H&C & Central Line replacement buses cost £920,000

And rising. The Mayor of London revealed last week that those draughty old rickety buses that we all have to endure every time Transport for London decides to close our tube lines has cost nearly £1 million - and it's not even the end of the year yet.

Answering a question from Lib Dem Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon, who was actually grilling the Mayor about the costs associated with the Jubilee Line, Boris revealed that replacement buses on the H&C line had cost £442,317 while those replacing the non-existent Central Line on all of those weekends had mounted up to £485,503

That makes a combined cost of £927,820 for the two lines we rely on to get to and from the Bush. The total thus far this year for the tubee as a whole is £8.2 million. Amid all the claim and counter claim about the winter of strikes we seem to have entered into has been an argument about how the tube is being upgraded, with engineering works dragging on until at least 2012 according to recent reports in the Standard.

Caroline Pidgeon thinks there has to be a better way and says this: “Such huge expenditure on replacement buses is just one further reason why a new approach to tube upgrades is necessary. Completing upgrade work in a much shorter space of time - with block closures if necessary - would be good for the Tube and passengers. TfL and the Mayor need to have an urgent rethink."

It should be remembered that this is the same Mayor who presided over £39million being wasted in work to install a lift in the new Shepherd's Bush station so that disabled people could use it. Transport for London had promised that this would be built when they closed the old central station and made us all walk to White City for months on end. They quietly dropped the pledge. £39 million in the pockets of consultants asked to look at the feasibility of building one later, they arrived at their conclusion, which was "nah." And credit to Caroline Pidgeon for forcing the Mayor to tell us about that as well - he originally tried to ignore her questioning on it.

So while we continue to shell out millions on decrepit old buses as TfL continue their unbridled incompetence at managing engineering works, disabled people continue to be denied access even to the new stations that were opened just a year or so ago. That's priorities for you.