Strikes 'have cost London £50m'

City analysts today put a ? 50million price tag on the cost to London so far of the four days of strikes on South West Trains.

With union chiefs meeting this afternoon to discuss more stoppages, the financial damage could soar.

The RMT, largest of the rail unions, has put possible stoppages of 48 hours, 72 hours or even a week-long on its agenda.

Meanwhile, strike action was today expected to spread to other parts of the UK. An RMT strike ballot being declared today is forecast to endorse 24-hour stoppages - again over pay - on Arriva Trains Northern, which runs services in the North-West.

Strike action by trains drivers, members of Aslef, is also halting one in four trains on ScotRail.

Maurice Fitzpatrick, head of economics at the organisation Tenon, regularly quoted on economic matters, said the lost time and output of the 200,000 passengers who travel into the London, mostly into mainline Waterloo station, is calculated at £10.4million a day plus the £1.5 million a day lost by SWT.

The fourth of the 24-hour successive weekday strikes continued to cause massive disruption across the South today, with SWT again laying on 100 buses to ferry in passengers. But these are being caught in heavier-than usual traffic jams as other commuters take to their cars.

Today's strike, for the first time, is ordered by the RMT over pay and the disciplining of its union officials employed by SWT. Previous stoppages have been just about pay - though the effect has been the same with the Stagecoach-owned company, which carries 350,000 passengers a day throughout southwest London, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, managing to run only between 10 and 15 per cent of its usual 1,700 services.

The Corporation of London said the strike is "hurting" the capital. A spokesman said: "Whatever the issues at stake there is no justification for inflicting this level of disruption on the travelling public"

The HSBC bank is allowing employees to work flexible hours. A spokesman said: "Branches are allowing staff to come to work early and leave early so they don't get stranded in the office. We are also encouraging car sharing."

Ian Barlow, senior partner at the London office of KPMG, said some people are now considering why they should continue to work in the capital. He said whenever industry leaders meet it is always " transport, transport, transport" which is the main topic. "It is rated above crime, above dealing with poverty."

Transport Secretary Stephen Byers, who today began his first full day of work following his controversial winter break, said of the SWT strike: "As I said yesterday disagreements of this kind in this day and age should not be settled in this manner." He said both sides in the dispute should get together to resolve it and "put the interests of the travelling public first".

But SWT and the RMT show no sign of returning to talks. Vernon Hince, the union's acting general secretary, today attacked the rail company for the full page advertisement it placed in yesterday's Standard.

The advertisement repeated accusations that the strikes were not really about pay but the demotion from train driver to ticket inspector of Greg Tucker, a senior RMT activist, for alleged safety-related offences. It also accused the union of failing to put an improved pay offer, which he said is worth 15 per cent over three years, to its members for re-ballot.

Mr Hince called the accusations "bare-faced lies". He denied the pay deal was worth 15 per cent over three years and said there was not now even an offer on the table.

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