Bexley Council has called on Transport for London (TfL) to consider changing the terminus of a planned DLR extension from Thamesmead and extend it to Belvedere instead
The proposed DLR extension would take the line from Gallions Reach in east London to Thamesmead on the south side of the river, via a new station at Beckton Riverside and two new tunnels. The station at Thamesmead is being designed with provision for a possible extension towards Belvedere, but that is not part of the current plans.
Proposed extension (c) TfL
Bexley Council is now calling on TfL to seriously consider extending the line to Belvedere as part of their plans and is urging residents and businesses to do the same in TfL’s ongoing consultation.
The current consultation is the final stage before TfL applies to the government for a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO), which grants TfL the legal powers to build the railway. Although the funding has not been agreed yet, getting the legal and planning papers in line ensures that work can start as soon as the funding is approved.
If approved, construction is currently expected to start in 2028 with the first trains arriving in the early 2030s.
In its public response to the consultation, Bexley Council says that TfL’s decision to terminate the DLR in Thamesmead and not “pursue a more ambitious extension to Belvedere is considered a major missed opportunity to unlock significantly more housing and employment growth in the area.”
The council argues that “Belvedere offers a much more logical terminus, comprising an existing transport interchange, at the centre of a large cluster of development sites and on the doorstep of a one of the largest but least connected industrial areas in London.”
However, the council has not costed the extension or the business opportunities from it, and is seeking funding from TfL to carry out that work.
As it happens, TfL did crunch the numbers, at a fairly high level estimate, and if the extension to Thamesmead costs £1.15-1.55 billion, then extending it to Belvedere would add around £50 million to the total project cost.
The numbers will have risen since those estimates were made.
It’s likely that the extra cost of adding the extension today would be far less than doing so in the future, but at a time when capital investment funds are tight, it would be a difficult ask for the government to approve the longer extension unless there’s developer funding or an expectation of a lot more housing being provided as a result of it.
The question is really down to whether Bexley Council can secure enough funding from allowing property developers to build blocks of flats around Belvedere station to bridge the funding gap.
Leader of the London Borough of Bexley, Cllr Baroness O’Neill of Bexley OBE 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.”
In the interim, the Council considers that there is an opportunity to extend the proposed new SL11 Superloop service or the existing SL3 Superloop service to Belvedere to ‘close the gap’ between Thamesmead and Belvedere station in the same way that the new BL1 ‘Bakerloop’ service mirrors the proposed Bakerloo Tube Line extension.