TSSA says the future is bleak for TfL

TSSA has condemned the new funding package for TfL saying "the future is bleak for London's transport system."

Ministers have demanded that Transport for London (TfL) make an extra £900 million of savings in 2021 on top of cost cutting measures that were already being implemented this year. In addition, TfL must draw up a plan to raise an additional £500m to £1bn of income per year from 2023.

TSSA General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, said:

"Londoners are being punished again for having the audacity not to vote for a Tory Mayor. Cuts to TfL is the last thing we need when we should be encouraging people back onto public transport once we have beaten Covid.

"The rules for this funding package have been driven by Tory ideology rather than fairness or good sense. The pandemic had the same devastating impact on the finances of TfL as on the privatised rail companies. Yet TfL have had to beg for scraps of funding, which come with draconian conditions attached whilst the private rail companies have been bailed out for 18 months with no strings attached. It’s one rule for the fat cat shareholders in train operating companies and another for publicly owned Transport for London!

"We need people to use high quality public transport as part of our recovery – especially so if that recovery is to have a positive environmental impact. It's hard to see how our country can effectively decarbonise without shifting travel from our roads to public transport.

"The future is bleak for London’s transport system. These brutal cuts will hit Tfl hard. But our union is crystal clear, any attempt to use compulsory redundancies to implement these cuts will be met with industrial action ballots."