Four and a half million commuters across London will see their fares go up this month, proof that the Mayor’s supposed ‘fares freeze’ is a farce.

Fares have increased by 1.9%, despite London’s Labour Mayor’s clear promise during the Mayoral Election that ‘Londoners won’t pay a penny more in 2020 than they do today’.

There are many ways to fund investment in our crumbling public transport system in London, but London’s Labour administration has no solution to this problem.

Vital upgrades to the Northern and Jubilee lines have been scrapped, graduate schemes within TfL have been sidelined, and the Taxicard scheme, which offers subsidised travel to disabled Londoners, has been cut. Huge sums are squandered on ‘vanity’ projects such as the now infamous Cycle Super Highway 9, which even TFL has admitted will increase traffic pollution and add further delays to already badly clogged roads.

Councillor Joe Carlebach commented:

"Amongst many members of the travelling public, businesses of all sizes and other key stakeholders, TFL already has a poor, overly bureaucratic reputation. This bungled announcement does nothing to improve their standing or the critical transport services they are charged with delivering.

"Also disappointing are the inflation busting rail fare rises announced by the Department of Transport today. There is a good case to be made for fare rises, but not when the service many members of the travelling public experience is so poor. Late trains, frequent station closures, train cancellations and lack of seating all add up to a bad deal. I would very much prefer to see a formula that equated fare rises to tangible objectives and clear achievable customer satisfaction targets.

"Without this sort of correlation we end up with “taxation without representation” which for me is definitely not a Conservative principle. London's long suffering travelling public deserves better than this."