Treasury to blame for station 'disgrace'

An aggressive Treasury drive to curb spending on the railways is responsible for the "disgraceful" failure to complete the new station, it is claimed today.

Transport experts said Gordon Brown was desperate to make savings in a budget that has risen threefold since former transport secretary Stephen

Byers dumped Railtrack into administration in 2001. "The whole of the King's Cross/St Pancras project has been like this," said Stephen Joseph, director of lobby group Transport 2000.

"It is an exact example of how not to do it. It is fair to say that no other city in the world would behave like this." He said the Treasury had also denied funding for an essential new ticket office at King's Cross and only relented when an engineers' report said the station would be a danger to the public without it.

Until the Treasury releases the £60 million "petty cash" needed to fit out the Thameslink station "box", it will remain an empty shell. Transport economist Professor Stephen Glaister said: "They have missed the opportunity to fit the station out when the roof was off. It is now going to cost a lot more."

The delay also means more disruption as engineers will almost certainly need to close down the line again to do the work.