Thanks to Arbour, Crossrail is all cost and no benefit for South West London

9.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 9th Oct 2007

Commenting on today's announcement that businesses in South West London will be expected to pay extra business rates to pay for the new Crossrail scheme, Liberal Democrat London Assembly candidate for South West London, Stephen Knight, said:

"The Conservative London Assembly Member for South West London, Tony Arbour, as the then Leader of Richmond Council, opposed Crossrail coming to Richmond, Twickenham and Kingston. His opposition helped kill the proposed South West London branch of this new railway.

"Thanks to him we will not benefit from a new fast train service into the city but local businesses will still have to pay for the railway through the new supplementary business rate."

Ends.

Note: Note the government today announce a Supplementary Business Rate of an extra 2p in the pound for London businesses to pay for the Crossrail Project. See: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/D/4/pbr_csr07_regionalpnlondon.pdf