Route 211’s got a new terminus

Tuesday 16h June 2024

TfL introduced the final route change in its Central London Bus Review at the end of last month – the extensive proposals launched and consulted on during the summer of 2022. It never pays to rush these things.

The delayed change involves route 211 which had operated between Hammersmith and Waterloo since its arrival on the London bus scene in 1993 when it replaced route 11 between Hammersmith and Fulham Broadway and Red Arrow route 511 between Victoria and Waterloo – hence its route number.

As you can see from the map below (produced for the 2022 consultation), the proposal was to divert the (orange coloured) 211 when it arrived in Chelsea/Sloane Square (from Hammersmith) to head south over Chelsea Bridge to Battersea Park instead of continuing via Victoria to Waterloo. The new terminus would be at the huge new development surrounding Battersea Power Station.

These changes would also have seen the demise of the iconic route 11 with route 26 diverted at Aldwych to Victoria instead of Waterloo and ‘Red Arrow’ route 507 extended from Victoria to Fulham Broadway as replacements.

In the event it was the number 507 (and the ‘Red Arrow’ brand) that was ditched and the 11 was diverted on its route from Fulham Broadway at Westminster to nip over the Bridge and terminate at Waterloo instead of its longstanding route to Liverpool Street with the 26 extension to Victoria going ahead as proposed.

That all happened back in April 2023 but since then the 211 has continued to wastefully duplicate the 11 over much of the entire route west of Fulham Broadway.

Route 211’s changed route and timetable to Battersea Power Station was finally introduced on Saturday 28th June and entails a reduction in two buses due to the shorter route length. The new arrangements have also seen a change of contracted operator which is probably why it’s implementation has been held up for over a year – the joys of franchising.

14 New Routemaster buses used on the route are now operated by Transport UK from its bus garage in Battersea rather than RATP operating it from Stamford Brook garage, beyond Hammersmith, at the other end of the route.

I took a ride on the new section of route one day last week and found bus stops plates, timetable cases and poster frames containing spider maps inside bus shelters had all been updated although one in Sloane Square had escaped and was still showing buses going to Waterloo.

That’s unfortunate as passengers in the Sloane Square area are having to cope with significant disruption to bus routes due to roadworks making Sloane Street (north of the Square)…

… and Lower Sloane Street (south of the Square) one-way southbound.

Hammersmith bound buses on route 211 which normally pass northbound along Lower Sloane Street are on an extensive diversion which misses out Sloane Square by a long way.

On my journey back from Battersea to Sloane Square I ended up having to take two buses with the nearest point route 211 (and the same applies to route 11) to Sloane Square being either the bus stop at Royal Hospital Road (before the diversion) or Chelsea Old Town Hall (after the diversion) which is over half a mile from the Square.

If this wasn’t Chelsea you’d think one of the side streets could have been cleared of parked vehicles on one side and made one-way northbound to allow for a shorter and more convenient alternative route.

Obviously it’s early days for the new link to Battersea Power Station so passenger numbers on board buses on the new section of route were very few with half a dozen at most and a similar number of confused looking passengers waiting at bus stops asking drivers what route was being taken and drivers not being able to hear due to being sealed in their cabs.

A mother and young child on the bus I travelled on arrived at the terminus at Battersea Power Station wondering where they were, expecting the bus to take them to Victoria.

And when I say “arrived at the terminus” that’s exactly what I mean as in true TfL style the last bus stop for passengers on the route is alongside the relatively new Northern line Underground station…

… where I alighted and then walked a short way along Battersea Park Road and turned left into Pump House Lane where there’s an official bus stand. I got there a minute or so after the bus had pulled up…

… and the driver, seeing me taking photos and noting me having done the same at the last bus stop when I alighted, got out of the cab and bizarrely asked me if I’d left a baby’s buggy on the bus, pointing to the empty buggy by the stairs.

Luckily at that moment the confused mum and young child came down the stairs wondering where Victoria was and reclaimed her buggy (not that I was going to walk off with it!).

Aside from communicating changes to bus routes to passengers, what this also highlighted was the odd decision to turf everyone off the bus by the Underground station when the bus is continuing much closer to where all the hundreds of flats have been, and are still being, built by the former Power Station including its retail emporium. Indeed the bus then continues right up close to the Power Station as it turns around a turning circle where there’s a nice layby that could be used to layover.

TfL has an obsession with keeping passengers as far away from buses at termini as possible, even when such layover points are closer to the traffic objective, as in this case. Ironically on the other side of the road to the ‘bus stand’ is a lay-by and temporary bus stop flag where buses start their Hammersmith bound journeys and do pick up passengers.

Although you’d never know from the absence of any information and the virtually hidden bus stop flag.

I reckon I was probably the first passenger to risk waiting there and get picked up. (I did take the precuation of asking the driver on the bus stand whether he did pick up there.)

The new residents of Battersea Power Station’s somewhat upmarket surrounding complexes of apartments have three other bus routes passing along Battersea Park Road – 156, 344 and 436 – giving them links to Clapham Junction, Vauxhall, Elephant & Castle and London Bridge as well as the new addition of Chelsea, Fulham and Hammersmith from the newly arrived 211.

But Victoria is notable by its absence as a direct bus journey possibility although Southern trains provide a link from Battersea Park station. The Northern line also provides links to Waterloo and Charing Cross.

I doubt the new route section and terminus for the 211 makes up for it losing the more substantive traffic objective of Victoria, but TfL’s network planners must have modelled the new route using its vast amount of data to ensure it’s a sensible development. Let’s hope they’ve got it right.

You certainly see some interesting sights on the new section of route including the Royal Hospital Chelsea (home of the Chelsea Pensioners) and the former Chelsea Barracks (now being redeveloped for residential use by Qatari Diar, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority)…

… Chelsea Bridge…

…Queenstown Road which was once derelict land where National Express and many NBC Subsidiary Companies’ coaches would park up while resting in between journeys on layover from Victoria Coach Station, now part of the Chelsea Bridge Wharf residential development facing Battersea Park, on the opposite side of the railway tracks to the Battersea Power Station development…

… turning into Prince of Wales Drive and going under the Southern railway lines…

… and where Battersea Park Station sits above terminating buses on route 436….

… going under the neighbouring Southeastern railway lines….

…. going past Battersea Dogs and Cats Home…

… and the new Battersea Power Station Underground station….

… and, currently, on that extensive diversion, even passing Chelsea Fire Station in KIngs Road.

As Larry & Paul might say on Broken News …. what a lovely route.

Roger French

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