Conditions attached to Transport for London’s emergency Covid funding settlement will result in capital projects being deferred and could hold back ambitions to increase numbers of people travelling sustainably, the capital’s Deputy Mayor for transport Heidi Alexander has said.
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To date the Government has given over £4Bn of funding support to TfL with the latest agreement running until this December, in return for a promise to deliver £300M of savings this financial year alone.
Heidi Alexander told the London Assembly’s transport committee that meeting the conditions of the deal will impact on capital projects and she said a budget revision process is currently under way, which is expected to be presented to the TfL board later this month.
“I would be surprised if we went through this process and there were not a significant number of deferrals of individual capital projects,” she said. “Unfortunately that is the reality that the current funding settlement has created for us.”
This could mean delays to short and medium term schemes such as road maintenance, housing infrastructure projects, investment in safe cycling infrastructure and new and upgraded stations, she said.
Together with halts to “essential” major public transport projects including Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo line extension, London’s funding challenges will make it harder to achieve the objectives of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, the Deputy Mayor added.
“If we are going to get to 80% of journeys in London being done by people walking, cycling and using public transport, the truth of the matter is we will need a massive expansion of the public transport network,” she said.
But she told the committee: “The appetite to expand and extend the public transport network in my view does not exist in Government with respect to London in the same way that it exists for perhaps reopening branch lines on railways in other parts of the country. I think that is one of the biggest hurdles we face in getting a fair funding settlement for London.”
(Photograph: Greater London Authority)
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