Tube Lines chief executive leaves after nine months

The chief executive of the body responsible for the £4.5bn upgrades to the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly tube lines has left London Underground after just nine months in the job.

Mike Brown, LU’s managing director, emailed staff last week with the news that Andie Harper, appointed in June 2010, will leave his “interim role” as Tube Lines chief executive. His appointment, which was not described as interim at the time, came last year as LU took control of Tube Lines following a protracted debate with it over the cost of the next stage of line upgrades.

LU has now appointed Jon Lamonte, a former director of the RAF, who also ran the Ministry of Defence’s £17bn supplies procurement operation, to be the new Tube Lines chief executive. Lamonte started at Tube Lines on 14 March for a handover period, and will assume full control on 28 April.

Brown’s email to staff said: “Jon joins us from the RAF, where he has led major project delivery. We’re extremely grateful for the work of Andie Harper for leading us on an interim basis. In that time we have taken huge strides in the delivery of the Jubilee Line upgrade.”

Harper, who joined TfL from Aecom, had also led the failed consortium delivering the other tube line upgrades, Metronet, through its transition to ownership by Transport for London. Since TfL took over, London mayor Boris Johnson has lauded progress on the upgrade work, which is at least two years behind schedule.

TfL spent £310m taking control of Tube Lines, which had been a consortium of support services giant Amey and US engineer Bechtel, after the two organisations failed to agree a price for the next phase of upgrade work. TfL has since been working to refocus the upgrade programme to take account of £2.2bn of cuts to its budget announced by chancellor George Osborne in October’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

Lamonte “co-led” the MoD’s review of maritime strategy for the spending review, and is currently completing a PhD in modern history.