Crossrail development @ Tottenham Court Road, from Centre Point

At today’s Budget Meeting at City Hall, we discussed new funding mechanisms for infrastructure investment and in particular assessing the potential of the Community Infrastructure Levy(CIL) and Tax Increment Financing(TIF). Yes it was that stimulating!

Nonetheless is was of  interest in respect to Crossrail funding as it has a CIL charging schedule which would raise £ 300 million of the funding required between 2012/19.  My fellow Assembly Members(AM) were naturally concerned with how the various contributions will fall on their various local authorities and what benefit would be derived for their residents.

After a recent visit site of Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road, l could not but think that not enough has been done to extract the added value along the Crossrail line in central London. This was particularly apparent from the vantage of Centre point.  W e also well know that suddenly developments like the “Cucumber” have emerged in locations like Paddington when previously we haven’t known of such spectacular schemes on very tight sites in a location which hadn’t previously generated that much interest.

This could of course either reduce or add to the CIF charge required elsewhere and add to the community benefit more locally but that would of course need a more interventing Mayor which we sadly don’t have at the moment.