Plans for a new underground line connecting north-west and south-east London via the West End and the City of London were first considered in the 1930s. They were developed during the 1950s and 1960s until a plan for the Fleet line established a route to Lewisham in 1965 with permission to build the first phase to Charing Cross granted in 1969 with the second and third phases approved in 1971 and 1972.^[1]

Phase 1 opened as the Jubilee line in 1979,^[2] but uncertainty as to the appropriate eastern destination of the line and shortage of funds meant that the remaining works were never begun.^[3] An alternative route for Phase 3 was planned and approved in 1980 that followed a more northern alignment to Woolwich Arsenal and included St Katharine Docks station. It would have been between Fenchurch Street and Wapping.^[3]

Although preparatory works were carried out for Phase 2, neither it nor either of the Phase 3 routes were constructed.^[3] When, in the 1990s, the Jubilee line extension to Stratford was constructed, it followed a route south of the River Thames.^[4]

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