Preparing London Underground for partial privatisation will cost upto £65m of the extra £365m allocated to the Tube in the lastBudget.
Dennis Tunnicliffe, Underground managing director, told the House ofCommons select committee this was a “working estimate” of the cost ofcharges involved in preparing contracts for the private infrastructurecompanies and the publicly owned train operator.
John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, announced plans to splittrack from train operations and to bring in £7bn of private fundsto upgrade and modernise the Tube last month. Tunnicliffe declined tosay in public what the Underground’s board thought of these proposals.But he said: “As managers we like the idea of one infrastructurecompany. We like simplicity.”
- Financial Times 30/04/98 page 14
