above the access track and allowed passengers to board trains as normal, but which could be moved to allow access to the depot. Move to public ownership, 1923–1933 Despite closer co-operation and improvements made to the CLR stations and to other parts of the network, the Underground railways continued to struggle financially. The UERL's ownership of the highly profitable London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) since 1912 had enabled the UERL group, through the pooling of revenues, to use profits from the bus company to subsidise the less profitable railways. However, competition from numerous small bus companies during the early 1920s eroded the profitability of the LGOC and had a negative impact on the profitability of the whole UERL group. To protect the UERL group's income, its chairman Lord Ashfield lobbied the government for regulation of transport services in the London area. Starting in 1923, a series of legislative initiatives were made in this direction, with Ashfield and Labour London County Councillor (later MP and Minister of Transport) Herbert Morrison, at the forefront of debates as to the level of regulation and public control under which transport services should be brought. Ashfield aimed for regulation that would give the UERL group protection from competition and allow it to take substantive control of the LCC's tram system; Morrison preferred full public ownership. After seven years of false starts, a bill was announced at the end of 1930 for the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), a public corporation that would take control of the UERL, the MR and all bus and tram operators within an area designated as the London Passenger Transport Area. The board was a compromise – public ownership but not full nationalisation – and came into existence on 1933. On this date, ownership of the assets of the CLR and the other Underground companies transferred to the LPTB. Legacy In 1935 the LPTB announced plans as part of its New Works Programme to extend the CLR at both ends by taking over and electrifying local routes owned by the GWR in Middlesex and Buckinghamshire and by the LNER in east London and Essex. Work in the tunnels to lengthen platforms for longer trains and to correct misaligned tunnel sections that slowed running speeds was also carried out. A new station was planned to replace the cramped Wood Lane. The service from North Acton through Greenford and Ruislip