Bexley Council has reiterated its call for the Docklands Light Railway to be extended to Belvedere, and not just Thamesmead, and asked its residents to tell Transport for London in the latest consultation.
The demand from Bexley’s leader, Baroness O’Neill, has come in the same week as her counterpart in Greenwich, Anthony Okereke, signed off a long-planned £200,000 payment for work to continue on developing the new rail link.
The extension, costed at up to £1.7 billion two years ago, would branch off the existing line at Gallions Reach before tunnelling under the Thames to reach a new terminal close to a planned housing development, Thamesmead Waterfront.
Both Newham and Greenwich councils want the scheme so it can enable 30,000 new homes to be built on both sides of the river – both in Thamesmead and at another new development, Beckton Riverside.
Papers published on an obscure corner of the Greenwich Council website this week show that Okereke has signed off the six-figure sum so TfL can continue work on the extension. Newham is paying £200,000 while TfL will contribute £1 million.
Underscoring the primary aim of the extension, the developers of Thamesmead Waterfront – Peabody and LendLease – are paying £400,000 between them and the two companies behind Beckton Riverside – St William and Aberdeen Standard Investments – are paying £200,000 each.
TfL has indicated that the line could go on to Belvedere at a later date. Unlike Beckton or Thamesmead, there is presently no large-scale redevelopment plan for Belvedere, although 1,330 homes were approved in the area last year. Direct rail links into central London are poor, with just four trains per hour.
Bexley has also called for the new Superloop SL11 bus or the existing SL3 to run on to Belvedere as “to close the gap” between Thamesmead or Belvedere, citing the example of the new BL1 Bakerloop bus from Waterloo to Lewisham, meant as a stop-gap until a Bakerloo Line extension is built.
The council also wants more road crossings over the Thames, following the final abandonment of plans for a Thames Gateway Bridge on the route now planned for the DLR.
O’Neill said: “We are calling on TfL to once again consider the extension of the DLR to Belvedere and would urge local people to do the same.
“The extensive plans they are considering end at Thamesmead. To end at Belvedere would make much more sense and have a massive boost to the area in terms of jobs and housing and connect a large industrial area to central London as well as potentially making the whole scheme more affordable through greater fare income.”
The consultation ends on August 17 and can be found at haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk.
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