Safety at risk with TfL ‘managed decline’, says TSSA

Following reports of the government’s funding offer to Transport for London (TfL) being “so complex that TfL has not received a final draft of the settlement yet”, transport union TSSA has raised safety concerns and demands the government end its deliberate strategy of ‘managed decline’.

Reports today show that the £3.6 billion capital funding offer - made on 22 July - is fiercely complex, implying multiple strings are attached to further emergency funding for London’s vital transport network.

In the absence of a proper funding offer, TSSA – which is the biggest union in TfL – has warned that ‘managed decline’ will “lead to cuts in services and affect safety and the ability to deal with incidents across the whole of London's transport network.” 

According to New Civil Engineer, “the board papers reveal that the offer is so complex that TfL has not received a final draft of the settlement, so a recommendation to the board cannot yet be made. The board papers say that TfL sent back some revisions to the initial draft funding settlement but, at the time of the meeting, had not had a response.”

TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: “This shows the Department for Transport's deliberate strategy of managed decline for Transport for London, which will lead to cuts in services and affect safety and the ability to deal with incidents across the whole of London's transport network.

“This is the government's crisis, caused by their withdrawal of public funding for TfL since 2015. This is something that no other major city anywhere in the world is stupid enough to do. It ignores not only the environmental imperative to fund public transport in the capital but also the interests of London’s businesses - particularly the leisure and night-time economies - and most egregiously puts a disproportionate financial burden to fund transport on the poorest Londoners, some of whom are our key workers who keep London running.

“The government must stop playing political games with London’s transport network and fund TfL properly for the benefit of Britain’s communities and economy.”

TSSA is the biggest union in TfL, representing staff across the rail, tube, bus and support networks. The union is calling for proper funding for the capital’s transport.