Daily Mail in September to get it constructed.

He said: ‘We need to revive the vision for high-speed rail across the country, including HS2. We need a solution for London’s airports, and we need Crossrail 2.

‘To be truly productive and creative and competitive you need to meet other people, and working from home is not enough.’

Mr Johnson also said in May 2022 at the time of the Elizabeth line opening that ‘all the problems of commuters coming into Waterloo getting up to north London, you can fix that with another Crossrail’.

He added that the capital’s businesses would need to develop a plan to pay for it, saying ‘we should be looking at tax increment financing’ for transport projects in London.

This was used to fund the £1.1 billion extension of the Northern line to Battersea in South London, through business rates from the local area and contributions from developers.

A prominent business group has also suggested that Crossrail 2 could be funded in part by new and higher taxes.

John Dickie, chief executive of BusinessLDN, told the Financial Times in September ‘a significant proportion’ of funding for the original Crossrail project ‘came from a levy on the business rates in the area and from borrowing against future income’.

He added that the Elizabeth line had shown there is ‘room to squeeze more money out of the private sector’ to fund new infrastructure, saying this could include ‘higher taxes on housing development or the sale of existing houses near new stations’.

Mr Dickie said there could also be ‘more targeted’ business rate rises around stations – although that could ‘never be a substitute for central government cash’.

And Polyvios Polyviou, programme director for transport at BusinessLDN, told MailOnline: ‘Safeguarding the route for Crossrail 2 is crucial to ensure future generations reap its benefits.

‘Getting shovels in the ground will not happen until financing is in place, so it’s important to learn lessons from projects like the Elizabeth line, where a public-private partnership ensured delivery.

‘Businesses were willing to absorb a substantial portion of delivery costs in return for the benefits brought about by improved connectivity and capacity.

‘Likewise, we should be exploring all innovative financing models at our disposal to enable other key projects such as the Bakerloo Line upgrade and extension as well as the DLR extension to Thamesmead.’

Elly Baker, the Labour chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee, has been among the politicians trying to keep the scheme alive.

She told MailOnline: ‘For several years I have championed the benefits that new rail lines can bring to London.

Improved connectivity and shorter journey times will make it much easier for people to live and work where they choose to. There are also huge opportunities for new jobs and new communities from the Crossrail 2 project.

‘I have also campaigned for HS2 to terminate at Euston. Doing so will increase capacity and reduce transport bottlenecks for thousands of passengers. The previous government failed to realise its potential and left HS2 to deteriorate.

‘Their hope of relying exclusively on private funding was unrealistic and had no serious plans for delivery. I hope the new government and Mayor can put both projects back on track.’

It comes after the Mayor said in July in answer to a written question from Ms Baker on the project that previous assessments concluded that Crossrail 2 could ‘support around 200,000 homes and around 200,000 jobs’.

A spokeswoman for Mr Khan told MailOnline: ‘The Mayor has pledged to safeguard the Crossrail 2 route so that this much needed project can be brought to fruition in the future.

‘The Mayor is committed to ensuring vital schemes like this, which will unlock growth in London and around the country, can progress, and will consider a variety of funding options for such schemes.’

And a TfL spokeswoman told MailOnline: ‘Crossrail 2 is a long-term aspiration which, if delivered, would help unlock thousands of new jobs and homes – not only in London, but across the South East.

‘Discussions continue with the new Government to refresh the Crossrail 2 safeguarding directions, which protects the land required from development that could impact the delivery of the scheme.’

A statement on the Crossrail 2 website homepage states: ‘In October 2020, as part of the TfL Funding Agreement, a decision was made to pause further work on the design and development of Crossrail 2. The work undertaken so far was fully documented so that we could restart the project when the time was right.

‘TfL continues to manage the Crossrail 2 safeguarding directions on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport and continues to work with stakeholders whose developments are affected by the safeguarding. This is to ensure we can continue to protect the route until such time as the railway can be progressed.’

MailOnline has also contacted the DfT for comment.