Transport for London (TFL) has secured an eleventh-hour bailout for approximately £1.8bn from the government. The deal allows essential maintenance and ongoing investment projects that are agreed with the Government, to continue until fresh 20/21 budgets.
Several strings include the six-month deal to keep the services running. These involve scrapping all ongoing consultancy work developing the Crossrail 2 scheme and finding an extra £160m of cost savings over the next six months.
Government is also looking for TfL to bring budgets into line by 2023 by accelerating the sale of non-essential assets. The funding deal falls short of Sadiq Khan’s call for £4.9bn for the next 18 months to keep tube and bus services going.
The transport services had an impact of lost passenger revenue due to Covid-19. Discussions on funding the additional costs are being progressed in parallel to complete the Crossrail project although it was not included as part of this funding package.
TfL said these remained constructive and were expected to conclude soon.
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