Covid: Tyne and Wear Metro 'lost nearly £1m a week' in lockdown

The prospect of cuts has been raised if future government cash does not materialise, a committee has heard

The Tyne and Wear Metro was losing almost £1m every week at the height of the national coronavirus lockdown, officials have heard.

At its lowest point it saw just five per cent of its usual passenger numbers as measures to halt the spread of Covid-19 took their toll.

While usage has recovered, bosses still face a battle to balance the books due to a loss in income from ticket fares.

Metro has already received three government bailouts totalling £23.5m.

However it was not until last week that North East transport bosses were told a fourth payment had been confirmed to tide it over until 18 January, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Further deals are expected to cover more of 2021.

'Recovery stalled'

In normal times, Metro's funding from the government is roughly matched by its income from ticket sales, with a small top up from the region's local authorities.

"Initially during lockdown the loss per week was about £900,000," said Paul Darby, deputy chief finance officer at the North East Combined Authority (NECA).

"As we've come out of national lockdown Metro is still running an operational loss of about £500,000 per week.

"That rate of recovery has stalled as we've imposed more local restrictions from late September."

Financial planning for 2021/22 is working on the assumption government aid will continue at current levels, but the prospect of cuts has been raised if cash does not materialise, a joint North East transport committee heard.

Newcastle Liberal Democrat councillor Greg Stone said: "We can see there's some serious consequences in terms of potential cuts to public transport, which I don't think anyone wants to see.

"None of the authorities are keen to spend more money than they have too, but I don't see how we can go on unless we have cuts to services."

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