Plans to extend the London Underground's Northern line from Morden into Sutton within the near future have been ruled out by council and transport bosses.

The reasons behind the decision were revealed at a Sutton Local Committee meeting, on September 6, which outlined the latest progress on the new Tramlink being proposed.

Christened the 'Sutton Link', it promises to "improve access" to transport for 59,000 people, increased employment opportunities, and bring a £500 million boost.

However, talks of bringing the Northern line into the borough were quickly quashed during an option selection process which saw 185 options whittled down to five.

Daniel Doris, Sutton Council's major scheme programme manager, said: "The two key ones [options discounted] are a Northern line extension from Morden to Sutton and a planned Crossrail 2 route from northeast London down to Kingston and southwest.

"We also worked out the potential for an extension from Wimbledon to Sutton of Crossrail 2. Both those options were ruled out at quite an early stage.

"I guess there are a range of reasons, but I guess the fundamental point is cost and the significant cost of funding both to terminate Underground trains and Crossrail 2 trains at Sutton.

"As anyone who uses the station knows, there's not room really to park trains or anything like that. That was a fundamental reason but there are other factors as well."

He later added the costs of a potential Northern line extension into Sutton are "prohibitive".

Sutton Local Committee vice-chair Cllr Ali Mirhashem also asked whether the Overground line at West Croydon could be extended into Sutton.

This could theoretically pass through Carshalton, Carshalton Beeches, Waddon, and Wallington train stations.

He said: "The only reason I mentioned this is because it would cost next to nothing to extend the trains coming from West Croydon - on the same line, on the same trains - down a few more stops to Sutton.

"It could potentially help a lot of residents get to southeast London, east London, and other parts of London."

But TfL representative Chris Lovewell again ruled this out as a potential option in sentiments later backed up by the council's major scheme programme manager.

He added: "There are certainly benefits. In terms of the overall scheme's objectives, in terms of creating better connectivity in some of the less well-connected parts of Sutton like Rosehill, that option doesn't meet all the objectives.

"There are other reasons that we didn't see it as an overall good option compared to some of the other ones we've got."

Mr Doris continued that the overall proposals are being seen as "additional" to the tram and not "isolation" because the Sutton Link will serve different areas to the current rail network.

While he agreed the rail network "does need to be better utilised", he added the discussion revolved around areas of Sutton "that currently don't have any permanent transport", "areas like Rosehill".