W hen residents of Brunswick Park, north London, discovered there was to be a new bus route running past their front doors, they were furious. Worries about noise, pollution and danger were aired on street corners and in local meetings. The possibility of house prices plunging when the No 382 started trundling past every 15 minutes was another risk, warned estate agents.
When the first bus did set off from Mill Hill East Tube station to Southgate earlier this month, angry residents parked cars to block its passage. It took police intervention to get it through. More protests may be planned — but the truth is that opposition is now probably fruitless.
Brunswick Park’s residents are not an isolated case. Mayor Ken Livingstone’s much-vaunted plans to get Londoners out of their cars and onto the creaking bus fleet will see 40% more bus passengers by 2011. Already, every weekday 6,500 scheduled buses carry 5.4m passengers on 700 different routes. Now 60 route upgrades are planned — including 25 completely new ones — according to a document by Transport for London (TfL), the authority that deals with the capital’s transport.
Many agents agree that a bus route outside your front door will send your house price diving. In Notting Hill, west London, residents of Arundel Gardens recently became concerned when two bus routes were temporarily diverted down their road from nearby Elgin Crescent — whose homeowners lobbied the council to keep the buses diverted permanently.
Their efforts were unsuccessful; Kensington and Chelsea council says there are “no long-term plans to use Arundel Gardens as there is an existing parallel route”.
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Had the bus route changed, however, Lucy Crawford, head of sales at Mountgrange Heritage, says property values would have been affected. Flat prices in Elgin Crescent are currently about 10% lower than in Arundel Gardens. “The properties are much the same. The only difference is that Elgin Crescent is usually a much busier road because of the bus route on it.”
According to Crawford, although not many buyers specifically ask if a property is on a bus route, many ask how busy the road is. And with up to eight buses an hour on main routes, plus priority traffic lights, bus routes are likely to be very busy indeed.
Michael Spicer, a negotiator with estate agent Jon Wilcox, says a bus stop outside your house can be a deal-breaker. “I have had people not even bother opening the front door when they see the stop,” he says.
So what can you do to stop a bus route down your road? Technically, not a lot. The problem is that residents have no automatic right to be consulted. Statutory consultation is limited to the borough councils, police and emergency services.
Livingstone’s transport commissioner Bob Kiley recently told the London Assembly: “There’s an amazing amount of route modification that goes on in any given period of time. I would not like to see consultation occur that gets in the way of any progress.”
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But many councils do consult residents and feed their views through to TfL. The most effective way of trying to stop new routes is therefore to lobby the local council.
A battle over changes to a bus route in Merton is still going on, but Russell Makin, cabinet member for transport on Merton council, says: “At Merton we carry out public consultations on all proposed routes . . . and do our utmost to take into consideration residents’ views when responding to TfL.”
However, he adds: “TfL decides whether to run the service or not.”
Residents in Winchmore Hill, near Southgate, were horrified by plans to extend an existing bus route, which would have meant sending double-deckers down narrow lanes around a green. They mounted a vigorous campaign against the plans.
Committee member Andrew Morgan says the residents’ association was able to present a strong case against the changes by conducting traffic surveys and monitoring bus usage to show there was no need for the new route. The council and local politicians backed the association and eventually the proposals were shelved.
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There are now more buses on London’s roads than at any time since 1965, and patronage is rising at its fastest rate for more than 50 years. With Livingstone’s expansionist plans underway, increasing numbers of Londoners will find themselves with polluting buses driving past their front doors every 15 minutes of the day. If it happens to you, be prepared for either a long fight — or a phone call to the removal men.
For bus route changes, see www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/cib_report.shtml