Infrastructure commission gives Crossrail 2 its blessing

Crossrail 2 was given the tick of approval by the National Infrastructure Commission on Thursday flagging through construction of an underground railway from Surrey to Hertfordshire.

The commission - established by George Osborne last year - urged Westminster to get on with the £27bn project "as a priority", with chairman Lord Adonis warning London would "grind to a halt" unless major work on the transport network went ahead.

Crossrail 2 would involve the construction of a new tunnel under central London, linking Wimbledon to Tottenham Hale and taking in the current suburban railway networks beyond.

It was hoped the route would be in operation by 2033, with Lord Adonis calling on the Chancellor to allocate funds to immediately develop the plans. Osborne was understood to be preparing to give his response in the Budget next week.

The route would stretch as far as Shepperton and Epsom in Surrey, and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire. It would also free up National Rail routes into Waterloo and Liverpool Street, which are currently already among the busiest stations in Europe.

It was reported £160m was required to take the project to the next stage of detailed planning, with Transport for London expected to stump up a chunk of that.

"By the 2030s London will be a mega-city of more than 10m people. Even allowing for planned investment and the imminent arrival of Crossrail 1 [the Elizabeth line], it will grind to a halt unless significant further improvements are made," Lord Adonis said to London Evening Standard.

"There is no good reason to delay. Crossrail 2 will help to keep London moving, create hundreds of thousands of homes and fire regeneration across the city from north-east to south-west," he added.

The original Crossrail project - now christened the Elizabeth line ahead of its inclusion on the Tube map - is due to be fully operational in the next few years. It would eventually operate from Reading to Essex via central London.