London businesses denied Crossrail cash vote

London’s businesses will not get a vote on paying for Crossrail after Boris Johnson was told by the government that there will be “belt and braces” assurances on the matter.

The London mayor had written to John Healey, local government minister, to make sure that companies in the city would not have any choice over having to pay £3.5bn ($5.3bn) towards the east-west rail scheme for the capital.

In the current climate, businesses would have been likely to vote against paying the levy in spite of the long-term benefits of the project.

A spokesman for Mr Johnson said the mayor had demanded clarity that “no ballot for a Crossrail business rates supplement is needed”, given the project had already been through “decades of scrutiny”.

Under the terms of the Business Rate Supplements bill, legislation currently going through parliament, companies will get a chance to vote on schemes where they are being asked to pay for more than a third of the costs.

This should not apply to Crossrail because business will pay £3.5bn of the money for the £15.9bn scheme – equivalent to 22 per cent.

But the mayor has demanded a formal exemption from the bill to stop any opponents of the scheme mounting a legal challenge to win a vote.

There are fears that critics could argue in a judicial review that the £3.5bn amounted to more than a third of the capital costs.

But Mr Healey said there was a provision in the bill for new regulations addressing Crossrail which would be made after the bill received Royal assent in a few weeks’ time. “There is the provision for belt and braces so that Crossrail can be done,” he told the FT.