ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

“Eye-watering” pay rises awarded to Transport for London’s most senior bosses have sparked a major row.

Brian Woodhead, director of customer services, received a 74 per cent increase this year, adding £124,269 to his salary which now stands at £292,137.

Lester Hampson, property development director, had his pay bumped up by 39 per cent, adding £83,351 to his salary. He now earns £307,871.

Mark Wild, managing director of London Underground and TfL engineering, benefited from a 17 per cent, or £49,000, jump, taking his pay to £328,965.

The increases were detailed by Keith Prince, transport spokesman for the Greater London Authority Conservative opposition, using TfL annual accounts.

Criticising the Mayor of London, he said: “While it is outrageous that Sadiq Khan has chosen to give eye-watering pay rises to the top TfL executives, it is hardly surprising.

“This Mayor has proven time and again that he has the wrong priorities. At a time when there’s an almost £1 billion black hole in the TfL finances and capacity-boosting infrastructure projects have been put on hold, Londoners will be rightly angry to discover that their hard-earned money has been wasted on ever-increasing salaries.”

Mr Prince said the figures showed that TfL’s remuneration costs have surged from £1.9 billion in 2016/17 to £2.2 billion this year — despite the average headcount falling by 500 staff.

The Mayor’s spokesman said: “This is hugely misleading from Assembly Member Prince — embarrassing in fact. A lot of these people did not get pay rises for doing the same job, but got promoted into more senior roles.

"The truth is that Sadiq has frozen the salaries of top TfL executives for the duration of his mayoral term, and has reduced the number of senior managers earning salaries over £100,000.”

A TfL spokesperson said:

“None of these people have been awarded pay rises. Their basic pay has in fact remained frozen. Two of these named individuals were employed part way through 2016/17, so did not earn a full year salary and the third employee received performance-related pay in 2017/18 because he secured commercial income that was reinvested in the transport network.

“These figures were published by us in our annual accounts. This showed that the number of TfL staff on a salary of more than £100,000 was 11 per cent lower in 2017/18 than the previous year. Overall, senior management at TfL has been cut by 13 per cent since 2016 as part of our work to make TfL more efficient, which has included merging functions and role reductions of 2,700 over the last two years.

“This has been part of the biggest overhaul in the organisation’s history. We delivered efficiency savings of more than £500m over the last few years and will further reduce like-for-like costs in 2018/19.”