Metronet costs taxpayers £1.7bn

[muriel_volestrangler]

Almost £2bn of taxpayers' cash is being given to London Underground to cover the collapse of the private maintenance firm Metronet.

A total of £1.7bn will be used to pay back the sum lenders made available to the company, which went into administration last July.

The deal was announced in addition to a 10-year £39bn funding package for Transport for London (TfL).

Critics said it represented a "bail out" of the firm but TfL denied this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7230893.stm

Another triumph of a public private partnership. I don't know who is right on whether this is a bail out, or whether the money would have been paid anyway, but these days I don't trust anyone in government on PPP/PFI figures.

It's a bargain at £60 per household in the UK. The entire package is a mere £1300 per household - again, in the whole country.

[Nihil]

1. How come this is from a general fund, not a London one?

i.e., why is it from the government (=all UK taxpayers) rather than
from London (=local council taxpayers)?

:grr:

[Greeby]

2. Because what London wants, London gets

And to hell with the rest of us :eyes: