FA offers England football fans a refund

Millions of commuters face two days of severe travel disruption in London, with few Tube services running and extra congestion on buses and mainline trains as people seek alternative ways of getting to work.

Thousands of football fans will struggle to get to Wembley for tonight’s World Cup qualifier between England and Andorra. The cost to business in terms of lost working time from the 48-hour strike, which started at 7pm yesterday, is estimated at more than £100 million.

Last night service was completely suspended on three lines and there were severe delays to two others. The strike is expected to cause even more disruption than the previous Tube stoppage in September 2007 when two thirds of services were cancelled.

That strike involved only Tube maintenance staff but this one also includes drivers and station staff. Half the Tube’s 20,000 workforce have been called out on strike. The dispute centres on the union’s opposition to compulsory redundancies in a restructuring of back-office jobs.

London Underground spent yesterday afternoon in talks at the conciliation service Acas with Bob Crow, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union. Hopes of a compromise had already been undermined on Monday night when the RMT demanded the reinstatement of two dismissed drivers as a new condition for calling off the strike. One driver had been dismissed for opening the doors of a Victoria Line train on the wrong side and then lying to investigators about it. The other is due to go on trial this month for theft.

Peter Hendy, commissioner of TfL, said: “A gun was held to our heads by a demand that said, ‘We’ll call off the strike if you reinstate our two sacked members’. At a time when modernisation is the name of the game, the RMT is intent on holding things back.”

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, had refused to back down over a plan to cut 1,000 Tube backoffice jobs to help to save £2.4 billion.

TfL is making substantial cuts to Underground operations and enhancements because it has inherited billions of pounds in extra costs from the failed part-privatisation of the Tube.

Mr Johnson announced alternative travel plans promising “up to 100 extra buses on key routes”, yet this is a tiny increase to a service that involves 8,000 buses. The capacity of river services will be boosted from 1,500 to 8,000 an hour, with a free peak shuttle service. The Tube carries 3.5 million passengers a day.

Oyster pay-as-you-go will be accepted on all national rail journeys within Greater London during the strike.

From 8am to 10.30am taxi drivers will run a marshalled, fixed-fare shared taxi service for the main rail destinations, Waterloo, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Marylebone, Paddington and Euston. Temporary cycle racks will be set up in Trafalgar Square, The Mall, Waterloo, London Bridge and Potters Fields Park.

Despite being committed to halving the congestion charge zone next year, Mr Johnson said that he would not be relaxing the £8 charge during the strike because it was needed to keep roads clear for buses. He said that TfL roadworks would be suspended “where possible”.

LU had made an improved pay offer during talks on Friday, tabling a four-year deal worth 1.5 per cent in year one and the rate of inflation plus 0.5 per cent in subsequent years, and an alternative offer of a two-year deal of 1 per cent now and inflation plus 0.5 per cent in year two.

A Tube driver’s starting salary is more than £40,000, while a station supervisor earns £35,000-£39,000, according to TfL. A station assistant can start on £29,000.

John Cridland, the CBI Deputy Director-General, said: “It is regrettable that a small minority of people are prepared to inflict this kind of disruption on others at such a difficult time.”

Caroline Pidgeon, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly transport spokeswoman, said: “The RMT have long been spoiling for a fight. This is a pointless strike which will inconvenience millions of people.”

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