London Bus Services Respond To Demands For Changes To Putney Buses

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Promising to 'explore' possibilities

London Bus Services Ltd have responded to requests from The Putney Society & Richard Tracey the Assembly Member for Putney:
".... there are a number of forthcoming opportunities which we will explore to see whether we can upgrade some of them. The Department for Transport (DfT) and TfL have recently announced a £10m project to retro-fit Nox abatement equipment to about 900 Euro III buses in the London bus fleet. We will explore if some of the buses in Putney High Street meet the criteria for this programme.

In addition the Department for Transport have recently announced a £20m Green Bus Fund which TfL intend to apply for in order to bring more Hybrid buses into the London bus fleet. Again we will explore if some of these could be allocated to routes serving Putney High Street."

Jonathan Callaway told PutneySw15.com:
“The Putney Society is very pleased to note the offer from TfL to join us in meetings with Wandsworth Council and Richard Tracey, AM, and we too hope this will contribute to progress towards the early introduction of hybrid and low-pollution buses on routes in Putney”


Richard Tracey told PutneySW15.com: "I am glad that TfL Buses have now responded to the questions about tackling High Street pollution which I have passed to them from Putney's Conservative councillors and more recently from Putney Society. I look forward to chairing a joint meeting of senior TfL managers with Wandsworth Council and Putney Society members in the New Year. I hope this will take us forward."


The Putney Society had sent their recent survey findings to London Bus Services Ltd with a request introduce hybrid buses on routes using Putney High Street:
".. accelerate the review of buses using Putney High Street and to commit now to ensuring hybrid buses are introduced as soon as possible.  Surely this can be done before the relevant franchises are reviewed in 2014?  While this would clearly not completely address our air pollution problems, it would make a substantial impact given the number of buses using the High Street, the bus garage in Chelverton Road and other main roads in Putney."

They continued:
" We know our local councillors Jim Maddan, Rosemary Torrington and Mike Ryder have approached you on this matter, as has our AM Richard Tracey, but our survey results are sufficiently worrying for us to urge you once again to take more urgent steps now."

December 23, 2011