22 Jan Action must be taken to bring Flyunder to Hammersmith, demands H&F Leader
The Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham, councillor Stephen Cowan, has urged Boris Johnson to take definitive action on the Hammersmith Flyunder project.
Transport for London and the Mayor of London are responsible for the Hammersmith Flyover and therefore any replacement scheme that might occur.
In March 2014, the BID submitted a report to the Mayor’s office. exploring the economic possibilities for Hammersmith should a tunnel be built. This was presented alongside the council’s own feasibility study.
Following the submission, Mr Johnson publicly supported the scheme, saying:
“We’re going to tunnelise the flyover, the timescale will be three of four years, I expect. Even the hardened TfL engineers looked through this, they’ve been pretty sceptical, and they thought it was a great scheme.”
However, since then TfL has stated that it wants to study the feasibility of the flyunder as part of its long-term London Infrastructure Plan 2050. That has stifled progress to move forward with the scheme and time scales previously given by the Mayor.
Councillor Cowan has asked TfL to use the project as a case study in its own right in an effort to speed up process and has pledged that the council will work in partnership to deliver it.
The preliminary feasibility study explored three tunnel options, which vary from one mile to five miles in length, and are expected to cost between £218 million and £1.7 billion. Land freed up for redevelopment by the demolition of the flyover could generate around £1bn which could be used to help fund the project.