Afternoon:
9°c
Taxpayers hit with £13million bill for empty Eurostar terminal
Nicholas Cecil, Deputy Political Editor12 Nov 2009
Taxpayers are to be hit with a bill of up to £13million to keep Waterloo's international terminal in mothballs, the Standard reveals today.
The "ghost" Eurostar terminal is costing £2million a year while commuters using the adjoining main station regularly suffer delays and "cattle-truck" overcrowding.
MPs condemned the huge bill as a waste of money which could be used to bring the five empty platforms back into use. "Millions of commuters will despair at why money is being spent on keeping these platforms empty instead of improving their daily travel to work," said shadow London minister Justine Greening.
The £135million international terminal closed after Eurostar services moved to St Pancras two years ago. But the platforms now stand idle and are not due to start being used again before 2013/14. The Standard understands that by then, the bill for security, maintenance and general operations since the terminal's closure is set to total between £10million and £13million.
Ms Greening added: "It's bad enough that these platforms are not being used but forking out £2million a year to keep them unused is a huge waste."
She called on Transport Secretary Lord Adonis to swiftly bring the international terminal back into use to tackle the overcrowding and delays suffered by the 300,000 passengers who use Waterloo every day.
Network Rail has asked for £54million to convert the terminal into one for domestic services to ease congestion. If it had been transformed shortly after closure, at least £10million is likely to have been saved which would have paid for a significant chunk of the upgrade costs. Campaigners argue that platforms could be merged into the domestic rail network for £5million.
The Government-owned British Rail Board (Residuary) paid £3,248,000 to manage the international terminal at Waterloo in 2008/09. This included £2,487,000 on running costs, though £1,255,000 was recouped in rent from Eurostar and service charges, leaving a net cost of £1,232,000. A further £673,000 was spent on maintenance, £36,000 on security and £52,000 on other costs. Bryan Davey, of watchdog London TravelWatch, said: "Waterloo is in dire need of additional capacity. There has been ample opportunity to turn that terminal into use for local train services."
Work has been carried out on platform 20 and "option development work" is taking place on other platforms and on track improvement.
A Transport Department spokesman said the "most cost-effective way to maximise short and long-term benefits" was being discussed. "The BRB is required to keep the facility serviceable in the interim," he added.
Reader views (22)
And what's Boris doing about it??? Proving to be useless in resolving this fast, is he? Maybe if he could get a couple of his brain cells joined up, he might have a beneficial effect on it.
- Ralph, London, 12/11/2009 19:53
Report abuse
Nobody has mentioned the vast eurostar depot at North Pole, West London which also stands silent and empty since closure at the same time as Waterloo International,this must also be costing a small fortune.
- Brian, barry wales, 12/11/2009 16:28
Report abuse
This is a very British phenomenon; large-scale projects always run into difficulties. The Jubilee Line extension was massively over budget, massively delayed and happened during the Tories reign. The Millenium Dome saga proved that it doesn't matter which party runs Westminster. Lack of planning and vision in public transport projects are the norm and have been so for the last 100 years irrelevant of whose in charge. It took Canary Wharf a good 20 years to succeed. More by accident then by design.
No one in government, local councils or private sector had the foresight to come up with a plan for Waterloo International in time for it's closure. If you look up some of the articles from 2 years ago you will note that it was a complete 'surprise' for all relevant parties that the there were no plans in place to re-use/re-develop this valuable piece of infrastructure.
- Farley Galmeyer, London, SE11, 12/11/2009 15:32
Report abuse
They diverted the services? Would this be anything to do with their personal career ambitions in Europe and the fact that the fastest train link to London was arriving at a station commemorating a spectacular defeat of the French . . . ?!
- Roz, France, 12/11/2009 14:44
Report abuse
I wondered what they were going to do with this rather nice, recently refurbished terminal once they switched the Eurostar. I 'spose the taxpayer paying £13 million of hard earned to keep it empty in London where property is 2 acres a penny is a fair and proper use. After all, Brown and his cronies don't have to pay taxes on their lavish allowances and fake expenses. Just another shambles from a shambolic government. Thankfuully a few more months and we can get rid of Brown and his cronies for good!
- J Keating, romsey england, 12/11/2009 14:22
Report abuse
Yet another example of an extension of the Welfare State at the Tax Payers expense.
All those gold plated pensions plus bonuses have to be funded from a source.
All these Bureaucracies are self serving interests.
It bears no relevance as to how well they are executed and maintained
- Barry Deane, Richmond, United Kingdom, 12/11/2009 13:42
Report abuse
Also, adding to Roy's sole vaguely sensible comment here, the E* maintenance depot is at Temple Mills, linked to HS1 via a connection at Stratford International, so there's no way to run empty trains to the depot from Waterloo (and if there were, it's a stupid waste of capacity that could be used for suburban services in south London, which is where the capacity crunch is).
However, what everyone's missing here is that the problem of capacity isn't shortage of platforms at Waterloo (they leave one free in the peak now to provide flexibility in case of disruption) but capacity on the lines leading to Waterloo, and you aren't going to relieve that for £2m a year. For a start you'd need to demolish the flyover at Battersea and reinstate the track between there and Clapham, but the big gain would come from extending many SWT trains from eight to ten cars, which is a) planned and b) rather expensive, as you have to extend a lot of platforms.
Basically I'm not sure there's much they can do here - if there's a criticism it's in not pressing ahead with 10-car earlier, but there were other things on the go, like replacing all the slam door trains with new ones.
- Tom, London, UK, 12/11/2009 13:28
Report abuse
Well, to be fair the government only had about 3 years while St Pancras was being planned and delivered in order to work aout a plan for re-using the waterloo platforms. Clearly they didn't have enought time!
Why don't they use as a homeless shelter and ask the homeless to 'maintain' it for free?
- Mr Opinion, London, 12/11/2009 13:26
Report abuse
Why didnt they just upgrade this station instead of shiting the service to St Pancras? St Pancras is not nearly as easy to get to but Waterloo was perfect for Eurostar services as it has so many mainline and tube services serving it and its far more central. I dont use the Eurostar since it moved so why am I paying for its disused station???
- Td, London, UK, 12/11/2009 13:15
Report abuse
Eurostar trains can no longer use Waterloo as Eurostar have removed the third-rail power pickup gear that was required for the lines into Waterloo.
This gives them a big saving in maintenance costs as they now only have to maintain the overhead electrical gear for the high-speed lines, so I doubt very much they'd ever be persauded to reinstate the third-rail gear to resume services to Waterloo.
- Roy, England, 12/11/2009 12:59
Report abuse
It is a shame that waterloo doesnt seem to have any of the billions earmarked for station redevelopment announced this week. Kings cross and Blackfriars seem to have cornered that. Surely a redevelopment of Waterloo station and surrounding environs would be a good way to regenerate this part of london.
- Mike, London, 12/11/2009 12:39
Report abuse
This waste of money/resources definitely merit big bonuses for the BR board managers.
- Gary, london, 12/11/2009 12:05
Report abuse
Two points here: firstly, why is the taxpayer forking out for anything, when Waterloo is run by a private(ish) company.
Secondly, why not re-instate Eurostar services from Waterloo? Those of us brought up south of the river and for those still living there, it is an inconvenience to have to get to St Pancras.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 12/11/2009 11:48
Report abuse
Unlike the rest of Europe where international trains crossing borders have been the norm for many years, in this country there is strict separation between national and international services. A myriad of agreements would have to be negotiated with all parties, not least with HM Customs, before any work could take place to convert the staion for use by national services.
- Patrick, Dalston, 12/11/2009 11:28
Report abuse
When the proposal to build a new terminal at Kings Cross, as it then was, was first announced Eurostar gave assurances that Waterloo International would continue to be used for some of its trains. It subsequently broke that promise. As for the Saint Pancras terminal, it is no improvement on Waterloo as regards passenger circulation space and facilities and the Underground station, being one of the most heavily used on the system, is often closed because of overcrowding. But of course there are all those shops and that champagne bar making lots of money which is what it's all about.
- James Crawford, London England, 12/11/2009 11:24
Report abuse
Get ready to shell out for the next mothballing exercise after the Olympics - the concrete ghetto they are presently building.
- Mowdiwarp, Huddersfield, West Yorks, 12/11/2009 11:09
Report abuse
Unbelievable. I had thought this government was incompetent and this spectacular bungle has proved it. What ever happened to the idea of 'joined-up government' in transport policy? Everybody knew that Eurostar would be moved to St Pancras yet this massive waste has been allowed to happen. What a shambles.
- Bethany Williams, London, 12/11/2009 11:07
Report abuse
Is there any reason why London cannot have two Eurostar terminals, apart from the miserable short sightedeness and parsimonious planning of politicians and business leaders ?
- John, Twickenham, 12/11/2009 10:25
Report abuse
Is it too simple to run alternate trains to Waterloo station so as to give easy access to the south of England. Trains ran there. The singaling equipment is all functioning. Thus keeping the station working and profitable.
It appears that the Rail Board suffer from the same political low IQ as the MPs.
Total ineptuide!
And they are the CAPTAINS of our Industry. No wonder that Alan Sugar chucked his offered position of Czar in the "governemental system" in!!
DUMBOS!!!!!! WHAT ANOTHER WHITE ELEPHASNT DOME?????
- A Winsley, London England, 12/11/2009 10:02
Report abuse
Perhaps they could call it 'O3' and turn it into an Arena?! 'O4''s got to be the future Olympic venue . . .
- Roz, France, 12/11/2009 09:51
Report abuse
When it was opened it was made clear that the station would be temporary, but I really did think that when it closed it would be ready to be used by trains using a new rail link from the south into Heathrow...which typically in this country we are still waiting for.
- Rodders, Feltham, SWTLand, 12/11/2009 09:24
Report abuse
Waterloo should be shut. Those platforms can be put to better use. We should not go on wasting tax money.
- Georgie, Islington, London, 12/11/2009 09:23
Report abuse
