London Underground ups heat on arbiter

London Underground (LU) yesterday repeated calls for Tube Lines to be responsible for raising the money to fill the funding gap facing the network's upgrade plans.

Chris Bolt, the arbiter of the public private partnership between LU and Tube Lines, will rule later this month on which organisation must raise the £460m shortfall between the £4.46bn that Mr Bolt has ruled Tube Lines is to be paid, and the £4bn that LU says it can afford. Mr Bolt's early guidance is that public sector LU should raise the money, because it will be cheaper. But LU says only if Tube Lines is forced to prove its creditworthiness can the public be sure its plans are sufficiently robust.