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Many London high streets face the same challenges as those elsewhere, London Assembly hears

It isn't only towns and smaller cities that have to cope with changing retail habits
Charles Wright

Oxford Street may be the world’s longest high street and arguably its busiest, but London’s high streets overall share many of the problems faced by their counterparts across the country. That was the message from experts quizzed this week by the London Assembly’s economy committee, investigating the challenges faced by the capital’s 600 high streets, which make up 20 per cent of high streets in the UK.

While the designation covered international retail centres including the West End and Oxford Street, many London high streets, particularly in Outer London, demonstrated characteristics “more akin to those in towns and smaller cities outside the capital,” City Hall regeneration chief Patrick Dubeck told Assembly Members. “In London there are places that are suffering from the same sort of effects.”

The picture was confirmed by representatives from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the British Retail Consortium (BRC). “The last five years have seen things get harder,” said the FSB’s Matthew Jaffa. Businesses faced the challenges of rising rents, the switch to online shopping, transport and parking problems and particularly business rate costs.

Retail made up five per cent of the UK economy but paid 25 per cent of business rates, said BRC’s Dominic Curran. “Without reforming rates you are not going to be tackling the problems the high street is facing.”

And while high street vacancy rates were lower overall in London than elsewhere – eight per cent on average against 12 per cent outside the capital – that figure masked wide variations, added Dubeck. Vacancy rates were three per cent in Oxford Street but 20 per cent in Croydon, while Kingston had seen a 15 per cent drop in retail employment in the past five years.

High streets remained significant though, providing half the capital’s jobs outside the “Central Activities Zone” of business, retail, cultural and governmental functions. 

Charity shops were bucking the trend, said Robin Osterley, chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, with 3.8 per cent “like for like” growth at Christmas compared to the previous year. The capital’s thousand charity shops were an antidote to the “monoculture” of many high streets, he said. “People shop in charity shops because they want to, because they are giving people what they want”.

And the challenge of online shopping could be overstated, said Curran, with household high street names making up eight of the top 10 online retailers and the sector increasingly embracing “multi-channel” operations.

Nevertheless more retail outlets were closing than opening, and latest government figures showed retail making up just 20 per cent of the high street mix, said Dubeck. 

But London’s high streets remained “incredibly important resources” for the city, he added, citing City Hall’s 2017 report, High Streets for All, commissioned by Mayor Khan, which assessed their social and environmental value for Londoners as well as their economic significance.

The report highlighted the varied roles of the high street, promoting employment and economic opportunities and providing social spaces and services as well as shops, along with the need for consistent support to manage change.

A new City Hall strategy with guidance on tailoring local policies to support London’s high streets, following up on the 2017 report, was due shortly, he said, while the Mayor’s good growth fund was providing £70 million capital funding for local improvements, including on the high street, alongside other support such as the London growth hub’s technology for business service. 

London nevertheless remained “hostage to central government in terms of funding,” he added, while Tory group leader Susan Hall, reminding the committee of Khan’s pledge to be the “most business-friendly Mayor ever”, urged more action, particularly to support Outer London high streets. 

Photograph of Whitechapel Road and High Street by Omar Jan.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to help the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

Categories: News
Tags: business rates, Conservatives, Croydon, Federation of Small Businesses, Kingston, London Assembly, Matthew Jaffa, Oxford Street, regeneration, Sadiq Khan, Susan Hall

Dave Hill: Corbynism still blights London Labour

Supporters of the outgoing party leader will keep on seeking to impede the better efforts of the party in the capital
Dave Hill

In London, Labour emerged from the general election of 12 December relatively unscathed. True, the party lost 6.4 per cent of its vote share compared with the national contest of 2017, but it still took over 48 per cent while breaking even on seats, meaning it still holds twice as many as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats combined. Meanwhile, Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan appears well on course to win a second term at City Hall on 7 May.

But political dominance is not the same thing as policy effectiveness. And when it comes to delivering good government and good outcomes in line with what Labour priorities ought to be, the party in the capital will continue to be hampered by the factors that led to last month’s hammering.

Where else to look first than Haringey, where a Corbynite faction and sundry non-Labour allies ran a famously successful campaign to de-select sitting councillors of whom it disapproved in advance of the 2018 borough elections?

The first meeting of the Stroud Green ward branch following Corbyn Labour’s pasting by Boris Johnson’s Tories was attended by Roger Sahota, one of the victims of that Momentumite purge. He listed on Twitter an account of opinions expressed at the gathering, beginning with an assertion that the man who had just led Labour to its worst general election outcome in terms of winning seats since 1935 deserves “our undying gratitude” and that “people will look back and think he planted a flag of humanity for posterity”.

From this point of view, the party’s manifesto was “incredibly popular”, the defeat was because of “long term trends” that (naturally) are the fault of Tony Blair, and, of course, staying true to “socialist principles” is “more important than winning elections”. Sahota signed off by urging fellow residents of the Stroud Green area to rejoin Labour “if you ever want to see another Labour government”.

I trust he’s not expecting them to attend too many meetings – they don’t sound like a lot of fun. But the real lesson here is that the breathtaking culture of denial, for decades so characteristic of the orthodox Hard Left, remains as alive and self-satisfied in its London strongholds as it was before Corbyn and Corbynism were squashed at the ballot box last month.

This means that all across the city capable Labour politicians who actually exercise power must waste time and energy maintaining their defences against whatever the latest of wheeze of Jeremy’s purity police is for stopping them doing anything useful for the people Labour is supposed to help. From Barking in the east to Ealing in the west, Labour councillors in leadership positions find themselves obliged to, at the very least, keep a wary eye on what the nitwit wing of the membership might be plotting in the name of yet more glorious defeat.

Who can blame them? Two recent borough by-elections didn’t get the in-depth coverage On London usually gives such events due to their taking place on the same day as the general election. Both saw Labour retain safe seats on councils they dominate, one in Islington and one in Hackney. In that sense, neither outcome is big news. But both the candidates elected demonstrate that ideological bindweed is still rampant in the “grassroots”.

It would be unfair to damn either of these new councillors so early in their tenures as public servants, but the signs are not encouraging: one maintains public devotion to the martyr Jeremy while the other has been described by a local Labour Corbyn-sceptic as “the most right wing Labour politician I have ever known” and as having secured the candidacy with Momentum’s help in order to thwart a so-called “centrist”.

And there remains a sinister aspect to all this. Emma Whysall, who might well have been the Labour MP for Chipping Barnet by now had her party not been led in the tradition of Citizen Smith, has reported that at her first local ward branch meeting of the year she had to challenge an “It’s all an Israeli embassy conspiracy” comment from a fellow Labour member.

Such is the backdrop against which the contest to become Labour’s next leader is being conducted, with hopefuls being judged not according to their leadership credentials, policy vision or the quality of their analysis of why their party hasn’t won a general election since 2005 despite the current Conservatives being in deep disarray, but on whether they can be trusted not to “lurch to the right”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Another measure of the state of Labour’s membership in London is the behaviour of Sadiq Khan since the general election. Even his sternest critics acknowledge that his political antennae have always been finely attuned to the mood of the voters he needs to please. Note, then, how swiftly the Labour Mayor has put the maximum possible distance between himself and Corbyn, describing as “ludicrous” any attempt to recast the national drubbing as some sort of victory, criticising a “shocking and repeated failure to tackle antisemitism” and pointing to a collapse of trust in Labour’s ability even to run the NHS.

Having been an early critic of Corbyn, Khan settled into an accommodation with him, perhaps mindful that his re-selection as mayoral candidate might not proceed completely smoothly if he offended the capital’s Jeremy-worshippers by being insufficiently loyal. Only now is he free to do what is politically wise – just as it was in 2016 – and disassociate himself from the MP for Islington North and the clueless, sometimes creepy, version of Labour he represents.

Labour’s continuing political command in London makes a stark contrast to its miserable rejection across Britain as a whole, but the challenge for its competent element in the capital is the same: whether seeking to win power or exercise it to best effect, the party must clear out the Corbynite blight.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to help the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

Categories: Comment
Tags: Emma Whysall, Hackney Council, Haringey, Islington Council, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, Roger Sahota, Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan launches ‘green energy’ company for London

The aim is to reduce bills and carbon output in partnership with a specialist supplier
Dave Hill

The Mayor has launched a City Hall-owned energy company, which he says can save Londoners up to £300 a year if they switch to it and will help the capital move towards becoming a “zero carbon city” by 2050.

The company, named London Power, has been formed in partnership with  energy supplier Octopus Energy, which specialises in green energy and will provide customer services.

Forming part of the Mayor’s Energy for Londoners programme, the plan for London Power was announced last September and City Hall says “just over 1,000 Londoners have already registered their interest” in switching to it.

City Hall says “the objectives of London Power are to keep energy bills low rather than make a profit,” and that all electricity supplied will be generated from “100 per cent renewable sources” such as the sun, wind and water. Any profits eventually made will go into “community projects helping Londoners living in fuel poverty”.

Khan’s 2016 manifesto pledged to create a not-for-profit company “providing a comprehensive range of energy services to help Londoners generate more low carbon energy and increase their energy efficiency” and to explore “the business case for potential savings on bills by bulk-buying energy”.

Energy for Londoners initiatives also include £2.5 million of grant funding for insulation, financial support for fuel poverty advice services in Islington, Croydon, Kingston and Lewisham and the continuation of the RE:NEW energy efficiency programme set up in 2009 under the mayoralty of Boris Johnson.

Government regulator Ofgem’s 2019 state of energy report found that London has a low level of energy supplier switching and a high incidence of pre-payment meters, which tend to lead to higher bills.

The Mayor himself has already switched to London Power, and others wishing to do the same can do so via the London Power website.

Photograph: Housing in Paddington by Omar Jan.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to held the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: News
Tags: environment, London Power, Sadiq Khan

Leon Daniels: London, cycling and the ‘self-healing city’

We must accept that there are trade-offs over road space and try to end the war between its different users
Leon Daniels

This article is an edited version of a talk Leon Daniels gave at an event held on 3 September 2019 co-organised by On London and the London Society called: Are London’s Cycling Policies Working For Everyone?

Before I try to address the reasons why there isn’t more travel by bicycle in London and why it is so restricted to a particular group of people, I want to share some of my experiences as Transport for London’s managing director, surface transport at the time when what were originally called cycle superhighways and other new cycling infrastructure were introduced, initially under the mayoralty of Boris Johnson.

There were a number of reasons why those policies were adopted. One was that every time a cyclist was killed on the roads of Greater London at that time, it was reported on the front page of the Evening Standard and there was outrage. The number of cyclist deaths in the city in the last ten years has been between eight and 16 a year – this, in a country where four or five pedestrians die in road traffic accidents every day. Even so, 16 deaths are, of course, 16 too many. And there was serious public concern and demand for better facilities for cyclists and an end to those deaths

Throughout this time, London was under the threat of a €350 million fine from the European Union for breaching air quality minimums. Encouraging more cycling by making it easier, especially for the more timid, was an aspect of tackling the air quality issue. The policies were also about the efficient use of road space, redistributing that road space in a more equitable way, and the Mayor making a bold statement.

I certainly believe that the new infrastructure makes a lot of cyclists safer on London’s roads than they would have been otherwise. But what else can we learn?

One problem for an agency like TfL is that if you are very considered in your approach to doing something bold and new and do a lot of research and investigation first, you are accused of being far too slow. But if you go about it quickly, you are accused of barging it through without properly considering the views of all interested parties and of not assessing the outcomes properly. In this case, we acted extraordinarily quickly and the main elements of the new segregated cycle superhighways were all in place within four years.

I also think there’s a terrible tendency to think about cycling in isolation from everything else. We really mustn’t do that. When we are considering the question of whether London cycling policy is working for everyone, we have to include not only who is or isn’t travelling by bicycle but also how encouraging cycling is affecting other street and road users. Doing this reminds us that in everything we do, there are trade-offs and not everyone will be happy with them.

Nimby correspondence nearly always can be identified by an opening statement on the following lines: “I am generally in favour of more [cycling], but……” (The most important word at the end!). And so it was whether from individuals or owners of business premises, all saying basically the same thing, which boiled down to: “What you’re about to do near my house or outside my shop is going to cause the end of the world.”

The world didn’t end. In fairness, it is true that the cycling infrastructure built on my watch did have a negative effect on bus speeds and bus passenger journey times, and indeed for all traffic. However, there have also been other factors simultaneously including the growth of private hire traffic and internet-driven deliveries which have also affected traffic speeds. It has also made life more difficult for people trying to make deliveries, especially to frontages where there is cycling infrastructure.

Why is there such an over representation, statistically speaking, of affluent white males cycling in London and such a low proportion of other groups, whether defined by gender, ethnicity or type of occupation and also of 16 to 24-year-olds? I’ve spent some time thinking about that, especially as that demographic make-up hasn’t been changing. Is it because there aren’t enough cycle-friendly streets at the beginnings and ends of longer journeys on protected lanes? Is it because those who are male and in the upper earnings bracket are more likely to be employed by companies with better storage and other facilities for cyclists?

I have a suspicion that it is very much tied up with the perception of cycling, as opposed to the reality. Part of the solution to that, of course, is to find more ways to get more people to try it, through training, coaching and encouragement, especially of the young, the nervous and the otherwise unconvinced. This could be done, for example, through schools and universities as a form of recreation. There is no engineering solution to deal with the whole of this problem, because most of it is behavioural and attitudinal. The recent advent of dockless electric bikes will certainly encourage the less fit and those where distance or gradient is a factor.

Behind all this is a broader question: What sort of city do we want? That is a question for the electorate and for the Mayor. Unless we answer it, then answering some of the others that flow from it will be more difficult.

I think we should think hard about how to end the war between different kinds of road users – taxi drivers against private hire cars, HGV drivers against cyclists and so on – and build some mutual respect instead. That war can’t help but make those people who don’t cycle but might like to try it less likely to take it up.

And here is a concept I keep thinking about. What about some sort of self-healing city? I mean by that a city that is capable of adapting to the new challenges that are continually set for it and which gets us out of this terrible grip of conflicting priorities working against each other. Maybe we should talk about what a self-healing city might look like: one in which, if people’s journeys were interrupted for any reason, they were automatically re-routed and received the information they needed; a city where societal changes, like more deliveries or private hire vehicles, could be more easily coped with.

Because, what we really all want in the end is for all people to have confidence in using the whole transport system, whether it’s walking, cycling, travelling on the bus or using the river, according to their transport preferences and needs.

Leon Daniels OBE was TfL’s managing director, surface transport from February 2011 until December 2017. He has since founded the transport consultancy Leon Daniels & Associates Ltd. 

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to held the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

Categories: Comment
Tags: air quality, Boris Johnson, buses, congestion, cycling, Evening Standard, Healthy Streets, private hire vehicles, roads, transport, Transport for London

Vic Keegan’s Lost London 125: The Devil Tavern

Famous Londoners drank there and did their banking next door
Victor Keegan

What have Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, Nell Gwyn and Samuel Pepys got in common? Answer: they all banked with a firm called Child & Co, based at the grandly named Number One Fleet Street, adjoining Temple Bar, which straddled the road.

What have Samuel Pepys, Dr Johnson, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Ben Jonson and a whole crowd of literary giants, maybe even including William Shakespeare, got in common? Answer: they all caroused at the Apollo Club or Devil Tavern at Number Two Fleet Street next door, usually with Jonson presiding.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall to hear some of the literary – and not so literary – banter that must have taken place. Tradition has it that Gwyn was a great depositor of savings in the bank, while Charles was frequently overdrawn. I wonder if there was any connection…

Later, stuff happened. In 1787, the owner of Number One Fleet Street purchased Number Two in order to expand its banking activities, and the Devil Tavern was closed down. Today, it is reduced to a blue plaque on the wall, while Child and Co is still flourishing there today as a brand of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Screenshot 2020 01 12 at 10.04.49

It has a good claim to be Britain’s oldest financial institution, having been trading at the Fleet Street site since 1673 and previously been based in the Strand. It did business under a “Marygold” sign (with its gold centre!). Its current logo, a sun and flower motif adopted in 1988, is based on the original.

The building didn’t completely lose its literary associations when the bank expanded. It re-emerged as the model for Tellson’s Bank in Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. The author described it as, “an old fashioned, boastful, small, dark and ugly place with musty odour”.

In the novel, it became such a magnet for French bankers visiting London to hear the latest gossip that Tellsons sometimes wrote the latest news and posted it in its window. Maybe this was the true beginning of Fleet Street, albeit in the form of fake news.

The rest of Vic Keegan’s Lost London series can be found here. His latest volume of poetry can be bought here.

OnLondon.co.uk is dedicated to providing fair, thorough, anti-populist coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations from readers and would like to pay its freelance contributors better. Can you spare £5 (or more) a month? Follow this link if you would like to help. Thank you.

 

Categories: Culture, Lost London
Tags: Charles Dickens, Fleet Street, Strand, Temple Bar, William Shakespeare

Violent crime in London falling overall, says Met deputy commissioner

Sir Stephen House told the London Assembly that recent trends in several categories are down even though the number of killings increased in 2019
Charles Wright

Crime rates in the capital seem set to be a central issue as campaigning for May’s mayoral election ramps up, with Conservative contender Shaun Bailey already electioneering under the strapline “For A Safer London” and the hashtag #MakeLondonSafe.

However, Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick this week told LBC radio listeners that the capital could be seeing “some of the tide turning”. And deputy commissioner Sir Stephen House told the London Assembly’s police and crime committee on Thursday that the numbers of victims aged under 25 injured by knife crime had fallen by eight per cent in the 12 months to November 2019, continuing the downward trend of 2018. The figure for over 25s had fallen by eight per cent too. 

Knife crime with violence overall had reduced by 23 per cent in two years, and the Met’s focus on violent crime was seeing reductions in other categories of violent crime too, Sir Stephen said – in domestic abuse homicide, moped offences, acid attacks and in crimes where guns were fired, which he said had reduced by 47 per cent since 2017. 

The meeting nevertheless came in the wake of new figures showing a further rise in the capital’s murder rate, with Sir Stephen confirming a total of 149 murders in 2019, including 25 teenagers. The total went up from 135 in 2018, and is the highest recorded murder rate in London since 2008, with fatal stabbings almost doubling since 2014.

Reports this week revealed reducing homicide rates overall in England and Wales, from 774 murders in 2018 to 650 this year, with reductions in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

Facing tough questioning from Conservative assembly member Tony Arbour, Sir Stephen rejected suggestions that the Met was failing compared to police services outside the capital. “There is nothing that I’m aware of that is being done in other force areas that we are not doing in London,” he said.

A recent Sunday Times story suggesting that “stop and search” tactics had not been effective in countering knife crime in London was also wide of the mark, he said. The tactic had seen more than 4,000 knives taken off the streets in the past year, and could be effective even when nothing was found. “Stop and search is a deterrent, an expression of police presence on the streets and the rule of law,” he said.

Four hundred new officers a month were now being recruited, with police numbers up to 31,000 with additional funding from the Mayor, deputy mayor for policing Sophie Linden told the committee. The Met is forecasting more than 32,000 officers being in place by the end of this summer. 

“It will take time to get on top of all violence,” Sir Stephen conceded, citing the impact of events including last October’s Extinction Rebellion protests, which he said had diverted officers from policing elsewhere in the capital as well as drawing in officers from 35 forces across the country, including Scotland, at a total cost of £21 million.

With Green Party Assembly Member and mayoral candidate Sian Berry questioning the tactics and suggesting the Met had failed to facilitate lawful protest, Sir Stephen said the approach was “a proportionate approach to an unlawful protest by thousands of people”.

The Met accepted the High Court decision overturning a “Section 14” attempt under the Public Order Act 1986 to ban further protests after a week of “severe disruption”, he added. “But we don’t think the legislation gives us the power we need to keep London operating as it should. The protests were in the main unlawful and we reacted appropriately. We will change our practices, but they will not be changed to facilitate unlawful protests.”

Susan Hall, the new leader of the Conservative group at City Hall, pledged support for the Met. “The vast majority of Londoners supported the idea of Section 14,” she said. “If you find that you can’t put that in or want something similar you will absolutely have political support from the majority of us going forward.”

Photograph: Omar Jan.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to held the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

 

Categories: News
Tags: Cressida Dick, crime, Extinction Rebellion, knife crime, London Assembly, Metropolitan Police, policing, Shaun Bailey, Sian Berry, Sir Stephen House, Sophie Linden, Susan Hall, Tony Arbour

Boris Johnson ‘New Routemaster’ buses to become front boarding only to cut fare-dodging

Transport for London to convert the vehicles having previously said fare dodging rates were little different from on other types of bus
Dave Hill

London’s fleet of New Routemaster buses, developed as a signature policy of Boris Johnson’s mayoralty, are to be converted to allow passengers to board only at the front of the vehicles in a bid to reduce fare evasion.

A pilot scheme on Route 8 has found that fare dodging was halved when the middle and rear doors were used only for passengers leaving the bus. Transport for London says that converting every New Routemaster model will prevent more than £3.6 million in revenue being lost each year.

Johnson commissioned what was initially known as the New Bus for London after becoming London Mayor in 2008, having promised that the vehicles would combine innovative low emission technology with a revival of features of the original bespoke Routemaster London bus, in particular an open rear platform which would enable passengers to board or leave the bus between stops, and the return of a second crew member who would be the equivalent of a conductor.

However, the “21st century conductors” or “customer assistants” were soon phased out and the rear doors stopped being left open between stops, meaning the “hop on, hop off” facility was lost. Even so, all three doors – front, rear and middle – continued to be opened at stops in order to maximise boarding and exiting and so minimise “dwell time”.

This, however, left the buses vulnerable to fare evasion, as a member of a TfL revenue protection team told On London in July 2018. At that time, TfL said that surveys conducted in 2016 had found that fare evasion overall on New Routemasters was only “approximately one per cent higher than the network average, which is  currently running at 3.1 per cent” and that evasion rates on different kinds of bus running through “similar areas” were “broadly similar”.

Approximately 1,000 New Routemasters were purchased for use on London’s streets before Sadiq Khan, Johnson’s successor, called a halt. Though at first their distinctive “series hybrid” propulsion system, in which an electric motor is recharged when necessary in transit by a small diesel engine, were cleaner than other kinds, subsequent, cheaper, off-the-peg buses have matched that standard.

As well as promoting the New Routemaster, Johnson had campaigned for the removal of the single-decker, two-part articulated buses introduced by his predecessor Ken Livingstone, which also had three doors. Critics of the “bendy bus” had drawn attention to its high levels of fare evasion, which had resulted in the nickname “free bus”.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to held the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

 

 

 

Categories: News
Tags: Boris Johnson, buses, Sadiq Khan, transport, Transport for London

Caroline Pidgeon: London must tackle the problem of bus driver fatigue

Some steps are being taken, but the capital needs to go faster and further
Caroline Pidgeon

Bus drivers in London might soon be going on strike. The Unite union has plans to ballot its members about taking industrial action over the issue of fatigue facing its drivers. It will be a consultative ballot and, if members endorse it, strikes could follow later this year – unless, of course, something is done to ensure the problem is resolved. “London bus drivers have had enough,” Unite’s regional officer John Murphy has been reported as saying. “They are permanently fatigued and at risk of being a danger to other road users, bus passengers and themselves.”

Cynical members of the travelling public might be thinking that, once again, a union is championing better terms and conditions for its members and pushing things a bit too far. Surely not every working condition issue in the transport industry should be presented as one that is critical for public safety? They should think again. Being frequently tired is a reality for many bus drivers. It is a widespread problem that cannot be ignored.

The evidence is there, in black and white. Last summer, significant research into the problem was published. Undertaken by Loughborough University’s transport safety research centre in collaboration with the Swedish national road and transport research institute, it was funded by Transport for London. Its findings were alarming.

An on-road study focusing on a small group of drivers on a live bus route revealed that they frequently have to fight to stay awake while behind the wheel of bus. Surveys were completed by 1,353 London bus drivers working for 10 bus service operating companies. Of these, 42 per cent said they occasionally have to fight sleepiness, with over 13 per cent saying this was a problem two to three times a week. Over seven per cent said it was a problem for them four or more times a week. And, shockingly, one in six stated that they had actually fallen asleep when behind the wheel of a bus during the previous 12 months.

It is deeply worrying and frightening that bus drivers are falling asleep while driving and in some cases doing so frequently. A London Assembly transport committee report found that between 2015 and 2017, 25 people killed by buses in London and a further 12,000 injured. The report, called Driven to Distraction, is well worth returning to. (A Financial Times summary of it is here. We also know that there were at least 71 people hit by London buses at pedestrian crossings between January 2016 and November 2018, as reported by the Evening Standard.

The connection between bus driver fatigue and collisions is fully recognised by bus drivers themselves: five per cent told the Loughborough University researchers they had been involved in a road collision at least once in the previous twelve months due to fatigue, and 36 per cent one said it had brought about a close call. Tired drivers are quite simply dangerous drivers – dangerous to themselves, to bus passengers and to every other road user, especially pedestrians and cyclists.

What is being done to address these safety concerns? The Mayor’s transport strategy has the objective of reaching zero deaths and road collisions on its transport network by 2041, so there must be a real urgency in addressing the issue. To be fair, some steps are beginning to be taken. Following the publication of the Loughborough University research, a number of commitments were made by TfL. They include:

  • New bus operator contracts will require the company to have rigorous fatigue risk management systems. This should come into effect this year.
  • All managers in bus garages will have to undertake fatigue awareness training.
  • TfL is making £500,000 available to help operators undertake further work to establish the most effective interventions to reduce fatigue
  • All rosters are being reviewed by operators to ensure they are following best practice to reduce the risk of fatigue.

These are welcome measures, but the challenge is how quickly they are adopted and how effectively they are implemented. And they are only the start of what needs to be done.

The reasons bus drivers are frequently tired are complex, but nearly always they are part and parcel of the working conditions they face. Alternating shifts can hamper regular sleep patterns.  Many drivers have limited access to adequate rest facilities during their breaks. There can be high levels of stress at work – dealing with London traffic, radio control messages regularly being sent to them, and having to handle sometimes rude and aggressive passengers. Even before getting behind the wheel, many have travelled long distances to get to their depot, perhaps by car. The pay levels facing bus drivers can also mean that some feel unable to turn down last-minute overtime opportunities.

We should also recognise that tiredness is a wider transport issue. We know it has been an issue facing tram drivers. It also affects many taxi and private hire drivers – incredibly, there is no  statutory limit on the number of hours for drivers in these industries. I am at present pushing the Mayor to ensure that research is now carried out into the levels of fatigue facing drivers in this industry.

If we want safer roads for everyone, we need to understand why many kinds of driver are so often dangerously tired when at work. The working practices that contribute to this must quickly become as outdated as those in factories in the age of Dickens.

Caroline Pidgeon is a Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member. Follow her on Twitter. Photograph by Omar Jan.

OnLondon.co.uk exists to providing fair and thorough coverage of London’s politics, development and culture. It depends on donations, including from readers. Can you spare £5 a month (or more) to held the site keep going and growing? If so, follow this link. Thank you.

 

Categories: Comment
Tags: buses, transport, Transport for London, Unite The Union