Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Boris Saves the Bus




On Tuesday afternoon a delegation from Romford visited City Hall to deliver a petition calling for the retention of the 500 bus service and an improvement to public transport provision in Havering-atte-Bower. Arriva's plans to axe the route would leave the village and St Francis' Hospice without any access to public transport, despite TfL's stated commitment that every Londoner should be within 400 metres of a bus route.

The Mayor received the petition and met with myself, Andrew Rosindell MP, Cllr Michael White and other local councillors. We had a long discussion with several alternatives considered and the result is that TfL have offered to operate a service between Romford Station and Passingford Bridge, which would serve the village.

On its own it is not enough and the service really needs to be more frequent and more reliable, but at least a service will be in place to cover for the 500 when it is withdrawn in July.

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