OPINION - The Standard View: London needs to future-proof its transport network

If London’s transport network is not moving forward, it is falling behind. Future planning is key, and therefore Transport for London’s updated business plan is a useful insight into what passengers can expect.

TfL predicts that the annual take from fares will increase from about £4.3bn to £6bn over the next three years. This is in part due to passenger numbers continuing to recover, but also thanks to an annual — and Government-mandated — rise of roughly four per cent potentially followed by an RPI inflation plus one per cent rise for two years.

The capital’s Tube, rail and bus networks need investment. With TfL admitting it will take years to get back to normal — it is “prudently” predicting that bus journeys will only be back to 91 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by March 2026, and Tube 86 per cent by the same point — difficult decisions will have to be made.

The Mayor has limited fiscal levers to pull in order to fund future projects, such as new trains on both the Piccadilly line and DLR, the completion of a new signalling system on the sub-surface lines and the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel.

The reality is that fares, like everything else, will go up — though it should be less than the rate of inflation, as is the case for national rail. Critical will be hammering out a sensible deal with the RMT union on pensions to ensure that the Tube service Londoners are paying for is reliable, comfortable and safe.

Met’s crucial response

We all grew up thinking that if we had to dial 999, someone would be there in seconds flat. Recent experience suggests that, outside of life-and-death calls, that is a mere childhood fantasy.

The present average time taken for a police officer to arrive for lower-priority 999 calls — which includes burglaries where the suspect has fled as well as anti-social behaviour — has hit two hours and 47 minutes, nearly three times its 60-minute target.

This shows the pressure the Met is under and the need to ruthlessly prioritise resources. To that end, Scotland Yard has today announced it is to reduce the number of officers deployed to public protests and “better use resources”.

The public do not expect the police to prevent every crime. But a sense of helplessness, when something as invasive as a home break-in occurs, cannot be allowed to fester. Londoners have every right to expect that the police will come promptly when they are in need.

Richmond rolls on

What is it about Richmond-upon-Thames, with its river views, deer-filled parks, ample transport links and elegant homes that makes it such a popular place to live?

The borough, home to the likes of Holly Willoughby, Sir David Attenborough and actor Tom Hardy, has come first in Rightmove’s Happy at Home Index for the eighth year running.

Of course the Evening Standard, as London’s newspaper, has no favourite borough. That would be akin to picking a favourite child. Richmond clearly has many attributes but given the increasing diversity of the capital, perhaps it’s time another borough was given such an accolade.