Battersea Northern Line extension - consultation deadline: 30 Dec

[pork chop]

For anyone interested in expressing an opinion on the Battersea Northern Line extension, the TfL consultation deadline is 30 Dec. Please go to the link below to contribute.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/nle/consultation/subpage.2012-11-05.0570274761/view

I have just posted on concerns around what may be ?550-750m of public expendature on an extension that, as it stands, benefits very few existing South London residents. Meanwhile lack of a viable cost/benefit plan has been given as the reason for other long-overdue and more necessary upgrades that will help areas with no tube network - extending the Victoria line to Herne Hill or extending the Backerloo to Camberwell/Peckham, to name just two.

[Jeremy]

What's the opposite of NIMBYism?

[kford]

IMBYism.

[Twirly]

No, but it would benefit the workers at the new US embassy which is being built at Nine Elms and is due to be finished in 2017.

[Huggers]

every new tube station 'only benefits a few' but if we didn't go for it, we wouldn't have a tube. There is no tube in Battersea, so surely an improvement to have one.

[Earl Aelfheah]

The problem with this extension is that it drives the southern spur of the northern line into a dead end (restricting further development), adds only two new stops, both in areas already well served. The benefits are negligible compared to other potential infrastructure proposals which become less likely to ever happen as a result. It's a deal with a private developer who will the primary beneficiaries of this 'public' investment. Effectively an ongoing subsidy paid by existing communities, possibly to the detriment of the future regeneration of their neighbourhoods.

Yes some future workers in Nine Elms will have an alternative to the tube at Vauxhall. Brilliant.

[Zebedee Tring]

The sad fact is that in this country we rely too heavily on the private sector to fund public transport (see also the relatively recent Jubilee Line extension to Canary Wharf and beyond). Virtually the whole of the national rail network up to WW2 (including of course the London Underground) was a collection of private built railway lines. In France, a country which has mainly had right wing governments, they have spent public sector money building the RER, Paris Metro extensions and new TGV lines - they don't seem to have the same ideological aversion as the UK to public funding of infrastructure projects.

Nevertheless, if it's a choice between the proposed Northern Line extension or no extension, I would choose the extension.

Now if you were able to persuade the US Government to build their embassy in Dulwich or Herne Hill, you might just get that Victoria or Bakerllo Line extension.

[jrpfinch]

Unless you have highly distortionary ticket pricing, public funding of railways disproportionately benefits the well off.

Rich people travel more generally.

Poor people, when they do travel, use buses.

[Zebedee Tring]

But that's just it. Other countries subsidise public transport much more heavily, while means that the less well off are more able to use it. We have by far the most expensive railways in Europe, and the "competition" that was supposed to result from privatisation has instead led to massive fair increases. Though we do subsidise air travel by not taxing aviation fuel, thereby encouraging people to fly from London to Glasgow rather than pay enormous Virgin rail fares.

And so called "distortionary ticket pricing" adopted by other countries helps to take cars off the road since people are then more likely to use public transport.

[jrpfinch]

By subsidising non-profitable routes (I'm not saying the Northern Line is such a route), you're giving rich people something cheaply that they should be paying for (see also proposed free care for the elderly).

By doing this you're redistributing wealth from the less well off to the more well off. Whether it becomes more affordable for poor people is irrelevant.

If you want to make trains more affordable, the answer is to have fewer poor people. This can be achieved by taxing them less, giving them more benefits, creating jobs, providing them better education...

Giving middle class people stuff for free (or very cheaply) is one of the reasons we have such a massive budget deficit.

Examples of "stuff" include subsidised railways, state pensions at young ages and CGT exemptions on primary properties.

It's no surprise the government is rolling back these benefits. I predict Labour will continue to do so in the likely event they win the 2015 election.

[LondonMix]

You have a distorted view about taxes. The top 10% of earners in the UK pay 55.3% of all income tax collected which is significantly higher than their share of income earned. This is because the UK has a progressive tax system meaning that both the percentage and absolute tax burden increases the more you earn. Pretty much every service offered in the UK is subsidized by high rate tax payers, and I agree this is the right way to organise the tax system. However, your argument that any government spending is being subsidised by low earners is patently untrue. The taxes paid by the average worker cannot even cover the government services they use.

[Zebedee Tring]

I couldn't agree more. And we should require employers to pay poor people who are in work a living wage, so that we don't have to subsidise firms paying lousy wages.

What about the contribution to the deficit of the massive tax avoidance perpetrated by the likes of Google, Starbucks, Philip Green, and numerous other billionaires and multi-millionaries, not to mention the enormous bail out funds paid to "too big to fail" financial institutions?

And prospective cuts in top rate income tax to those billionairies and multi-millionaires who obviously need extra incentives to work harder?

[Huguenot]

Such a lot of bizarre claptrap on this thread! I love the way that people mix and match reasonable judgement with extraordinary leaps of imagination and cause/effect speculation.

On they subject of rich people 'working harder' that's obviously just a silly dig - but what rich people do is invest - either through banks at a fixed rate of return or individually at more variable rates.

Anything that can incentivize them to invest personally with time money and expertise is critical, as banks are very poor investors in business (particularly SMEs).

I'm extremely grateful for my own investors, as are my employees who wouldn't have jobs otherwise. That probably also includes your own jobs, so abusing these people is neither necessary nor astute.

[Huguenot]

Isn't the extension privately funded? If it is then all of your wild speculation is neither here nor there.

This seems a complaint based mostly on spite - but can you imagine the hoohaa if a developer had redeveloped Battersea Power Station and NOT contributed to public transport enhancements?

I'm impressed with the bizarre conclusion that rail investments are a subsidy of the rich by the poor. Do you actually believe this, or is it a religious act of faith as part of a class war dogma?

[Jeremy]

If you think that only rich people travel by tube, that is the strangest definition of "rich" I've ever heard.

It's even more bizarre than proclaiming that the northern line extension is unjust because you don't have a local tube station.

[Zebedee Tring]

Huguenot, you may disagree with the views of other people expressed here. However to talk about "Such a lot of bizarre claptrap on this thread!" is very arrogant. You are of course entitled to your opinions but so are the rest of us, and what we say can no more be classed "bizarre claptrap" than your statements.

[Huguenot]

Not sure that anything I've said could be classed as 'making statements' Zebedee Tring, you are of course welcome to describe my observations as claptrap and let people draw their own conclusions.

It might be worth you looking up the definition of subsidy through ;-)

[Zebedee Tring]

Huguenot, you're twisting my words. It was you who first used the phrase "Such a lot of bizarre claptrap on this thread!" and not me. This phrase is what I objected to.

To repeat what I said earlier, you are of course entitled to your opinions but so are the rest of us.

I would be interested to know whether you subscribe to the "trickle down theory", namely the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by government to businesses and the wealthy will benefit poorer members of society.

[Huguenot]

Forgive me for pointing it out Zebedee Tring, but your entire approach to this issue has been predicated upon the idea that there is a conscious conspiracy taking place to persecute the poor.

Even the premise for this thread - that the Battersea extension is using poor people's money to subsides the rich - has been proven to be wrong as the extension is privately funded.

You've made several other unfounded assertions exposing a lack of grasp of basic economics.

In an attempt to divert from this foolishness you're attempting to smear me as Thatcherite?

It all sounds like a rather sad binary student union debate.

[Zebedee Tring]

I will not dignify your latest post with a considered reply, Huguenot, although I possess the academic qualifications and knowledge to do so. You appear to be unable to debate an issue without being personally rude, and I will not debate with people who cannot treat people with whom they disagree with a modicum of respect. So don't bother to reply because you won't get a reply from me.

[Huguenot]

Your definition of 'trickle down theory' is a confused and deliberately inflammatory interpretation of supply side economics.

Supply side economics suggests that the way out of recession is to encourage investment in the creation of good and services, delivering funds directly to the consumer through the labour market.

Far from delivering 'economic benefits to the wealthy', supply side economics encourages investment capital to stay in circulation by cutting taxation and delivers economic benefits directly to the labour force through additional employment.

It doesn't matter whether the money is invested directly by rich people, or whether it stays in the bank - because both approaches (as I explained earlier) result in direct economic investment.

An interpretation of that as 'economic benefits to the wealthy' could only be used by someone who didn't understand basic economics or wrote for the Socialist Worker. I apologize if I allocated you to the wrong segment.

Why you should feel hard done by when you persist in distributing misinformation masquerading as fact is beyond me ;-)

[Hickory]

Hear hear

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Isn't the extension privately funded? If it is

> then all of your wild speculation is neither here

> nor there.

>

> This seems a complaint based mostly on spite - but

> can you imagine the hoohaa if a developer had

> redeveloped Battersea Power Station and NOT

> contributed to public transport enhancements?

>

> I'm impressed with the bizarre conclusion that

> rail investments are a subsidy of the rich by the

> poor. Do you actually believe this, or is it a

> religious act of faith as part of a class war

> dogma?

[Southeast Twenty Stu]

It's about strategic investment versus tactical / opportunistic expansion. There is some money on the table to do something, anything, so let's do it....but it kills off any potential future extension and provides minimal benefits. There are a finite number if river crossings, so its important that they are utilised to the fullest. This is short term politics, not strategic transport policy.

[JohnL]

Wikipedia said it would be privately funded but the below document seems to imply

borrowing and repaying the borrowing from business rates and developers.

Can't really follow how this works

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/Our_response_to_common_questions_raised_at_the_consultation_events_for_the_Northern_line_extension.pdf

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Isn't the extension privately funded? If it is

> then all of your wild speculation is neither here

> nor there.

>

> This seems a complaint based mostly on spite - but

> can you imagine the hoohaa if a developer had

> redeveloped Battersea Power Station and NOT

> contributed to public transport enhancements?

>

> I'm impressed with the bizarre conclusion that

> rail investments are a subsidy of the rich by the

> poor. Do you actually believe this, or is it a

> religious act of faith as part of a class war

> dogma?

[Huguenot]

Sorry Southeast Twenty Stu, I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing?

This development is an extension from Kennington to Battersea, it doesn't cross the river.

Regarding financing, there is no potential future extension this kills off, and the development of the area signals a clear increase in future demand.

From that document the exact split of the development cost between developers and existing businesses has not yet been agreed. However, it is clear that the cost is not being carried by the tax payer.

The loan from the public works board replaces one from commercial banks, and as a loan it 'creates' debt at the point of exchange - it doesn't use taxpayer funds that could have been used for something else. It is, however, secured upon taxpayer revenues.