A village just outside London’s boundary is in urgent need of a bus service, a local councillor has warned, as authorities on either side of the border refuse to pay for one.
Netherne-on-the-Hill, in Surrey, is located just outside the London borough of Croydon, but despite its population of around 1,500 people, has no scheduled public transport links.
Before the pandemic, the village had its own community bus service, but this was suspended during the Covid lockdowns and never reinstated.
In order to travel into London, residents now have to walk about a half a mile into the neighbouring village of Hooley and catch a bus from there to Coulsdon, where they can then change onto a train.
“A lot of people use Coulsdon South - it’s a really good station, with fast trains up into London,” said local councillor Shasha Khan, a Green Party member.
He said the lack of a bus in Netherne was a particular issue for “elderly people who need to get to GP appointments in Coulsdon”, but also a problem for commuters, adding: “When you’re coming home from work and it’s dark at this time of year, it’s an unpleasant walk - and I’ve spoken to women who are really uncomfortable about doing that walk, so there are so many reasons there needs to be a bus up there.”
Councillor Khan last year worked with Sian Berry - then a London Assembly member and now Green MP for Brighton Pavilion - to submit a petition to mayor Sadiq Khan with some 246 local signatures, calling for Transport for London’s (TfL) 463 bus service to be extended from Coulsdon to Netherne.
In a letter responding to the petition in June this year, London’s deputy mayor for transport, Seb Dance, said TfL had “carefully assessed” the cost of extending the 463, and had found it “would cost around £1 million per year”, assuming “a three bus per hour service extended from Coulsdon Town station”.
He added that TfL had “also calculated rough fare income and projected that, based on the settlement of roughly 1,500 people, it would cover only a fraction of this cost”.
The deputy mayor said: “TfL does not have a long-term funding settlement from the Government, relying on one year capital funding deals instead.
“Given this context, TfL does not have the budget to extend the route at this time, but it remains open to discussions with Surrey County Council, who are responsible for bus services in the area, about how services could be provided to residents of the county and how these could be funded.”
Approached for comment by the Standard, Surrey County Council adopted a similar position, saying that its officers “remain in communication with Netherne Residents Association and TfL, and although Surrey County Council (SCC) unfortunately does not have the budget available to fund a TfL bus service, SCC remain open to working with TfL”.
Councillor Khan said the mayor was “playing politics” and said he had recently heard from local transport experts that a shuttle bus service could theoretically be provided on an hourly basis between Netherne and Coulsdon at a cost of roughly £400,000 per year. He argued that TfL should take the lead on delivering such a service.
The expansion of the Ulez to cover all of Greater London last year, and the fact that Surrey residents did not have access to the mayor’s scrappage scheme, had made things harder for some people forced to rely on their cars, he added.
Since September, the village’s residents have been able to use the Surrey Connect on-demand bus service, but this currently only provides for journeys into the Tandridge district of east Surrey, rather than crossing the London border into Coulsdon - and it has to be requested in advance, on a first come first served basis.
The lack of any scheduled service to Coulsdon was recently raised again by Caroline Russell, Green group leader at City Hall, who asked in a written question to the mayor if he will “instruct TfL to work collaboratively with Surrey County Council to provide a TfL bus service to Netherne village, similar to the service TfL provides for other locations in Surrey”.
The mayor reiterated TfL’s estimate of £1m, and said a bus link was not currently “viable”, though TfL remained “open to discussion” with its Surrey counterparts “about how services could be provided”.
Ms Russell said: “No one should feel forced to own a car to travel around London. After the cuts to buses seen during the mayor's tenure, I’m saddened but not surprised to see that people living just outside the boundary of London are unable to reach essential services in our city by public transport.
“If the mayor is serious about his environmental, accessibility, and transport goals, then I would hope he could work with the Government and Surrey County Council to find the modest funding required to provide vital bus services across the border.
“Netherne-on-the-Hill, and the many villages immediately around London, deserve these vital transport links.”
