Tube bosses refuse to give strike refund

Tube bosses have refused to give commuters refunds for a two-day strike, saying the walk-out was not their fault.

London Undergroundwashed its hands of any responsibility because the strike involved staff from Metronet, the private sector consortium which went bust last year.

The strike last September caused widespread disruption to hundreds of thousands of commuters, particularly on the Circle, District, Metropolitan, Central, Bakerloo and Victoria lines. London TravelWatchin its annual review published-today, said the row resulted in a large number of complaints from passengers.

Value for money, Oyster cards and problems with bus journeys continue to pose the main problems for passengers, said Travel-Watch.

Complaints about Oyster cards do not include last week's meltdown of the system when automatic-readers at the stations malfunctioned and ruined more than 60,000 cards. The watchdog received 1,500 complaints from passengers over a range of issues - but the number hides the real extent of the problems.

TravelWatch chairman David Leibling said: "Unfortunately, the single biggest issues in our postbag this year were the ones we see time and time again; value for money for rail users, problems with Oyster cards and the quality of bus journeys." Commenting on LU's refusal to accept responsibility for the Tube strike ticket compensation Travel Watch spokeswoman Jo de Bank said: " We were unhappy that the Metronet strikes were not deemed to be related to LU."

A TfL spokesman said: "Under the terms of LU's customer charter, refunds are not payable for delays caused by external factors or third parties, including strikes."