TfL closes £310m Tube Lines purchase

Partners in the Tube Lines consortium, engineering giants Bechtel and Amey, have sold the business for £310m to Transport for London.

The purchase, announced last month after months of wrangling over the price of the next seven years of upgrade works on the Jubilee Northern and Piccadilly lines, was completed yesterday.

TfL is now committed to a thorough review of the programme of works envisaged under the former PPP agreement with Tube Lines, which could see a scaling back of planned investment.

TfL said it was conducting the review “with the aim of delivering the Tube improvements London and the wider UK economy needs with the best possible value for money and with the minimum of disruption for Londoners and businesses.”

The man who lead the integration of Metronet with TfL two years ago, Andie Harper, is now chief executive officer of the organisation within TfL. Tube Lines partner Amey will continue as contractor on tube works, delivering £300m of maintenance on the lines over the next 7.5 years.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson said the deal opened a new era for the Tube “free from the complexity and wrangling” of recent years. He said: “We have wasted no time in acting to limit the disruption of the Tube upgrade programme by cutting back the closures previously planned for this summer, and we will now look at how we can keep disruption to a minimum in the future.”

Mel Ewell, Chief Executive of Amey, said he was “pleased” to have reached financial close on the sale. “We are very much looking forward to continuing to work with TfL and LU to provide the on-going maintenance and management of the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Northern lines. We are proud of our record over the last seven and a half years and the results we have achieved – these include a significant reduction in delays across all three lines, increased reliability, improved safety and reduced costs.”