Budget Blow for Turnham Green Piccadilly Stop

Signalling upgrade not part of funding package for TfL

A visualisation of Turnham Green Station in the future. Picture: ChiswickW4.com

November 5, 2024

The recent Government Budget may have confirmed yet more delay for a Piccadilly line services at Turnham Green.

Rachel Reeves has given the Mayor of London less than he wanted for major infrastructure projects and no mention is being made of any funds going towards the upgrade of signalling on the Piccadilly line which Transport for London (TfL) says is necessary for the stop to be introduced at the local station.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been given £485 million over the next year for capital investment in public transport. This was less than the £569million he had requested from Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt the previous year. In the event he only received £250million from the last government which covered the cost of upgraded rolling stock on the Piccadilly line. The Mayor had already said that he would be asking for less from Rachel Reeves in recognition of the ‘black hole’ in government finances which Labour claims it has inherited from the previous government.

The Mayor said after the budget was revealed, “My focus today has obviously been the fantastic announcement in relation to the capital investment in public transport in London.

“This announcement by the Government of an almost doubling of our capital investment [compared with last year] means that we can maintain, renew and grow public transport in London.

“It means that we can now say to our manufacturers [that] we want all the trains for the Piccadilly lines that we originally envisaged, [and] we want more trains for the Elizabeth line [too].

As well as new trams for South London and the possibility of new rolling stock for the Bakerloo line, the Mayor mentioned improvements to signalling on the District and Metropolitan lines but not for the Piccadilly line.

But Neil Garratt, the leader of City Hall Conservatives, said Ms Reeves’ fiscal announcements were “a slap in the face for Londoners and a defeat for Mayor Khan’s claims to be sticking up for London”.

He added, “To avoid embarrassing his own colleagues, the mayor has already quietly dropped most of his asks of Government before the Budget, yet the Labour Chancellor has given him even less…

“London is a jewel in the crown of our national life. That we have lost out in this important Budget is a snub to our mayor and a sign of the lack of trust that this Government has in him.”

Chiswick and Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter said that, while it was good to have the funding for the new trains confirmed, he and other MPs whose constituencies the Piccadilly line passes through will be pressing TfL and the Department for Transport to prioritise the signalling upgrade, as the line is one of the busiest on the network, as well as providing the flexibility to stop at Turnham Green.

Signalling is particularly important for the Piccadilly line because, although it is shorter that the Central line, it has more stations (53) meaning they are generally closer together. The £2.9million investment in more modern trains to be built by Siemens Mobility in its factory in Goole in Yorkshire is expected to give a 12% overall boost to capacity on the line beginning next year with a 23% increase at peak times by 2028.

The second phase of this investment was to be the spending of £1.3billion on signalling and more rolling stock to increase the total from 94 to 112. TfL says that this part of the scheme would deliver a much bigger increase in capacity, raising it by 64% and enabling 36 trains an hour at peak time.

The latest estimate is that the number of trains will increase from 24 to 27 by May 2028 but, without the signalling upgrade, this would not enable a stop at Turnham Green although some local campaigners have argued it could allow for an extension of the hours of operation of the stop.

One rail industry insider says, “In pure engineering terms this makes no sense. The potential of the new rolling stock is wasted by not investing in the signalling and the boost to the service is a fifth of what it might otherwise have been. The last government took a political decision to commit to the new trains because that creates jobs in the north of England but there is no such gain from signalling. Perhaps the confirmation of the intent to extend HS2 to Euston without restoring the original routes in the north has made Labour feel they can’t stump up a few more billion for another project in London but what they have done is like getting a Ferrari and then using it to drive it across a ploughed field.”

It is now thought that it will be at least a decade before the Piccadilly signalling upgrade could be introduced and that would depend on the current government committing to sufficient funding in the near future. Realistically, many observers believe that it will be to 2040s before a full service will be introduced on the line.

Written with contributions from Noah Vickers - Local Democracy Reporter