Labour supporters hold up ‘Saved by Sadiq’ posters – six months after TfL’s proposals to cut bus routes

TWO key bus routes at risk of being axed have been saved, along with dozens of other routes, in a U-turn announced by Transport for London yesterday (Wednesday).

Bus drivers, customers, disability campaigners and key workers will be rejoicing at the news that the 24-hour No 24 route, which runs from Pimlico to the Royal Free in Hampstead, will keep running.

The 31, which travels from Camden Town to Shepherd’s Bush, will now also continue to operate.

The scare was triggered earlier this year when TfL – answerable to London Mayor Sadiq Khan – announced a money-saving plan that would have seen huge changes to the capital’s bus map.

The transport authority and the government have been in a long-running funding dispute since losses suffered by passengers not using services during the Covid pandemic. More than 21,000 responded to a consultation on the bus cuts.

Mr Khan said he has now “identified” additional TfL funding of £25m a year from Greater London Authority reserves of unallocated business rates and council tax that helped save the routes. Only three services – 332, 507 and 521 – will be scrapped out of a proposed 22. Eleven routes will be changed, out of an original 57, leading Camden’s cabinet member for sustainability to question how genuine the threats from government were.

Labour councillor Adam Harrison told the New Journal: “This of course all came about because of the way the Conservative government strung TfL along for months on end, failing to provide the financial security needed to guarantee a good bus service for all Londoners.”

He added: “George Osborne and Boris Johnson colluded as chancellor and mayor to make TfL wholly dependent on fares income – and, when Covid saw fares dry up, the government failed to do the decent thing and step in.

“We are still examining the detail of the pared-back changes, including looking at the new 16 route which serves the north-west of the borough, and the impact of sending the 59 to terminate in the City rather than at Euston.”

The 16 bus will now run on route 332 between Brent Park and Paddington and route 59 will be rerouted to operate between St Paul’s and Clapham Park, no longer serving stops between Euston and Holborn Station, with the route extending via High Holborn instead. Conservatives claimed the U-turn had been down to their campaigning against the cuts.

Councillor Gio Spinella, the leader of the Camden Tories, said: “We express deep disappointment that the Mayor of London has put our residents through what has ended up being an empty exercise. The way Camden Labour leaped at a campaign against proposals by the Labour Mayor of London suggested to us that the end result would be pretty much what has been announced today: a full retention of the current buses.”

Mr Khan, who was claiming yesterday that it was he who had saved the routes, said: “I was furious on behalf of Londoners that TfL was having to consider reducing the bus network due to conditions attached by the Government to the funding deal.”

He added: “The strength of feeling across the capital was clear to me, and I was adamant that I would explore every avenue available to me to save as many buses as possible.”

Views on the No 24 bus received the third highest number of comments (1,609) out of all the consultations. Some 1,238 people who participated in the No 24 consultation opposed the plans to remove the service.

Geoff Hobbs, TfL’s director of Public Transport Service Planning, said: “This new funding, alongside our detailed analysis of the extensive consultation feedback and emerging travel patterns, has allowed us to significantly reduce the scope of the changes.

“The proposals that we will be taking forward are those that have a minimal impact on Londoners, as they are areas with much higher provision of buses than there is demand.”