The proposed station at Surrey Canal Road still hangs in the balance despite an outline agreement between Lewisham and Transport for London (TfL). TfL have now agreed that the station is value for money according to their criteria, and if the £7 million already offered by the Department for Transport (DfT) is made available the station can be built for under £10m, with Lewisham Council making up the balance of the cost by foregoing part of their TfL transport grant.

The decision from the DfT is still to be announced but we remain optimistic that they now agree with the business case.

It is not too late to secure a station as it can be built with the rest of the line as part of the contract to be awarded by TfL. But time is very short indeed. If there is no favourable decision by DfT in the next few weeks it will be impossible to include the station in the contract.

It is important to take the long term view on this station. In today’s economic climate, it is understandable that cuts are having to be made to transport projects. But with the East London Line extension approved and set to pass directly though the area, it makes economic sense to build the station at the same time.

By building it now, we will save on much greater potential future costs, because the logic and demand for a new station will not simply go away – if anything, demand will simply increase. Building a station later will be much more expensive as material and labour costs will rise and it is much more complex to reverse-engineer a station onto a line that has already been built without one.

This station will be well used and TfL’s own studies have shown that it will actually have higher demand than several stations both new and existing on the East London Line. There will also be sufficient capacity on the trains for passengers from Surrey Canal Road station.