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Livingstone Attacks Johnson Bus Figures

February 28, 2008 by Staff

Ken Livingstone has accused Conservative rival Boris Johnson of massively underestimating the cost of reintroducing conductors to the capital’s buses.

Speaking on BBC London radio today Mr Johnson said: “It’s absolutely true that if you are going to bring back a Routemaster, or have a new Routemaster, you would need a conductor with them. I have looked at the expense of that. It would cost £8million to have conductors on each of these buses per year”

Mr Livingstone’s campaign have dismissed the figures as “rubbish” claiming the real cost of re-introducing such conductors would be £108 million a year.

A spokesman for the campaign said each conductor “would cost around £40,000 a year once salary and add on costs such as national insurance, pension, recruitment, uniforms etc was taken into account. £8 million would therefore only pay for about 200 conductors.”

In a statement released tonight Mr Livingstone said: “If Boris Johnson can’t even tell whether a policy costs £8 million a year or £108 million a year this shows he is completely unable to run London’s transport system.”

“Boris Johnson should withdraw his claim that it would only cost £8 million a year to reintroduce conductors on London’s buses as it is completely false. He must admit that it would cost well over £100 million a year and involve huge bus fare increases.”

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: 2008 GLA Election

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