News / Transport
Bristol underground would cost £18bn, secret report reveals
Bristol will never have an underground because it would cost up to £18billion, a bombshell secret report reveals.
The eye-watering figure, in an unpublished document by consultants for the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), flies in the face of previous estimates of £4bn and repeated claims by mayor Marvin Rees, who has long championed a tube network as part of a mass transit system.
In response, Rees says he “totally rejects the report and its content” which he blames on a “flawed approach” by WECA.
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The revelation about the massive price tag comes just days after Labour metro mayor Dan Norris, who is in charge of the region’s transport as head of WECA, categorically said “No” when asked on BBC Points West for a one-word answer as to whether the city would get an underground.
Then on Thursday, fellow Labour mayor Rees hit back in a Bristol City Council press release, saying the combined authority’s “lack of ambition is staggering”.
The report’s findings, which are likely to be hugely embarrassing for Bristol’s mayor, have not been made public but have been obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The study, by multinational consultancy giants WSP, concludes that an overground mass transit network would cost between £1.5bn and £1.8bn, but an underground would set taxpayers back ten times that amount – £15.5bn to £18.3bn.
That means a tube network is likely impossible as the funding could never be found.
Plans for a mass transit system for the city region with a mix of overground and underground networks were first announced by Rees in his State of the City Address in 2017 and have remained an election campaign pledge.
Back then, cost estimates were about £4billion and WECA allocated £1.5m three years ago on consultants to look into whether it was possible.
Bristol’s mayor published links on his blog last year to two of the studies that appeared to be favourable, but the third has never officially seen the light of day.
A spokesperson for Rees said: “We totally reject the report and its content.
“It was commissioned by the West of England Combined Authority and their brief for WPS was initially challenged by Bristol City Council.
“The costs are far removed from previous estimates and are a response to the flawed approach that some in WECA have taken to this point.
“Buses alone are not the answer to Bristol’s decades of transport failure, which we set WECA up to solve not ignore.
“Bristolians need and deserve a mass transit system, so the Mayor of Bristol will continue to strongly argue for the next tranche of delivery.
“Failure of leadership to deliver a mass transit system fails our city and our region.”
Rees, who will be making the case for another £15m to be spent developing mass transit at the next WECA committee in March.
Norris has declined to comment.
Main image: Bristol City Council
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- Critics of Bristol underground plan need to ‘stop talking the city down’
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