Terrell

I've always been fascinated by how things move. Growing up on the Thamesmead estate, I'd watch the buses struggle with the narrow roads and think about how you'd design it differently. When they started building the DLR extension through Greenwich in the late 90s, I was sixteen and completely hooked. I'd stand by the construction sites after college, watching the crews lay track and install signals. That's when I knew I wanted to build transport infrastructure. Not just use it, build it.

After my HND in Civil Engineering at Greenwich University, I got hired as a site engineer on Crossrail. Five years of the most complex tunnelling project Europe had ever seen. I learned everything: ground conditions, ventilation systems, how to coordinate dozens of specialist contractors working in confined spaces hundreds of feet underground. It was the best job I'd ever had. Then the project wound down and the layoffs started. That was eighteen months ago.

When I heard about the proposed DLR extension to Thamesmead, I thought this was perfect. I knew the area, I had the tunnelling experience, and Transport for London would need engineers who understood the local geography. I called their recruitment team and explained my background. The woman I spoke to was polite but firm. The project was "subject to funding approval," she said. She suggested I contact the Department for Transport directly since they controlled the budget for London transport expansion.

The Department for Transport's infrastructure team took three weeks to respond to my email. When they did, it was a standard reply explaining they were "exploring options" for the DLR extension but had "no confirmed budget allocation" at this time. They recommended checking their website for future announcements. I checked it every week for months. Nothing changed.

I broadened my search and approached Network Rail about general transport infrastructure roles anywhere in the country. Their HR department told me their hiring was frozen due to "Treasury spending constraints." This surprised me because I knew they had major projects planned: electrification programmes, station upgrades, new signalling systems. When I asked specifically about those projects, the recruiter explained that while the technical work was still happening, they couldn't bring on additional staff until "the funding situation becomes clearer."

Getting desperate to use my skills somewhere, I contacted Bexley Council about local transport planning roles. I met with their transport officer, a friendly man named David who'd been in the job for fifteen years. He explained they'd love to progress local schemes like better bus routes and cycle lanes, but "central government funding for transport has been cut to the bone." He showed me a folder of proposals they'd developed over the past three years: junction improvements, pedestrian crossings, accessibility upgrades for bus stops. All of them technically sound, all of them needed, all of them sitting on his shelf because the Local Transport Plan budget had been slashed.

"There is no funding," David said, and I could see he genuinely meant it. It sounded reasonable. Everyone seemed to be dealing with the same problem. Money was tight everywhere.

Then I started noticing things that didn't fit.

I was walking through Thamesmead shopping centre one afternoon when I saw the old Adult Education Centre. It had been sitting empty for two years, but I'd never really looked at it properly before. The security guard was doing his rounds and we got talking. He mentioned it used to run construction training courses until "the funding got pulled." Twenty-four people had been on the last course when it got cancelled halfway through. They'd been learning tunnelling techniques, the exact skills that Transport for London said they needed for future DLR projects.

The same week, I bumped into three former Crossrail colleagues at the pub. Marcus, Sarah, and Tony, all unemployed despite having decades of tunnelling experience between them. Marcus had applied for the same DLR positions I'd tried for. Sarah had been looking at HS2 roles but was told they weren't hiring engineers with London Underground experience. Tony had even considered moving to Manchester for the tram expansion there, but the position got frozen before he could interview.

That's when I started to understand what was really happening. I could see the people who needed work. I could see the training facility that used to exist. I could see the transport infrastructure that desperately needed building. The DLR extension wasn't some fantasy project - Transport for London had published detailed route maps and engineering surveys. The technology existed, the skills existed, even the specific building where people used to learn those skills was still standing there, locked and empty.

So what exactly was it that "there was no money" for?

I started thinking about it differently. The government that prints the pound notes was telling me it couldn't find enough of those notes to connect the people standing right there with the work that needed doing right there. That didn't make sense as an accounting problem. The real question wasn't about money. It was about whether the people existed - they did. Whether the skills could be taught - they could, in that empty building in Thamesmead. Whether the materials were available - steel and concrete aren't rationed. Whether the transport links were needed - anyone who's tried to get from Thamesmead to Canary Wharf knows they are.

The limit was never the money. The limit was the willingness to spend it into the places and people who needed it.

I used to accept the excuse that "there was no funding." I hear it differently now. The Treasury that issues the currency chose not to issue enough of it to train the people who were ready to work. That's not an accounting constraint, that's a political decision wrapped in the language of impossibility. It's like a household saying "we cannot afford it," except a household doesn't print its own money. The government does.

Now I understand this isn't just my story. It's the story of every constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare. The engineers are here, the training centre is here, the transport routes that need building are here. What's missing isn't the money. What's missing is the political will to connect them.