We are surprised to note that the construction cost for the current bridge proposal has climbed to £330M and would like to better understand why this is and how it stacks up against other options. We assume you have evaluated the costs of a variety of bridge designs and routes before selecting that option and will therefore have costings for all reasonable alternatives readily to hand Please provide the costings breakdown for (a) total cost of delivery and (b) annual operating costs for each of the following 1. The current proposal (vertical lift, “L” shaped from Durrands park to Westferry) 2. Vertical lift bridge on a direct route ("Northern Route") between the Doubletree Hotel and Westferry, including variations on this route (eg different routings through the grounds of the Hotel) 3. Bridge proposed at https://www.rotherhithebridge.london/ for routes Durrands Park/Westferry and Doubletree Hotel/Westferry 4. Any other bridge design/route options which have been evaluated

---

Our Ref:         FOI-0694-1920

Thank you for your request received on 5 June 2019 asking for information about the proposed Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf Crossing.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) and our information access policy. We do hold the information you require.

Please find below the estimate range for the northern and central alignments.  The design has evolved over the last 2 years such that the design maturity and knowledge of the costs has improved up to the most current estimate.  This means that a direct comparison of one estimate to another would not be valid.

Alignment Construction Cost Estimate Range Notes
 Low Mid High 
Northern (Hilton to West Ferry Circus) £312 m
(see notes) £446 m
(see notes) £580 m
(see notes) No property costs were identified for this alignment since it was considered that the impact upon the Hilton Doubletree would be unacceptable and associated legal and compensation costs would be prohibitive.

Detailed estimations for alternative routes through the hotel were not progressed for the above reasons.

Central (Durand’s Wharf to West Ferry Circus)
 £250m £355 m £595 m Estimate range prior to most recent estimate below.
Current Central
(May 2019) £370m £463m £602m Most recent estimate leading to deferral of the project.

We carried out an initial calculation of potential life cycle costs which gave an annual operating and maintenance cost of £3.5million per year (£0.9 million per year, discounted) for a lifting bridge for a 120 year operation period.

Whilst this might change following the development of a full operating proposal it would be unlikely to vary significantly between alignments, since the same number of staff would need to operate the bridge on any alignment, the structure would remain approximately the same size on any alignment, meaning the same amount of steelwork would need to be painted, and power consumption would be similar etc. Due to the similarity between alignments and the lack of an operating strategy, we do not hold any further life cycle cost estimates.

If this is not the information you are looking for please feel free to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

[email protected]

Back to top

---