Leader's Column August: The Mayor is Making Southwark More of a Transport Black Hole

If the London Mayor’s proposed bus cuts have taught us one thing, it is that he is intent on making Southwark more of a transport black hole.

Yes, we do realise that the Conservatives are largely to blame for playing political football with TfL’s funding. We urge them to give the body the money it needs.

However, our borough already has serious public transport issues.

Large parts of it rely entirely on buses for access to central London.

So, the Mayor should definitely not be proposing bus cuts that will disproportionately devastate Southwark after years of his reckless management of the area.

TfL has consistently failed to pass through improvements to our borough.

It delayed the Bakerloo line extension, paused the Rotherhithe-Canary Wharf footbridge and withdrew London’s first zero-emission hydrogen bus the RV1.

Now, it is proposing to gut some of the remaining transport links we have – buses!

These cuts will hurt Southwark particularly as four of the 16 routes being withdrawn serve this borough.

They will even result in the withdrawal of routes that TfL said would offer an alternative to the RV1, such as the 521.

At Elephant and Castle, a vital transport hub for many residents travelling within London, the amount of buses passing through will fall by over 25%.

The dreadful impact of these cuts does not stop there.

TfL accepts that its proposals will increase the amount of changes needed in bus journeys, which will be a risk for women’s safety and accessibility for disabled people.

Yet, all of TfL’s proposals will raise the likelihood that a Southwark passenger will need to change bus to complete their journey.

The withdrawal of the 521, for instance, means 20% of daily trips made on that route will now require a change.

There are also large flaws in what TfL is telling us.

In its bus cuts consultation, it states that customer numbers are below pre-pandemic levels.

But, our shocking findings show that one Southwark route the Mayor plans to cut actually had passenger levels in 2022 that were higher than before the pandemic.

Our freedom of information (FOI) request revealed that use of the 12 bus, at night, was consistently above pre-pandemic levels.

Average weekly passenger levels for the 12 between midnight and 5am from February to May this year was 15% higher than the same period in 2019.

Its usage increased by 35% over pre-pandemic levels between 23rd and 29th May 2022.

Getting rid of this bus, frankly, is an absolute insult to the nurses and doctors that use it to travel to St Thomas’ Hospital.

I, similarly, fear for the safety of women, LGBTQ+ and vulnerable people who rely on this night bus to get back home.

Not only does this disgraceful data show that we still need this night service.

It also makes me question what dodgy figures Sadiq has been looking at when deciding the fate of Southwark buses.

He certainly is not looking at air quality statistics in Southwark if he is proposing to take away more buses.

In Southwark, every air quality monitor shows pollution is beyond WHO’s acceptable levels, with many of them also breaking the UK’s own more relaxed standards.

Slashing our buses will only add to traffic on the borough’s already clogged roads, which will increase emissions that damage our health and contribute to climate change.

Sadiq is also, clearly, not aware of the needs of vulnerable people in Southwark who use cheaper transport like buses.

In our borough, 15% of all households were in fuel poverty even before the current energy crisis.

Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid saying it: these cuts will harm the most vulnerable in Southwark during a cost-of-living emergency.

Southwark Labour have always been too party loyal to criticise the Mayor for his decisions.

That is why the Liberal Democrats are the only Southwark council group fighting against Sadiq and TfL to force them to reconsider their proposals.

These cuts are making our part of the city even more of a transport black hole and we simply cannot let this betrayal of our residents happen.