Boris Bikes in the Bush: £2million

Boris on tax payer funded bike

Has our Council been stumping up your cash for Boris Bikes? I think we should be told. My excellent fellow blogger over at MayorWatch has uncovered some disturbing evidence of how hard-pressed council tax payers have been funding the scheme, which is a flagship of Boris Johnson's re-election campaign, despite the fact that Barclays Bank are given lavish credit by TfL.

Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in London, has had to provide £2 million for the luxury of the bike scheme, while in the western extension which includes Hammersmith & Fulham we now know that Wandsworth were told that their participation in the scheme was “conditional on the Council making a financial contribution of £2 million.” So it seems reasonable to assume that our own Council has handed over £2 million of our cash too, as it seems to be the going rate. 

So where has this money come from? Around £500,000 appears to come from the Local Implementation Plan (LIP) scheme, under which money is allocated for local transport improvements. So in other words money that would have been used by H&F to fund other transport improvements such as bus routes or road repairs has probably been used to gain the sexy rows of Boris Bikes instead. 

I say probably because I have asked the press office about this and they haven't replied. Perhaps this article will jog their memories. My question, dear Council, is this: how much money have you contributed to the Boris Bikes scheme to bring it to the borough? Is it the £2 million bill being paid out by other local authorities? 

The other funder of the scheme, apparently, in our neck of the woods is Westfield. The Centre is to provide funding that will allow what the PR men are calling "an early taster" of the western expansion by extending Barclays Cycle Hire to the shopping centre by spring 2012. Just around Mayoral election time. Approximately twelve new docking stations will connect the existing cycle hire zone to Westfield White City and six docking stations will potentially be on the grounds of Westfield London itself.

All good stuff - but how much are they providing to the scheme? Unclear from this press release which lavishes praise instead on Barclays for upping its stake to £50 million. It was reported as being £4 million by the Fulham Chronicle at the time, but no mention was made of the contribution by local tax payers. I wonder if they even asked. The reporter who wrote the story has represented his newspaper's Twitter feed with a pic of him n' Boris ever since.

Is H&F really the only borough in all of London taking part in the scheme not contributing any tax cash? I doubt it. 

Boris spake thus at the time of the H&F announcement in July last year:

“My thanks go to Barclays for the benevolence they have demonstrated with their latest bestowal of funds and I am pleased that we can confirm the extension of their sponsorship agreement. By working together we are putting thousands more Londoners on two wheels. 

“My thanks also go to the Boroughs who have been champing at the bit for an expansion of this scheme, and to Westfield London for providing an investment that from next year will enable hordes of shoppers to make the journey to their glittering halls by the cleanest, greenest and most enjoyable form of transport available.”

Classic Boris there, but strangely no mention of the role of the Council tax payer and their contribution. Don't they deserve a bit of Boris' oratory in recognition of the large tax bill they are shouldering to support the scheme? Or is that the bit the Mayor would rather not talk about?

As MayorWatch points out:

"The fact that boroughs contribute to the cycle hire scheme isn’t some hitherto undiscovered secret, but it’s also not a widely known fact thanks in part to TfL’s publicity machine. 

"Press releases and publicity are focussed on achieving the maximum publicity for the Mayor and TfL’s preferred financial backer to the near exclusion of all others". 

"But while Londoners are encouraged to be thankful to a headline corporate sponsor, it’s their local councillors, employers and developers who are funding much of the scheme’s growth".

And as we saw from the Tory election leaflets being handed out by some of H&F's finest yesterday at Shepherd's Bush tube station, Boris intends to talk a lot about transport and cycling. So I think a fair question to ask, ahead of that election, is how much have we the taxpayers paid towards the acquisition of a row of shiny Boris Bikes outside that same tube station, just in time for polling day? 

Meanwhile the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, who get to have their branding plastered all over the bikes throughout London in an Olympic year, was paid a £6.5 million bonus last year. That's bonus - i.e. on top of his salary of £1.1 million. They have our undying gratitude.

23/2 UPDATE - EXCLUSIVE: The Council have just responded to this article by admitting they DO plan to spend £2 million of your money on this scheme. Here's a statement I have just been sent by a spokesperson:

"The council is not paying anything towards the Westfield extension of the Mayor's cycle hire scheme, which goes live next month, as Westfield are paying fully for that.  

“However, we have agreed along with other boroughs - such as Wandsworth - to contribute up to the equivalent of £2million towards the full stage 3 extension which is set to be rolled out from the Spring of 2013 as we recognise the importance of having a variety of methods of getting around our small, congested borough. 

“This will be found in a variety of ways including developer funding through section 106 and in kind support such as officer time and use of premises. 

“A large number of borough residents are already registered users of the existing scheme and more than 200 residents responded to our request for possible hire station locations in the borough, so we know that there is a large demand for an extension of the scheme.”

So now we know - £2 million is a the price tag you will be contributing to a scheme that, on current stats, few of you will use. Phrases such as "in-kind support such as officer time", for example, are surely a bit of spin - it means that officers whose salaries you pay will not be doing what you pay them to - that is a PR man's line to disguise expenditure.

There is a perfectly legitimate argument to make that this is a worthwhile investment in a green form of transport - all I have tried to do by looking beyond the PR is to unearth the true cost. Sadly other press outlets seem just to cut and paste the press releases they get sometimes.

28/2 UPDATE - ...bringing up the rear on this story, as ever, is the Fulham Chronicle who swallowed a Boris press release and didn't ask any searching questions. Their story does not refer to this blog (surprise surprise) despite the fact that building on MayorWatch's story it was my questioning that got the info about the £2 million cost to H&F. Funny how the media works - but even funnier that their advertising of this "new" story on Twitter provoked something of a backlash among locals, narked by one journalists furious Tweeting!

Boris fields searching questions from the star-struck Chronicle

Meanwhile one of their reporters continues to feature the blonde one on his newspaper's Twitter feed as he has done ever since he met Boris at Westfield when he swallowed Boris' line about the Boris Bikes not costing us a penny. Is this wise in a Mayoral election year?

19 MARCH UPDATE - Well our Council will have to formally debate the £2 million cost of Boris' tax payer funded Bikes this evening, thanks to a motion put forward by Shepherd's Bush Labour councillors Andrew Jones and Askew cllr Lisa Homan. The motion, which will be voted down by the ruling Conservatives, reads as follows:

SPECIAL MOTION NO. 1 – BORIS/BARCLAYS BANK BIKES

Standing in the names of: 

(i) Councillor Lisa Homan
(ii) Councillor Andrew Jones

“This Council believes that its reported £2 million contribution towards the Boris/Barclays Bank Bikes schemes is a terrible waste of money and determines NOT to contribute a single penny of LBHF money towards the Boris/Barclays Bank Bikes scheme. We urge the London Mayor to find private sector funding to make this scheme work and deliver value for money.

The Council believes it is a priority to cut all council taxes and this money could better be used to do that or be put towards other local priorities such as reversing the cuts to police sergeants, paying off debt, or improving other local services and facilities in line with residents’ wishes.”