Is Tube investment being cut back?

We've started, so we won't finish, should be the catchphrase at Newbury Park. Although the London Underground fare increases are supposed to "sustain vital investment", Matthew V found the opposite at his local station.


He said: "For the last few months at least Newbury Park has had major construction work to install lifts. Signs went up last week that they are halting the work due to lack of funding, and yesterday there were severe delays for a while due to 'obstruction on the tracks'.


"From the looks of things it might have been to remove some of the tools etc, but the platforms still have massive blue hoardings limiting the space available – which was bad this morning as the station, which is a major hub for the Essex and areas East of London (it's got about 500 car parking spaces), was closed for a while. I'm a little annoyed at this since having lifts would really make the station fit as a transport hub, and would mean I didn't have to keep offering to help women up stairs with buggies (there are no escalators).

Is this just a sign of the recession? Money being diverted to pay increases for drivers? Given the price hikes I've got a feeling it can't be due to general lack of money!"

Has anyone else seen any instances of this? I know that improvements at certain stations seem to take longer than planned to complete. But it seems unusual to say that work is going to be stopped because of lack of funding just before we're about to have a fare increase. Not the greatest timing.