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Post by mkay315 on Dec 28, 2023 13:18:22 GMT
If Havering wants to leave GLA then let them but they can't have their cake and eat it and expect same levels of service should they leave. I mean you only have to look at what happened in 2017 with Epping Forest when the 167 was trimmed back to Loughton leaving the 20 and 397 to pick up the slack to Debden. Absolutely and the residents of all these fringe boroughs would very quickly realise that - perhaps the similarities with Brexit are a warning here! Just wait for the howls of anguish from the locals when they realise that they no longer qualify for a 60+ Oyster card and their bus services have been slashed. Would Kent CC support a bus every 30 minutes (and an hourly Sunday service) to Chelsfield? An approximate comparison can be made with Charlton (the west Middlesex village that is now administered by Surrey not the similarly named settlement in SE London) which has four buses a day, the first and last of which is a schoolday only service, with nothing on Saturday or Sunday. Exactly that but leave them folks to it, they'll learn soon enough
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Post by borneobus on Dec 28, 2023 14:02:32 GMT
If Havering wants to leave GLA then let them but they can't have their cake and eat it and expect same levels of service should they leave. I mean you only have to look at what happened in 2017 with Epping Forest when the 167 was trimmed back to Loughton leaving the 20 and 397 to pick up the slack to Debden. Absolutely and the residents of all these fringe boroughs would very quickly realise that - perhaps the similarities with Brexit are a warning here! Just wait for the howls of anguish from the locals when they realise that they no longer qualify for a 60+ Oyster card and their bus services have been slashed. Would Kent CC support a bus every 30 minutes (and an hourly Sunday service) to Chelsfield? An approximate comparison can be made with Charlton (the west Middlesex village that is now administered by Surrey not the similarly named settlement in SE London) which has four buses a day, the first and last of which is a schoolday only service, with nothing on Saturday or Sunday. ...and in the EU Referendum instructive that Havering had the highest 'leave' vote of any London Borough - just shy of 70%...
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Post by vjaska on Dec 28, 2023 15:23:33 GMT
Maybe if Havering cedes from Greater London and becomes a Unitary Authority, they could set up their own municipally-owned bus operation! I'm sure the current government would be willing to throw it as much BSIP+ money as it could handle. Whether it would actually be any good or not is another matter - the fantasy is another Reading or Nottingham but the reality might be more Halton ... Perhaps we should do to London what happened to Poland after the Second World War and move its borders to the west. Havering and Bromley can return to Essex and Kent respectively and London can pick up Slough and Spelthorne! I think Bromley would have to be split in two in such a scenario - the western & northern part has always seemed more connected to London (Palace, Penge, Anerley, etc) so maybe hypothetically, Southwark get Penge and Lambeth grabs more of Palace & Croydon gets Anerley (providing Croydon doesn't want to break away in such a scenario). I suspect any TfL service would then go no further than Bromley coming from Downham or the west
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Dec 28, 2023 15:26:02 GMT
Absolutely and the residents of all these fringe boroughs would very quickly realise that - perhaps the similarities with Brexit are a warning here! Just wait for the howls of anguish from the locals when they realise that they no longer qualify for a 60+ Oyster card and their bus services have been slashed. Would Kent CC support a bus every 30 minutes (and an hourly Sunday service) to Chelsfield? An approximate comparison can be made with Charlton (the west Middlesex village that is now administered by Surrey not the similarly named settlement in SE London) which has four buses a day, the first and last of which is a schoolday only service, with nothing on Saturday or Sunday. Exactly that but leave them folks to it, they'll learn soon enough I think Havering has the slight issue where it's effectively it's own little independent bubble in the outskirts. People who live there pretty much have no reason to leave unless they work in the City and as a result don't often feel the sense of being 'Londoners' the same way people in Barking and Ilford might be when you go a couple of miles west. You can even see it in their bus network in comparison to Ilford or Barking's. The network in Havering is very heavily centred around Romford, effectively linking all the suburbs such as Collier Row and Emerson Park to Romford and Romford only. Barking for example has the 238 going Stratford, the EL1 going to Ilford, the 169 to Barkingside, the 366 to Beckton while just down the road by 5 stops you have Ilford and it's network of the 25 to City Thameslink and the 123 all the way to Wood Green. I went to school in Romford some years ago now and my school was effectively a mix of people from Chadwell Heath/Barking/Ilford and from Romford. You can tell the children raised in Romford had effectively been ones that were raised within the area their whole life and saw no need to leave the borough while the ones from further West were more open to travelling around London's different suburbs. Now we're all a lot older and in employment you actually still see a lot of this repeated, the ones in the Romford area generally found more localised jobs within the borough itself while the ones outside tend to be the ones who commute greater distances such as in towards Central London. This divide effectively is what leads to people in the area developing a sense of community within themselves as opposed to a sense of community within East London. This is what leads to different opinions and a sense to want to self govern rather than being governed by a body that they themselves do not identify with. In all honesty Khan doesn't seem to be much concerned about Havering as an area too which further doesn't help matters. There was little effort to involve them in any sort of Superloop route, even if it had to be a radial route to link with the SL2. The only changes being made there are economising on routes, the 497 change removes links in the grand scheme and the rerouting of the 5 to Queens was to benefit B&D and not Havering. Obviously in comparison you've had B&D given the ELT network and Redbridge and B&D are both now getting the Superloop network too. Like everyone says, they don't see the benefits they have as being part of the GLA, but they also aren't in full receipt of benefits. Their view is probably that they're paying excessive council tax and never seeing the benefits that other boroughs are receiving. Imagine being in North Ockendon and needing to pay for the GLA, but what benefits are you getting out of it?
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Post by vjaska on Dec 28, 2023 15:32:04 GMT
Exactly that but leave them folks to it, they'll learn soon enough I think Havering has the slight issue where it's effectively it's own little independent bubble in the outskirts. People who live there pretty much have no reason to leave unless they work in the City and as a result don't often feel the sense of being 'Londoners' the same way people in Barking and Ilford might be when you go a couple of miles west. You can even see it in their bus network in comparison to Ilford or Barking's. The network in Havering is very heavily centred around Romford, effectively linking all the suburbs such as Collier Row and Emerson Park to Romford and Romford only. Barking for example has the 238 going Stratford, the EL1 going to Ilford, the 169 to Barkingside, the 366 to Beckton while just down the road by 5 stops you have Ilford and it's network of the 25 to City Thameslink and the 123 all the way to Wood Green. I went to school in Romford some years ago now and my school was effectively a mix of people from Chadwell Heath/Barking/Ilford and from Romford. You can tell the children raised in Romford had effectively been ones that were raised within the area their whole life and saw no need to leave the borough while the ones from further West were more open to travelling around London's different suburbs. Now we're all a lot older and in employment you actually still see a lot of this repeated, the ones in the Romford area generally found more localised jobs within the borough itself while the ones outside tend to be the ones who commute greater distances such as in towards Central London. This divide effectively is what leads to people in the area developing a sense of community within themselves as opposed to a sense of community within East London. This is what leads to different opinions and a sense to want to self govern rather than being governed by a body that they themselves do not identify with. In all honesty Khan doesn't seem to be much concerned about Havering as an area too which further doesn't help matters. There was little effort to involve them in any sort of Superloop route, even if it had to be a radial route to link with the SL2. The only changes being made there are economising on routes, the 497 change removes links in the grand scheme and the rerouting of the 5 to Queens was to benefit B&D and not Havering. Obviously in comparison you've had B&D given the ELT network and Redbridge and B&D are both now getting the Superloop network too. Like everyone says, they don't see the benefits they have as being part of the GLA, but they also aren't in full receipt of benefits. Their view is probably that they're paying excessive council tax and never seeing the benefits that other boroughs are receiving. Imagine being in North Ockendon and needing to pay for the GLA, but what benefits are you getting out of it? Of course, residents in Havering were mostly in favour of remaining part of London, it was certain Tory councillors who wanted to join up with Essex.
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Post by mark on Dec 28, 2023 16:06:58 GMT
Like everyone says, they don't see the benefits they have as being part of the GLA, but they also aren't in full receipt of benefits. Their view is probably that they're paying excessive council tax and never seeing the benefits that other boroughs are receiving. Imagine being in North Ockendon and needing to pay for the GLA, but what benefits are you getting out of it? I've never been sure where this "we are paying excessive council tax" whinge from the residents of Bromley and Havering comes from. A band D property in Havering pays £2,088.13 a year. By contrast a band D property in Spelthorne pays £2,201.79. The average property price in each borough is £436,195. and £443,053 respectively so it's probably a good comparison. Havering residents get a far better bus service than most of Spelthorne and lower fares along with rail services that are within the TfL zonal fares scheme plus a 60+ Oyster card. I suspect that the provision of other services is also better - certainly the condition of the roads in my neck of the woods is pretty poor and the stock of books in the local library is less every time I visit it!
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Post by tooting395 on Dec 28, 2023 16:56:35 GMT
Perhaps we should do to London what happened to Poland after the Second World War and move its borders to the west. Havering and Bromley can return to Essex and Kent respectively and London can pick up Slough and Spelthorne! I think Bromley would have to be split in two in such a scenario - the western & northern part has always seemed more connected to London (Palace, Penge, Anerley, etc) so maybe hypothetically, Southwark get Penge and Lambeth grabs more of Palace & Croydon gets Anerley (providing Croydon doesn't want to break away in such a scenario). I suspect any TfL service would then go no further than Bromley coming from Downham or the west Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away.
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Post by vjaska on Dec 28, 2023 16:59:58 GMT
Like everyone says, they don't see the benefits they have as being part of the GLA, but they also aren't in full receipt of benefits. Their view is probably that they're paying excessive council tax and never seeing the benefits that other boroughs are receiving. Imagine being in North Ockendon and needing to pay for the GLA, but what benefits are you getting out of it? I've never been sure where this "we are paying excessive council tax" whinge from the residents of Bromley and Havering comes from. A band D property in Havering pays £2,088.13 a year. By contrast a band D property in Spelthorne pays £2,201.79. The average property price in each borough is £436,195. and £443,053 respectively so it's probably a good comparison. Havering residents get a far better bus service than most of Spelthorne and lower fares along with rail services that are within the TfL zonal fares scheme plus a 60+ Oyster card. I suspect that the provision of other services is also better - certainly the condition of the roads in my neck of the woods is pretty poor and the stock of books in the local library is less every time I visit it! Specifically regarding roads, from my travels, it's less dependent on where a borough is situated as some Outer London boroughs have better conditioned roads than others and some Inner London boroughs are quite bad with this (hello Tower Hamlets). It seems to be how high up the priority list does each individual borough or council consider roads to be - here in Lambeth, they consider it a high priority as our roads are generally looked after and resurfaced at a decent rate bar some exceptions (Effra Road hasn't been done in decades and it's degrading quite a bit in places)
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Post by vjaska on Dec 28, 2023 17:03:29 GMT
I think Bromley would have to be split in two in such a scenario - the western & northern part has always seemed more connected to London (Palace, Penge, Anerley, etc) so maybe hypothetically, Southwark get Penge and Lambeth grabs more of Palace & Croydon gets Anerley (providing Croydon doesn't want to break away in such a scenario). I suspect any TfL service would then go no further than Bromley coming from Downham or the west Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away. I feel the northern part of Croydon would certainly stay (maybe Lambeth can grow in size ) but from say South Croydon down, it feels far like Outer London - another borough that's really two areas in one. Croydon has a big TfL presence of it's own - Trams, Overground compliment the extensive bus network there really well and unlike Romford, there's a bigger variety of possible destinations too.
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Post by mkay315 on Dec 28, 2023 17:13:04 GMT
Perhaps we should do to London what happened to Poland after the Second World War and move its borders to the west. Havering and Bromley can return to Essex and Kent respectively and London can pick up Slough and Spelthorne! I think Bromley would have to be split in two in such a scenario - the western & northern part has always seemed more connected to London (Palace, Penge, Anerley, etc) so maybe hypothetically, Southwark get Penge and Lambeth grabs more of Palace & Croydon gets Anerley (providing Croydon doesn't want to break away in such a scenario). I suspect any TfL service would then go no further than Bromley coming from Downham or the west I would say Penge would be more befitting to Lewisham than Southwark if they had to change
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Post by mkay315 on Dec 28, 2023 17:19:47 GMT
Exactly that but leave them folks to it, they'll learn soon enough I think Havering has the slight issue where it's effectively it's own little independent bubble in the outskirts. People who live there pretty much have no reason to leave unless they work in the City and as a result don't often feel the sense of being 'Londoners' the same way people in Barking and Ilford might be when you go a couple of miles west. You can even see it in their bus network in comparison to Ilford or Barking's. The network in Havering is very heavily centred around Romford, effectively linking all the suburbs such as Collier Row and Emerson Park to Romford and Romford only. Barking for example has the 238 going Stratford, the EL1 going to Ilford, the 169 to Barkingside, the 366 to Beckton while just down the road by 5 stops you have Ilford and it's network of the 25 to City Thameslink and the 123 all the way to Wood Green. I went to school in Romford some years ago now and my school was effectively a mix of people from Chadwell Heath/Barking/Ilford and from Romford. You can tell the children raised in Romford had effectively been ones that were raised within the area their whole life and saw no need to leave the borough while the ones from further West were more open to travelling around London's different suburbs. Now we're all a lot older and in employment you actually still see a lot of this repeated, the ones in the Romford area generally found more localised jobs within the borough itself while the ones outside tend to be the ones who commute greater distances such as in towards Central London. This divide effectively is what leads to people in the area developing a sense of community within themselves as opposed to a sense of community within East London. This is what leads to different opinions and a sense to want to self govern rather than being governed by a body that they themselves do not identify with. In all honesty Khan doesn't seem to be much concerned about Havering as an area too which further doesn't help matters. There was little effort to involve them in any sort of Superloop route, even if it had to be a radial route to link with the SL2. The only changes being made there are economising on routes, the 497 change removes links in the grand scheme and the rerouting of the 5 to Queens was to benefit B&D and not Havering. Obviously in comparison you've had B&D given the ELT network and Redbridge and B&D are both now getting the Superloop network too. Like everyone says, they don't see the benefits they have as being part of the GLA, but they also aren't in full receipt of benefits. Their view is probably that they're paying excessive council tax and never seeing the benefits that other boroughs are receiving. Imagine being in North Ockendon and needing to pay for the GLA, but what benefits are you getting out of it? Ahhh Chadwell Heath is an interesting area I remembered when I was younger. That area actually used to be predominantly Redbridge up until 1993 when they split it in half, so the Marks Gate side of Chadwell Heath where the Rose Lane estate is was given to Barking and Dagenham and the other side going towards Goodmayes remained with Redbridge. Check out this link when you have a chance. www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1993/1443/made?view=plain
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Post by rift on Dec 28, 2023 17:29:51 GMT
I think Bromley would have to be split in two in such a scenario - the western & northern part has always seemed more connected to London (Palace, Penge, Anerley, etc) so maybe hypothetically, Southwark get Penge and Lambeth grabs more of Palace & Croydon gets Anerley (providing Croydon doesn't want to break away in such a scenario). I suspect any TfL service would then go no further than Bromley coming from Downham or the west Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away. Even before the recent decline, Croydon was quite an important area of London, especially with the offices and shops. I’ve heard of people who used to travel from ages away to shop there.
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Post by southlondon413 on Dec 28, 2023 18:24:04 GMT
Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away. Even before the recent decline, Croydon was quite an important area of London, especially with the offices and shops. I’ve heard of people who used to travel from ages away to shop there. Have you been in the Whitgift lately, absolute shithole. The rest of Croydon isn’t much better at the moment.
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Post by abellion on Dec 28, 2023 18:28:54 GMT
Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away. Even before the recent decline, Croydon was quite an important area of London, especially with the offices and shops. I’ve heard of people who used to travel from ages away to shop there. All of the buses and trams as well as East Croydon Stn are still extremely busy, if only the reasons to stay in Croydon were as plentiful as the ways to get out The people are clearly there, too bad the Whitgift looks horrid these days
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Dec 28, 2023 22:29:25 GMT
Croydon definitely feels more part of London even as you get towards the more rural Southern areas compared to Bromley. I can't see Croydon as a majority ever wanting to leave London. The decline of Croydon town centre has also meant that more people from Croydon work and shop in Central London anyway than in the past and rail links to Central has improved with Thameslink. Weirdly though when I am in Romford, there's more tfl presence than in Croydon with the Elizabeth line, Boris bus and the Underground not too far away. Even before the recent decline, Croydon was quite an important area of London, especially with the offices and shops. I’ve heard of people who used to travel from ages away to shop there. I think Croydon's public transport also plays a huge impact in this. While there are localised routes to the various suburbs such as the 198 and 455, you also have really good links to a large variety of different town centres. You have the 154 and the 157 which both go to Morden, the 109 and 250 which go to Brixton, the 75 which goes to Lewisham, the 264 to Tooting and the 75, 450 and 194 towards Sydenham. On top of all this you have the trams which go to Wimbledon, Beckenham, Elmers End, Addington etc which means that not only can people easily get to Croydon, but the people who live within the Croydon borough are also encouraged to go out and make use of neighbouring areas. Bringing this back full circle, Romford does not have these advantages. You have the 5 and 86 which are both constantly heaving that go to Stratford and Canning Town while the only other meaningful links really are the the 128 and 296 which both go to Ilford where the 86 goes anyway. The 128 and 247 both go Barkingside but I don't think that area has much incentive. The 66 goes to Leytonstone, but gets there by using a dual carriageway which by-passes most places useful. The 175 and 174 both go to Dagenham which again isn't going to really entice people out of the area.
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