When a three minute journey becomes a 20 minute diversion

Thursday 4th December 2025

Like many towns and cities, London is plagued with roadworks often necessitating road closures and consequent diversion and disruption to bus routes.

BBC London contacted last week inviting me to take a look with them at the impact of the current closure of Delancey Street in the heart of Camden Town.

Bus routes 88 and 274 use this one way street to access the east side (88) and north side (274) of Regents Park but it closed a couple of weeks ago for electrical cable works and is not due to reopen until next Wednesday. During this period route 88 has been diverted via Hampstead Road and Euston Road instead of Albany Street to reach Great Portland Street and in so doing misses out seven bus stops with absolutely no alternative whatsoever. And no, that’s not a typo, seven bus stops on a one and a quarter mile section of route in the heart of London are no longer served.

But, that’s nothing compared to the diversion passengers are facing on route 274.

Instead of a 530 yard (490 metres) three minute short hop along Pratt Street and the closed Delancey Street, buses are having to work their way down to Euston Road via Mornington Crescent and Hampstead Road then along Euston Road to Great Portland Street Underground station where they negotiate the loop around the station and then head back north again via Albany Street – an extra distance of two and a quarter miles through roads and junctions notorious for their congestion.

I took a ride with BBC London’s Harry Low on Tuesday morning and it took us exactly 20 minutes to get back to where we would have been three minutes later at the western end of Delancy Street (shown in red on the above map). And this was late morning, not in the snarled up peak hour traffic along Euston Road.

And, of course, the diversion itself is plagued by roadworks, not least on Hampstead Road where there have been long term temporary traffic lights controlling single lane working for traffic on this busy thoroughfare for years in connection with HS2 – not that the Government has approved it reaching Euston yet.

Indeed it took us nine minutes just to crawl the first leg of the diversion around Harrington Square Gardens by Mornington Crescent Underground station and wait for a gap in the traffic or the goodwill of a motorist on Lidlington Place to let us out into the queue for the temporary traffic lights in Hampstead Road.

Fortunately as we turned left into Hampstead Road we had the benefit of a bus lane leading up to the lights…

… and after negotiating that blockage we reached Warren Street Underground station where we turned right and fortunately found Euston Road wasn’t too bad at 11:30 in the morning…

… so we reached Great Portland Street after 13 minutes…

… and the only hold up heading north up Albany Street was the next set of roadworks and temporary traffic lights.

We finally regained our line of route after a 20 minute detour that would have taken three minutes had Delancy Street not been closed.

Two things struck me about this situation.

Firstly, although there was a TfL yellow notice in the timetable case advising of the diversion and where alternative stops were located none of the bus stops (three for the 274 and seven for the 88) were covered up with a yellow ‘Bus Stop Closed’ notice.

On our walk along Pratt Street, to the east of the closed Delancy Street, we found an elderly woman waiting at the closed bus stop and explained to her about the stop being closed due to the roadworks which were unseen from there. She had no idea and wondered why she’d been waiting so long. Sadly she declined to be interviewed by Harry.

Even worse, none of the four southbound stops on Albany Street no longer served by buses on route 88 were covered up and as we passed north along the road on our diverted 274 we noticed a passenger waiting forlornly at one of these stops too. Northbound buses on the 88 continue up Albany Street as normal.

Meanwhile on board the 274 as we left Camden Town, despite the driver making an announcement “this bus is on diversion” there were two very confused tourists travelling to London Zoo checking their phones and increasingly puzzled as we headed away from that direction towards Euston Road.

Harry went to interview them for his report and we were able to reassure them the bus would eventually arrive at London Zoo.

Three other tourists who’d been sitting in the front seats on the upper deck were so baffled by the diversion they alighted at Great Portland Street.

TfL has posted details about the diversion as a service alert on the 88 and 274 route information pages but what would have been helpful is large posters at each of the bus stop shelters explaining how passengers can reach the alternative bus stops – that would have made interesting reading for those wanting to catch a southbound bus in Albany Street as the answer seems to be “a long walk”.

The other thing I noticed was a Diversion sign at the start of the road closure in Delancy Street with an arrow pointing right, whereas all the cars, vans and taxis were turning left.

We followed them and walked what is obviously an unofficial diversion “those in the know” (and possibly Satnavs too) marked in brown on the above and below maps and wondered if it would be a suitable alternative for buses.

There’s no doubt the initial left turn would be tight as would a section of ‘traffic calming’ along the one of the roads, but ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ and with the temporary removal of a few bollards and smoothing off of a corner, buses could have certainly followed this route at much less inconvenience.

Compared to the scale of excavation works on the road itself as part of the cable installation, the aforementioned temporary fixes for the sake of helping bus passengers could easily have been accommodated if someone had insisted they be carried out.

Alternatively what looks like the official diversion turning right where the sign is pointing, and head north via Arlington Road, Jamestown Road and Oval Road (shown in purple on the map below) looks equally feasible.

It would make a change for bus passengers to be given much higher priority when it comes to mitigating the impact of such roadworks, and please, TfL, up your game on information at bus stops and don’t think a “service alert” online is all that’s needed. It’s not.

Roger French

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