Boris Johnson has been accused of giving outer-London cyclists a "raw deal" amid claims just a fifth of the capital's cycling budget has been spent in the suburbs since 2008.

Green Party London Assembly Member Darren Johnson criticised the London mayor's record as he published a report called 'Outer London's Lost Cyclists'.

But London cycling czar Andrew Gilligan defended the mayor's record, saying he had overseen "unprecedented investment" in outer-London cycling.

Mr Johnson AM said: "We are now seeing some top quality cycle lanes in parts of central London and that is very welcome, but people who want to cycle in outer London have had a raw deal while Boris Johnson has been in office," said Mr Johnson AM.

"He delayed and cancelled the superhighways he promised to link outer London communities with the centre and he failed to make the big intimidating junctions safer for cyclists."

Mr Johnson AM claimed the mayor had invested just a fifth of his cycling budget in outer London since he was first elected in 2008, despite the suburbs being home to more than half the capital's population and having in his view the highest potential for extra cycling journeys.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

His report claims just five of 19 outer-London boroughs will have had any junctions improved or any superhighway, quietway or mini-Holland scheme completed in them by the time a new mayor is elected this May.

His recommendations to get cycling flourishing in the suburbs include granting the mayor new powers to override local councils' opposition to plans for cycle superhighways on their roads.

It also calls for a boost in cycling funding, financed from Transport for London's (TfL) reserves, and for an ambitious London-wide cycling target to be set.

"Unprecedented investment"

The mayor's cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan said many outer London boroughs had already benefited from cycling improvements and there were a number of projects in the pipeline.

"The mayor has made an unprecedented investment in outer London cycling. It includes transformative mini-Holland schemes in the boroughs of Kingston, Enfield and Waltham Forest, new superhighways, town centre transformations and new cycle routes - the single biggest-ticket items in the entire cycling programme," he said.

"Further major town centre transformations are planned in the boroughs of Richmond, Ealing , and Newham as well as further new superhighways in the boroughs of Barking, Hounslow , Haringey, Ealing and Barnet."

Mr Gilligan also highlighted planned cycle superhubs in the boroughs of Bexley, Greenwich and Hounslow, and said the first phase of the Mayor's Quietway scheme would deliver cycle routes in more than a dozen outer-London boroughs.