After reading a report in last week’s Watford Observer, I see Three Rivers District Councillor Peter Getkahn is trying to raise the ugly head of Met Line extension (MLX) above the parapet once again.

Councillor Getkahn then endeavours to play mind games by supplying piffle in his attempt at spinning a yarn of an improbable story that the MLX is ‘shovel ready’ and waiting to be completed. That cock-and-bull story does not wash with me, councillor.

The MLX has been an unwarranted burden and an albatross around one’s neck for over seven years now. The MLX was a very sorry saga that had a £350 million-plus price tag placed on it by 2018 after seven years of wrangling. I would hate to think or guess what that price tag would be today, possibly double at least?

I have to draw Cllr Getkahn’s attention to a London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee meeting regarding MLX which took place on July 11, 2019. Mr David Hughes, Investment and Delivery Planning Director for TfL said evidence shows that the MLX had significant cost escalation and that there were significant risks involved with MLX. So, TfL went to Boris and said ‘Look, we don’t think this project stacks up on its own merits’.

At the same meeting, Mr Colin Porter former chair of the Independent Investment Programme Advisory Group (IIPAG) said he could remember his predecessor, as Chair of IIPAG, saying that the Croxley Rail Link (now MLX) was a project just waiting to go wrong seven years ago.

The consequences of Cllr Getkahn’s bid to raise the ugly head of MLX above the parapet once again, will mean the curtain coming down for Watford Met Station and Watford and the surrounding area will lose its second largest railway station.

Before jumping the gun my advice to Cllr Getkahn is do some more research and systematic investigations to discover why TfL said we do not think the MLX project stacks up on its own merits.

Ernie Mackenzie

Gammons Lane, Watford