Fares frozen
Fares on Transport for London will be unchanged this year, although regulated National Rail fares are due to rise by 4.9 per cent in March. Mayor Sadiq Khan is proposing £123 million of additional funding to TfL as part of the GLA budget. London TravelWatch CEO Michael Roberts has welcomed the news. ‘London’s public transport services are among some of the most expensive in the world, so the fares freeze will bring some welcome relief to hard-pressed passengers,’ he said.

Safeguarding scrapped
Transport secretary Mark Harper has announced that land which had been safeguarded for the cancelled section of HS2 to Crewe and Manchester will no longer be protected from development. However, he has been unable to halt purchases of land and buildings which were already under way when the cancellation was announced last October. HS2 Ltd executive chair Sir Jon Thompson told the Commons Transport Committee on 10 January that ‘some people still want to sell. We are obliged under the compulsory purchase powers, in my understanding.’

Hitachi strike
Rolling stock engineers and fitters employed by Hitachi at Great Western Railway and LNER are set to strike from 27 January to 1 February in a dispute over pay. The action by members of the RMT and Unite could disrupt services if faulty Intercity Express trains are held in depots.

Extra Lumo service
FirstGroup’s open access operator Lumo has submitted proposals for an extra daily return journey between Newcastle and London. The extra trip, which would leave Newcastle early in the day and be balanced by an evening departure from London King’s Cross, has been proposed as part of the East Coast Main Line timetable review. Lumo was launched in October 2021 and currently runs five return services a day between London, Newcastle and Edinburgh.