What’s the point of consulting?

Saturday 7th June 2025

TfL are introducing another cut to its beleaguered central London bus later this month involving a diversion to route 205 which currently links Bow, Mile End, Whitechapel and Aldgate with Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Marylebone and Paddington stations as well as St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

From a date yet to be confirmed later this month the western terminus will change from Paddington to Marble Arch with buses diverted via Baker Street/Gloucester Place and the western end of Oxford Street (shown in red on the map below). This replaces the western end of route 30 (a dotted blue/white colour on the map below) which currently runs between Hackney Wick and KIngs Cross, St Pancras, Euston and Marble Arch but is being curtailed to only run as far west as Euston making a useful saving for TfL’s challenging finances.

The change means there’ll no longer be a direct bus linking Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston stations with Marylebone and Paddington stations and St Mary’s Hospital. TfL say passengers currently using route 205 to reach Paddington can change buses along Marylebone Road and catch a 27 instead (green on the above map).

Before enacting a change of this significance TfL is obliged to go through a formal consultation process and did so between 21 October 2024 and 10 January 2025. The overwhelming response to the consultation was against the proposed cut and rerouting yet TfL are going ahead regardless. This highlights the useless nature of these formal consultation processes which end up being a tick box exercise and a very costly, bureaucratic and resource intensive exercise too.

All told 571 stakeholders were consulted. An eclectic mix of potentially interested parties ranging from Abeny Public Hall to Woodgrange Infant School including groups as diverse as Attitude is Everything, BT, Catholic Parish of the Royal Docks, Dogs for Good, McDonalds plc, Princes’s Trust and many more.

In addition, around 50,000 emails were sent out to passengers using routes 30 and 205 (as well as 18 and 27) on TfL’s database as well as to those living in pertinent postcodes and locally based Freedom (and Disabled Freedom) Pass holders plus another 873 emails to targeted stakeholder groups and community contacts as well as people who’ve asked to be kept up to date with relevant news about buses.

63,006 letters were delivered to all business and residential addresses along, and adjacent to, the full route lengths of the 30 and 205 plus a wider area around Baker Street and Paddington.

286 bus stop posters were placed in bus stops along routes 18, 27, 30 and 205 (where space was available) as well as 42 3D ‘Toblerone’ style adverts at bus stops in the Paddington/Marble Arch/Baker Street area.

TfL also held a drop in event at St Mary’s Hospital on 13th November.

TfL’s 110 page ‘Consultation Report’ which is available on its website goes into inordinate detail of the steps it took to consult, the processes involved and the responses it received. You can’t fault TfL’s consultation process for its comprehensiveness, that’s for sure.

There must be a huge army of staff devoted to the task at considerable cost to the organisation.

After all that effort 22 stakeholders responded with 1,337 responses from members of the public. The overwhelming response was against the proposed cut to route 30 and the diversion of route 205.

For example, Chiltern Railways stated it “strongly opposed the changes” pointing out the direct connection between Marylebone and other major London termini needs to be maintained “ensuring accessibility, supporting integrated links and providing passengers with a reliable and convenient travel option“. They highlight the 205 as being particularly important for passengers with mobility impairments, those carrying heavy luggage, parents with buggies, and wheelchair users, as well as those with less visible disabilities who prefer to avoid the Underground, noting the Bakerloo line station has no lift access.

Great Western Railway responded with similar comments adding “HS2 construction work at Old Oak Common in the next decade will mean services diverted to London Euston frequently. Having multiple methods of transport available for passengers to make the interchange to /from Paddington/ Euston will reduce obstacles resulting from this engineering work.”

London Travelwatch in its response state “this proposal will mean that 3,676 passengers per day (1,721 on route 30 and 1,955 on route 205) would need to change bus in future to complete their journeys. This equates to 11% of passengers on route 30 and 9% of passengers on route 205.”

City of Westminster Council registers its “strong objection to the proposals”. The London Borough of Camden “strongly objects to the loss of a direct bus connection between KIngs Cross and Paddington”. The London Borough of Hackney suggested route 205 be retained as is and rebranded as a Superloop route with some of the less busy stops skipped and be extensively marketed and branded, pointing out “during engineering works on the Hammersmith & City line additional buses on the 205 could run and this would obviate the need to run a costly rail replacement service”.

And so it goes on with all 22 stakeholders who responded objecting to the proposals. Similar objections are raised in most of the 1,337 public responses.

If the change went ahead 75% of passengers responded YES to the question about whether it would mean the need to change buses with only 15% responding NO (10% didn’t know). 49% stated they would no longer use route 205. 74% stated the proposals to route 205 would have a negative impact and 66% said the same about route 30.

In the light of such negativity why are TfL continuing with the change?

Its response is: “we recognise some passengers may need to change bus to travel as a result of these changes and have recommended convenient locations along the bus routes where interchange could take place at the same / adjacent bus stop. As a result some journeys will get longer.”

It continues: “our current strategy is to make savings in inner and central London, where the bus, rail and Tube networks are denser and better, so the outer London bus network can be expanded and improved, particularly in areas where other public transport options are not available.”

TfL reckons capacity on route 27 is well able to cope with passengers displaced from the 205, which I’m sure is correct, but the frequency reduction from having a choice of only one, instead of two routes, and the fact passengers will have to change buses are certain to have a negative impact on passenger numbers travelling.

I took a ride between Kings Cross and Paddington to get a feel for just how inconvenient the new arrangements will be. It was a miserable Tuesday morning with drizzling rain most of the time during last month’s school half term week so many families were out and about along with lots of tourists.

As usual, the traffic along Euston Road and Marylebone Road was one long slow moving crawl and although there are sections of bus lane, buses were still getting delayed and it was obvious routes 27, 30 and 205 were disrupted with poor ‘excess waiting times’ so it was difficult to assess what would be a typical bus ‘load’ of passengers.

As the Countdown display was showing a long gap before either a 30 or 205 was due I decided to walk from KIngs Cross and got as far as Euston before two buses on both routes turned up.

I caught the busier looking of the two route 30s as the one behind was terminating ‘short’ at Baker Street station. On leaving Baker Street for Marble Arch it had 13 on board.

I then caught the next 205 which came along fairly soon and only four passengers continued to Paddington. On that ridiculous sample size of two observations, TfL are quite right to make the changes and ignore the consultation responses. But, I’m certain it wasn’t typical and more likely represented the impact of disrupted operations – a hallmark of central London bus routes and a reason why passenger numbers have reduced.

Heading back from Paddington towards Baker Street we picked up 18 passengers. I don’t know how many of these travelled east of Warren Street (where route 27 turns off) meaning they’d have to change, but it looked like a good proportion.

There was more congestion travelling between Paddinton and Baker Street with particular slow moving traffic past London Transport’s old haunt at Griffith House by Edgware Road Underground station.

To give you some idea of the degree of congestion, it took the 205 I was on 20 minutes to travel the one mile from Paddington to Baker Street. That’s a speed of just 3 mph. Thanks to bus lanes the one mile journey from Euston to Baker Street on the 30 took 13 minutes – so a 50% improvement at 4.6 mph. But both completely unacceptable, confirming why buses in central London are hemorrhaging passengers.

Journey times are not much better than walking speeds.

It’s ironic route 205 was introduced in Ken Livingston’s time as Mayor in 2002 prior to the Congestion Charge beginning in 2003. Along with a number of new bus routes through the central area, it’s aim was to provide a decent alternative for motorists not wanting to pay the new charges.

Two decades on and you wouldn’t know there was a congestion charge aimed at discouraging cars; the congestion is so bad. And now routes like the 205 are being cut back (on its Paddington section of route) despite a huge backlash from the consultation.

Still, we’ve got lots of new Superloop routes in the outer suburbs to look forward to and that seems to be what it’s all about now.

Perhaps a better way of making cost savings to fund the Superloop expansion instead of cutting services, would be to cut the consultation. It’s so obviously a pointless exercise.

Roger French

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