Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced an “eleventh-hour agreement with the Government” on a Transport for London (TfL) funding deal which means the proposed extension of the £15 daily Congestion Charge to the North and South Circular roads will not go ahead.
In a statement on Sunday the Mayor said the deal, which makes around £1.8 billion of Government grant and borrowing available, was "not ideal” but would keep tube, bus and other TfL services in the capital running until March 2021.
The Government backed down from imposing the £15 daily congestion charge on more than four million Londoners, as some ministers had wanted to do.
Rabbi Josh Levy, of Alyth Gardens synagogue in Golders Green, had been amongst those to speak out to the JC after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was revealed to have written to the mayor to demand he accepts a package of measures including higher council tax, a much larger congestion charge zone and higher tube and bus fares in return for rescue funding.
There was growing concern within the community that if implemented, the proposals would cut off an area such as Hendon off from Golders Green, and Temple Fortune from Finchley.
It would have also left those travelling into the area by car to visit families or attend synagogue services having to pay £15 to make the journey.
Mr Khan said on Sunday: "We fought hard against this Government which is so determined to punish our city for doing the right thing to tackle Covid-19. The only reason TfL needs government support is because its fares income has almost dried up since March.”
But last month in the House of Commons Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed the mayor for “bankrupting” the capital when asked about the proposal in the House of Commons.
The mayor later accused the PM of having “lied” when he told the Commons he had “effectively bankrupted TFL even before the coronavirus hit.”
Under the deal TfL will itself make up through cost savings the £160million gap the deal leaves from the nearly £2 billion the organisation projects it will need to run the tube, bus & other TfL services for the remainder of this financial year.
As part of the deal, London will also have to raise extra money in future years. Decisions about how this additional funding will be raised are yet to be made by the Mayor, but some of the options that he and the government have agreed to be looked at include a modest increase in council tax, pending the appropriate consultation, as well as keeping in place the temporary changes to the central London Congestion Charge that were introduced in June 2020, subject to consultation.
