Tube contracts to be renegotiated at cheaper price

The mayor of London’s transport adviser has promised to deliver upgrades to London’s underground system using renegotiated contracts at cheaper prices following the collapse of Tube Lines earlier this year.

Kulveer Ranger, transport adviser to Tory mayor Boris Johnson, said that it had been a “hugely difficult decision” to force the collapse of Tube Lines, the Bechtel-led consortium charged with upgrading the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly Lines under the tube Public Private Partnership.

Speaking to a fringe event at the Labour Party conference he said: “We will come back with re-negotiated contracts that will deliver tube upgrades with greater efficiency.”

He said that the PPP had been a huge waste of public money. He said: “The PPP was a disgrace - I really can’t use language strong enough to describe how bad it was. The waste was horrendous.”

He added that it was inevitable the delays in the Jubilee Line upgrades, which in part prompted the collapse and is now almost a year behind schedule, would impact upon the Northern and Piccadilly Lines.

Ranger was applauded by shadow transport minister Sadiq Khan for presiding over what was effectively the re-nationalisation of the tube network.