19 September (Part 1) - A return to Ebbsfleet please
Over
the past week or so Bexley Council has been bleating on again about extending
the phantom railway otherwise known as the Elizabeth Line through Slade Green to
Ebbsfleet. The image to the left is stolen
from the News Shopper, click it for their report, but it must have been from a
Press Release, you can find the same thing on
KentOnline.
I can’t help thinking that Bexley Council
was stupid to not lend their support to the
project when they came into office in 2006. It was the time when they were
against transport infrastructure. They campaigned for no river crossing and did
sweet Fanny Adams about a better railway. Instead they stood by while financial
pressures following the 2008 melt down put the Abbey Wood extension in jeopardy.
It was left to the then
new
MP Teresa Pearce to plead the case for the railway in Parliament, but Bexley
Council eventually woke up and now they are boasting about the £4·85 million to
be spent on how a Crossrail extension might be achieved.
They first boasted about the money
seventeen months ago. The project is not going anywhere fast is it?
When I used to speak to Crossrail engineers almost daily they thought it might
happen but not perhaps for 35 years or more, the Harrow Manorway flyover is a
major impediment.
The magazine New Civil Engineer
reported the same view.