By Sammie Jones-
London tube commuters will face hiked fares after the British government bailed Transport For London finance with £1.6m.
The bailout is made up of £1.1bn in cash with a £500m loan.
TfL would have been forced to issue a Section 114 notice had a bail out not been made. Downing Street has attached a number of conditions to the bailout including the return of a full tube service, including a review of TfL’s finances and government officials taking seats on the board that oversees the transport operator.
The London Underground has experienced a 95% fall in passengers since the lockdown, whilst the bus passengers has dropped by 85%.
Mr Khan also pledged to restore London’s Underground, bus and rail services to 100 per cent frequency as soon as possible.
Government officials are also to sit on TfL board meetings under the arrangements, with regular financial reports sent to the Department for Transport.
A mayoral source said the government had “belatedly agreed financial support for TfL to deal with Covid-19 – as they have for every other train and bus operator in the country”
Under terms, Mr Khan pledged to restore London’s Underground, bus and rail services to 100 per cent frequency “as soon as possible”.
Another condition is that Government officials will sit on TfL board meetings and that regular financial reports will be sent to the Department for Transport. Grant Shapps, said Londoners would eventually need to pay higher fares to help finance TfL.
Addressing the Daily Downing Street briefing on the Coronavirus, Transport Secretary Grant Sharps said Londoners will have to foot the bill in higher tube fares.
Shapps said the government did not want “a situation where people outside of the capital are unfairly carrying the burden, by which I mean, sadly, fares do end having to rise with inflation”.The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, earlier threatened to cut tube and bus services unless the government stepped in with a grant, after the capital’s transport authority burned through £1bn of its cash buffers.