Transport for London have proposed significant changes to the buses in our area.  The proposals are on their website. 

A consultation has now begun. Note that the closing date has now been extended to Sunday 20 December.  Please do comment through the TfL website (see above).  We have concerns about some of these changes and have already commented to TfL.  TFL will also be at the Sutton Local Committee on 12 November to discuss.

The main changes (with our comments in italics) are:

• The S4 is renamed as the new S2, in our area.  It will run three times an hour (instead of twice) during the day, and there will be a twice an hour Sunday service. 

We are pleased to see this, in line with requests we have made in the past. The busiest times for this bus are during the school run.  In the early afternoon the bus is already running at three times an hour and is often crowded.  Is there any possibility of increasing the frequency further at these times?

• The 164 will be extended from Sutton station down to the London Cancer Hub at Belmont.

We welcome this.

• The S3 and 470 will be switched, with the S3 running dwn Sutton Common Road and the 470 down Stayton Road.  However there will be no service in Dibdin and Marlborough Roads.  The 470 will run all the way down Stayton Rd and will enter and exit the by pass at that end.

The service to Dibdin and Marlborough Roads is a vital service which will be sorely missed.  These roads have a high number of elderly people who rely on this service.  Dibdin Road is very steep and can be slippery in icy weather for people to walk down to Stayton Road.  We know that it has been difficult for buses to pass parked cars in these roads.  However Sutton Council is addressing this – next month, a single yellow line effective during bus hours is to be added to the section of Dibdin Road where the problem occurs.  We are also concerned about buses entering Stayton Road from the by-pass.  A system will be needed to ensure other traffic does not enter too, as this blocked entry has been very successful in reducing traffic in the road for many years.

• Only double deckers will be used on the 80 route, due to the popularity of the service.

We are very concerned at this proposal, as the 80 bus causes problems for residents in Collingwood Road.  The noise and vibrations caused by the buses (and other heavy traffic) keep residents awake and cause cracks in their walls.  We have been raising these issues with Go-Ahead and TfL for some years.  Traffic engineers tell us that vibration is transmitted through the air, rather than the ground, so double deckers will have a bigger impact than single deckers.

If there is a need to increase capacity, can we ask that the route is split, with half the buses being routed via Gander Green Lane, or Sutton Common Road?  Can we also ask that the frequency of early morning and late night buses is reviewed, and the frequency and start/ finish times is reduced if possible?  The 80 bus service is valued in Collingwood Road, and we want to encourage people to use buses and not cars, but the bus runs from 5.20am to 1.40am, and at those ends of the day it has a frequency of 15 mins in each direction, that is eight buses in the first and last hour.

We have also asked that the frequency of Not in Service buses, which run through the night, is also addressed.

We have also asked TfL to explore the opportunity to run a service along the by-pass.  With the potential opening of a new High School at Rosehill Park, accessible from the by pass, and the nearby school at Glenthorne, there is an opportunity to connect St Helier hospital to Cheam and the Cancer Hub at Belmont, avoiding Sutton Town Centre.

Also we have asked them to look at the future siting of Sutton bus garage, which is in the middle of a residential area – its siting is one of the causes of some of the Collingwood Road problems.

We have also asked them to restore the Go-Sutton bus.