Senior business leaders have called on the chancellor to provide funding for the design stage of Crossrail 2, with a view to getting trains running on the proposed tunnel project by 2030.
Following the recent completion of tunnelling works on Crossrail – running east to west across the capital - business leaders, including the UK chairman of infrastructure firm KPMG, Simon Collins and Stewart Wingate CEO of Gatwick Airport, have called for the government to ‘rapidly move forward with Crossrail 2’.
In a letter to The Times more than 50 captains of industry call on the chancellor 'to provide the development funding necessary to design' the second north to south rail tunnel stretching into Surrey in the comprehensive spending review.
‘We welcome the chancellor’s long-term economic plan for London, and its commitment to provide essential investment for the modernisation of Tube, rail, bus and road networks. But with London set to grow rapidly, these improvements alone will not be enough,' the letter reads.
‘Now that Crossrail, Europe’s largest engineering project, is nearing completion, on time and to budget, we must rapidly move forward with Crossrail 2. It will unlock land for up to 200,000 new homes with a matching number of new jobs, adding up to £7.9bn a year to London’s economy and promoting growth nationally.’
In March, Patrick McLoughlin, the secretary of state for transport issued updated safeguarding directions for the potential route of Crossrail 2, which mean that new developments along the route must allow for the future construction of the railway.
