The Conservatives after 1979 - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 99

funding. It soon became clear however that the nature of the proposals consistent with
this financial objective would be unacceptable environmentally. Michael Heseltine, as
Secretary of State for the Environment, was instrumental in the bold decision to refuse
initial proposals for the route through South London into the terminal being built for
Eurostar services at London Waterloo and to opt instead for a more northerly route
terminating at Kings Cross/St Pancras. This option killed two birds with one stone
as it also opened up the prospect of revitalising the run-down area east of London
(branded 'Thames Gateway') with intermediate stations at Ebbsfleet near Dartford
and at Stratford.
The price for achieving the economic and environmental benefits of the revised
route was relaxation in the previous stipulation about public funding. The Government
maintained the letter of its original commitment however by arguing that its financial
contribution to the project would be based on the benefits to passengers using domestic
services which would result from the diversion off the existing lines of continental and
Kent commuter services. In 1996 a 999-year lease to build and operate the new line
was let to a private consortium (London and Continental Railways) with Government
support worth £1.4bn.
In 1993 the Government also announced construction of an express rail link
between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport as a joint commercial venture
between the privatised British Airports Authority and British Rail. However for BAA
this is essentially an ancillary feature to the operation of the airport, i.e. it is not a
freestanding transport investment. This and other involvements in public transport
ventures also has to be seen in the context of BAA's plans for construction of a fifth
terminal at Heathrow ('T5'), whose potential traffic effects were one of the main issues
considered at the planning inquiry begun in 1995.
Another major rail proposal which was made dependent in part on private funding
was CrossRail - an east-west line under Central London connecting suburban
services coming into Liverpool Street and Paddington. This was one of a series of
proposals emerging from a Central London Rail Study published in 1989 aimed at
relieving rail congestion, in this case principally on the London Underground. In
1993 the Government announced that the scheme was to be 're-examined' with
the aim of securing the greatest possible involvement of the private sector. This was
the prelude to interminable wranglings, not merely over the details of the scheme
but over possible mechanisms whereby businesses and property owners who stood
to gain from the development could be made to contribute to it financially. The
scheme was finally approved in 2007 (with the colossal price-tag of £16bn) with
the Government contributing about a third. The same period of delay afflicted the
unfortunately titled Thameslink 2000 project (which increases capacity on a north-
south axis across London but using an existing route) whose completion is now
expected in 2015!
In 1982 the Government gave London Transport a cash-limited £77m in order to
build a bargain-basement light rail scheme to serve the inaccessible Isle of Dogs part
of the Docklands area designated for urban regeneration. The scheme used redundant
former railway viaducts for much of its length, did not extend into Central London
nor connect properly with the rest of the Underground network. When commercial
development in the area generated rapid increases in patronage in the late 1980s
the limitations of the system were quickly exposed. The stations had to be rebuilt to
accommodate double-length trains and the line was extended in tunnel to terminate
at Bank in the heart of the City.