Londoners will lose out yet again - Transport for London funding crisis

TSSA has reacted to today’s (Saturday) announcement that the Government has yet to agree a funding deal with Transport for London (TfL), saying “Londoners will lose out yet again”.

The latest funding settlement expired yesterday (Friday) and it was hoped that a new funding package would be announced by then. However, today TfL confirmed that a new funding package has yet to be agreed, although it stressed it could still meet its contractual obligations.

Manuel Cortes, TSSA General Secretary, said, “What Londoners needed today was a sustainable funding deal which ended the pickpocketing agreed by Johnson when he was London Mayor, that deprived TfL of hundreds of millions of pounds as its operating grant from central government was abolished in an act of Tory vandalism.

“No other capital city in the industrialised world runs its public transport network without an operating grant. Sadly, the Tories have refused to even agree a suitable funding package. Londoners will lose out yet again for having the temerity to vote Labour in huge numbers.

“Londoners have already had a ticket price rise a full percentage point above the rest of our country, forced on them by a Tory government which seems determined to run TfL into the ground. 

“Let's be crystal clear, without an affordable, accessible public transport network there is no way we can meet the challenges of climate change.

 “It beggars belief that Rishi Sunak can afford to write off £4.3 billion of Covid fraud, yet Grant Shapps cannot find enough in his budget to give TfL and Londoners a break as the Tories cost of living crisis deepens."