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Metronet is facing administration

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Mojo

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6900360.stm

Tube maintenance company Metronet is facing the threat of administration unless there is a last-minute rescue.

Metronet is part of a public-private partnership (PPP), which use private sector money to fund public projects.

It had asked London Underground for £551m to cover extra costs to upgrade parts of the Tube system but instead was awarded £121m by the PPP regulator.

Metronet said that its board would be meeting before making a statement either late on Monday or on Tuesday.

'Intervention'

"Metronet has been a disaster for its owners, WS Atkins, EDF, Balfour Beatty, Thames Water and Bombardier," the BBC's business editor Robert Peston said.

"Unless there's a last minute intervention by the Treasury this morning, Metronet will go into administration today," he added.

"The losses for Metronet's lenders may run to hundreds of millions of pounds."

Metronet is responsible for maintaining London's Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, District, Circle and Metropolitan tube lines.

The company had planned to invest £17bn over the next 30 years under a PPP scheme. However, it is estimated that there will be an overspend of as much as £2bn by 2010.

Metronet has been embroiled in a battle over who should foot the bill.

Transport for London (TFL), the transport authority that controls London Underground, said that the overspend was down to mismanagement and a failure to control costs by Metronet.

Metronet has countered that TFL and London Underground have changed the specifications outlined in the contracts, asking for higher quality work and more expensive upgrades.

All change

Should Metronet go into administration, then there would be very little impact on consumers and travellers, London Underground said.

Metronet is not responsible for the day-to-day running of the underground train system, and London Underground said it would look to ensure that services and maintenance carried on as normal.

At the same time, Metronet would continue to function as a company, albeit run by administrators that would be appointed at a later date.

However, one significant change would be that TFL rather than Metronet would probably be left to pick up the bill for any overspending on maintenance or renovation work, analysts said.

The collapse of Metronet would also be a blow to the UK's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown as he pushed through the PPP for maintaining the Tube as Chancellor, the BBC's business editor said.

Analysts added that the fate of the Tube's maintenance contracts, and whether they should be run by private or public companies, could become a hot political topic as Londoners are asked to vote for a new Mayor.
 
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Tom

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Stay with GBRf, obviously. ;)

They'll still do Met renewal work on the Met tho, I guess.
 

DavyCrocket

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Hooray! Perhaps LUL will get a competent company to maintain them!

So long as it's not TfL it should be okay.... Ken those morons away from the place.... LUL have not improved since.... And Central Services (HR etc) have got a hella of a lot worse!
The worst thing about them being in Adminstration is that the free breakfasts that they used to pay for have stopped :shock::shock:
 

Mojo

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Some newspapers here seem to think that TfL is in talks with the Government about it being brought back under the control of TfL, but nobody is commenting.
 

Snapper

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Some newspapers here seem to think that TfL is in talks with the Government about it being brought back under the control of TfL, but nobody is commenting.

Hang on. It already is under the control of TfL. I presume you mean TfL taking over the two PPP contracts held by Metronet which the administrators are trying to find buyers for?
 

DavyCrocket

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Well it appears that one of the actions that Metrodebt's Administrators is to take away the cars that some Signals staff use to get to incidents!!!
So they now have to get a train which may take some time if there is a failure! If they use the bus, they'll have to pay - unless they are ex-LUL........

I think that this is what Ken Livingstone was talking about being "the best thing".......
 

Tom B

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Well it appears that one of the actions that Metrodebt's Administrators is to take away the cars that some Signals staff use to get to incidents!!!

Let me guess, have the beancounters cars been taken away?
 
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