The Old London Underground Company haunts City Hall

At one of his taxpayer funded, Tory sympathiser-pleasing "consultation meetings" held in Croydon last summer Boris Johnson responded effusively to an entrepreneur in the audience who told him all about his plan to open up disused London Underground stations as tourist attractions. "It is brilliant: I love it," he declared, and on the spot ordered his economics director Anthony Browne and the LDA's Peter Rogers to inspect the bold proposal without delay.

The entrepreneur, Ajit Chambers, duly delivered the business plan of his Old London Underground Company to City Hall, but little encouragement followed. Deep scepticism emanated from the real, actual London Underground company and Transport for London. Perhaps Boris and, in particular, those to whom he'd so impulsively handed responsibility for encouraging the scheme hoped Chambers had gone away. If so, they were to be disappointed.

The Mayor recently held another "consultation meeting" for small businesses, this time at the Mermaid Conference Centre. Anthony Browne was again on the panel. The first audience participant was Ajit Chambers. The relevant section of the transcript (beginning at page 5) speaks eloquently for itself:

Ajit: I am from the Old London Underground Company. I met with Anthony and Boris a year ago to let you know that I designed a company that will make £40 million for London. The company has now been built, we have found funders; we are using the same engineering teams that are building Crossrail to open these stations up as tourist attractions and venues. I would like your help to get into the first three venues as soon as possible.
Boris: As we were walking into this auditorium, I was told that you were going to be here! It all came back to me, our previous conversation, and the various rash promises I no doubt made a year ago! I was thinking rapidly, spooling through my memory about what I had said then and what I could do to redeem those promises. I cannot quite remember what we said. What I do remember thinking was that you had a fantastic idea. Listening to Anthony, whispering away, the problem seems to be health and safety, and TfL's issues around that. If there is anything I can do to deblock it – you are rising to your feet like a rocketing pheasant! Go on, tell me more!
Ajit: One of the first calls I made...was to the health and safety consultancy that works for London Underground, run by the ex-Director of Security for London Underground. He said they could do it.

Boris: All I want to know is that your idea, in very tough financial circumstances, when I have got the government coming to me - wonderful though a new government we have - telling me that we must cut this year's budget for TfL and going forward, all I want to know from you is that we can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.

Ajit: I am going to say "yes", because I have a meeting on Thursday with my first investor for £500,000. I had meeting last week; I do not want your money, I am here to make money for London. What I need is you to help me.

Boris: I think everyone heard him say he did not want our money! That is very, very rare in my modest experience of these things, but that is a great thing and his attitude is to be widely commended to everybody. For the avoidance of doubt, if anyone wants to follow him in that, that would be great! But seriously, it sounds like a great idea, you have invested a lot of time and effort into getting it ready. I have to be honest with you, I have not thought about it from our last conversation to this one. I will now make sure that we get behind it if we possibly can to make sense of it because, from what you say...Why do you not explain the idea to the audience?

Ajit: We have identified 26 stations, disused and abandoned stations and shelters, around London within 20 minutes of the communities, and we are going to change them into tourist attractions and venues to host several business around London. If I give you an example: a business has approached me asking for 2,500 square metres and a 25-year lease, and shown me their financials.
Boris (to audience): Which businesses would like to use a disused London Underground station to hold an event? You have some punters already, you see? I bet you are glad you came this evening! There are people who want to take you up on this!
Ajit: The business model is there.

Anthony Browne: We will be in contact afterwards, but TfL were worried about the costs of the health and safety implications of remediating the stations so that they are safe for the public. But it sounds like you have covered that and I would suggest...
Boris: We want to nail that down, because he has a large audience of interested people who want to make use of these stations. Are we saying that the consortia that you can put together, they will cover the cost of remediating the stations and doing them up and making them compliant?

Ajit: Mott MacDonald has already done the health and safety review on the first site; they are ready to go down there to there to put in the health and safety with my first investor's money. The PPP that I am setting up is quite a complicated model, but I am in contact with Coca Cola and Vodafone's Head of Communications, and the Olympic Portfolio Director in order to pour in that cash tax-efficiently. Also, it means that the government can lease these sites to me and still make money for TfL from them.
Anthony Browne: Can I suggest we take it off line and follow it up?

Boris: Thank you very much.

Ajit Chambers tells me he's been promised a meeting with the Mayor's office in the next couple of weeks. I can hardly wait to find out how it goes.