A coalition of MPs and council leaders presented a budget submission to Rail Minister Jo Johnson, asking for £25M of funding before the end of the year to take forward the 16km extension.

Crossrail to Ebbsfleet Partnership chair Paul Moore said the project promises to “unlock the largest area of brownfield land in the South East” and provide more affordable housing.

“We have had a strong endorsement from the National Infrastructure Commission and London City Airport has also spoken of its aspirations for a Crossrail station,” he told a rail conference in Westminster on Thursday.

Early plans for Crossrail featured a longer route into north Kent, but this was dropped 10 years ago. Paul Moore says that while that decision “was disappointing”, in hindsight the timing may not have been right a decade ago when infrastructure budgets were facing cuts. “But with housing pressures and the pressure to unlock land, now the time is right.”

He added that the extension to Crossrail could become a “test bed for land value capture” to fund transport schemes.

Crossrail 2’s managing director Michele Dix earlier told the conference that her scheme – proposed to link Hertfordshire with Surrey – could generate £60Bn in land value uplift, with most of it from residential properties.

She was asked if Crossrail 2 – which plans to begin operations in the 2030s – could face competition for funds from the planned Bakerloo Line extension into south east London. “We have to find different funding streams to pay for these schemes,” she pointed out “rather than going to Government and asking them to give all the money for it”.