Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:02:43 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

One could develop this further - the recent "global credit crunch"
could have led TfL to believe they're going to have a harder time
borrowing money in the future, so instead they've cashed in the ?250
million and now have it to spend on other things - and there are a
great many other projects that are yearning for that cash, perhaps
particularly so in the context of the strain that Crossrail will put
on TfL's finances.

This latter point about TfL's budget overall is the key point. There are
massive pressures post 2010 despite the recently announced government
settlement. Anything that can free up cash is sensible in that context.

Not so sure about the global credit crunch - TfL generally has a very
good rating in terms of its debt and overall financial management. There
is usually a report on this in the TfL Board Papers.
--
Paul C


TfL gets an AA credit rating of course - there's not much risk that
TfL will default on their loans. The rather ill thought through point
I was trying to make is that there might simply be less money out
there in the market to borrow - but of course in times of trouble
lenders will be especially attracted to very low risk borrowers such
as TfL.


P.S. An almost totally off topic question - should I avoid using the
pound sterling symbol "?" when posting to usenet? (I note that Paul's
post above has transferred the symbol into a "?" question mark.)