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Friday 18 June 2010

Dalston's Olympic bus stop may cost £63 million

Last week we reported the uproar about the latest figures for the costs of Dalston's Olympic bus stop here.

You can see what Andrew Boff said in his TV interview, which caused the uproar, here (Clip2).

This is what it said in the London Development Agency's minutes dated 24.9.09 which Andrew Boff referred to:
"2.11 The podium slab works, undertaken by the East London Line Project, are currently running over the originally anticipated final cost of £39m due to engineering conflicts at the north end of the site between the East London line route and the safeguarded route for Cross Rail 2 (The proposed Chelsea/Hackney tube line - Ed). Our cost monitoring information shows that the anticipated final cost for the slab is likely to be £62.9m. The LDA's underwriting commitment towards the cost of the podium slab is capped at £19m, therefore the additional costs (£31.8m) of the slab will be covered by TfL".

On 27.4.10 TfL told Lord Low
"The final cost of the Dalston scheme is a commercial matter under discussion with our contractor. However I can confirm that the budget for the entire Dalston scheme is £39m. (Note 'budget' not actual cost - Ed) This figure includes the additional project management costs, the bus facility, the podium slab and railway costs resulting from the roofing over of the station."

So how much will the final bill be for Dalston's Olympic bus stop? And why did the estimates rise from £18m to £26m to £39m to £63m?And how much will it cost Hackney taxpayers?

Watch this space - the scandal which has emerged so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

2 comments:

  1. When the bus-stop is finally put in place, I propose a mock auction of it. We could stand round it making bids of several million at a time until we reach the lunatic (but correct) figure...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe I am ignorant, but how on earth can be a busstop be 63m???
    Isn't it just a pole in the ground like other busstops? Is it tiled with gold and platinum? does it have an elevator to space?
    too many questions...

    ReplyDelete

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