Boroughs face real-terms cut in transport funding

21 November 2007

Local transport funding for London’s boroughs has suffered a ‘real-terms cut’ for next year, but cycling facilities and schemes improving the priority for buses enjoyed increases.

Transport for London announced £161M for the boroughs for 2008/09, the latest instalment in a five-year, £792M programme ‘to improve millions of daily journeys’. But London Councils attacked TfL for ‘failing to at least match inflation so the allocations retained their value in real terms’.

Funding for principal roads was slashed for the fourth year running, from £25M to £18.7M, reflecting the gradual completion of a programme to resurface main routes around London. But, while capital funds have not been provided for improvements to non-principal roads as some authorities have hoped, borough engineers predicted that a significant hike in funding for cycling – from £20.3M to £24.4M – would have a knock-on benefit for the highway stock.

Funding for other schemes likely to involve resurfacing remained high – £29.9M for road safety schemes, and £20.5M for bus-priority projects.

However one engineer, who did not wish to be named, cautioned: ‘Maintenance is being targeted by means other than condition surveys. We need to ensure such schemes involve the resurfacing of full road widths.’ Once again, there were big swings in funding compared with this year for individual boroughs – four received a cut of at least £1M or over, and three were awarded £1M-plus more.

Some of those receiving increases, Kingston, Haringey, and Richmond, which once again did well, with £6.1M, the second highest, had agreed to implement high street schemes ticking a number of TfL boxes, including, crucially, bus priority. Roy Thompson, director of planning and transportation at Kingston, which got £1.3M extra, said what the council wanted to achieve was ‘in tune’ with TfL’s objectives, including an emphasis on changing travel behaviour.

But others criticised the funding system, including Cllr Peter Craske, cabinet member for transport at Bexley, which got one of the biggest cuts, of £1.3M. He said: ‘We accept that TfL wants us to improve local transport. But why it should dictate how we do that?’ TfL had insisted that Bexley install vertical traffic calming for a town centre improvement in Sidcup, he complained.

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