The City of London is putting together a £150m levy on large companies across London to help to pay for the much-delayed £16bn Crossrail project. The Times

The City, as a neutral, apolitical ‘honest broker’, has been charged with raising £150m of this from businesses across London and is drawing up the mechanisms to spread the cost as widely as possible. The other £200m will come out of the City’s coffers, in return for an increased grant from the Government of nearly £10m a year. The biggest 100 to 150 companies in London will be asked to provide the extra funds, the cost to be proportionate to their respective sizes.

At present the idea is to base this on rateable value. However, big retailers, with large numbers of premises across the capital, will be exempt.