London Overground train. Pic: Wikipedia

“All-night” weekend services will be extended to the London Overground line by 2017, the Chancellor and the Mayor announced today.

In their overnight visit to the maintenance workers at Victoria station, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Mayor of London Boris Johnson revealed further plans for the 24-hour services, which are expected to run on the Overground line from Highbury & Islington or Dalston Junction to New Cross Gate.

The government had previously announced that a 24-hour weekend service would run on the Jubilee, Victoria, Piccadilly, Central and Northern lines by September of this year. This had meant that only some Hackney and Tower Hamlets stations would benefit: Canary Wharf, Canada Water, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Mile End and Old Street.

The release from HM Treasury today, however, showed services will not only be extended on the Overground but also the Docklands Light Railway, and the Metropolitan, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines by 2021.

The plans are part of a six-point long term economic plan, which will boost the economy by adding £6.4 billion, creating half a million new jobs and create a “24-hour London” by 2030.

The Chancellor said: “We live in a 24-hour city, and the mayor is going to set out how our plan will deliver a 24-hour Tube operation to support it.”

The long-term economic plan also aims to top off the housing shortage by building more than 400,000 new homes by 2025. A study to develop a world class concert hall led by the Barbican Centre targets to make London a hub for the world’s creative and commercial life.

Boris Johnson said: “As London’s population continues to grow, it is investments in infrastructure such as this which will ensure that the capital remains competitive and the best big city to live in.”

In the release it was revealed that all below ground sections of the Tube are expected to have wi-fi by the end of the next parliament.