Labour supporters held up ‘Saved by Sadiq’ posters this week

COMMUTERS and bus drivers rejoiced this week after it was announced that the No 4 route has been saved from the axe in a cuts U-turn.

A long list of possible routes under threat was announced by Transport for London in July, sparking anger and concern.

The transport authority, answerable to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, had suggested that it would end the No 4 entirely
and cut back the 254, 259 and 476.

A long-running funding dispute with the government was blamed for the proposals.

But on Wednesday – at a packed photocall in Parliament Square with around a dozen Labour MPs and council leaders – Mr Khan heralded himself as the saviour and said none of these routes would now be changed.

Islington Labour leader councillor Kaya Comer-Schwartz said that she was “delighted with the announcement” after her party spearheaded a campaign to save the buses in Islington.

“It’s such a joyous thing to be able to organise a protest with residents, unions and local councillors,” she said.

“Every time we spoke to them people were saying how glad they were to hear that we were doing something about it and standing up for such an important issue to them.

“I’ve been travelling on the No 4 from Archway my whole life and I’m so proud of the way our community has come together to fight the rotten Tory Government and protect our buses.”

She said it followed two years of door-knocking, “countless’ canvassing sessions and the collection of over 2,500 signatures as part of a petition to fight for the bus routes.

Conservatives at the London Assembly took a different point of view and said it was their party that had pressed Mr Khan into a climbdown.

At a packed meeting earlier this year politicians were told how important the No 4 bus was to commuters, bus drivers, the elderly and the disabled.

It heard how the route, which has wound its way from Archway to Angel for almost 30 years, services both the Whittington Hospital and numerous schools.

The single decker 214 – which travels from Highgate to Finsbury Square – has also been saved. The proposals released earlier this year suggested it being re-routed out of the borough.

The scare was triggered earlier this year when a money-saving plan was released and showed how there could be huge changes to the capital’s bus map.

Transport for London and the government have been in a long-running funding dispute since losses suffered by passengers not using services during the Covid pandemic.

More than 21,000 responded to a consultation on the bus cuts.

Mr Khan said he has now “identified” additional TfL funding of £25m a year from Greater London Authority reserves of unallocated business rates and council tax that helped save the routes.

Despite the size of the list of threatened services, only three routes – 332, 507 and 521 – will be scrapped out of a proposed 22.

Eleven routes will be changed, out of an original list which had 57 suggested alterations.

Mr Khan said: “I was furious on behalf of Londoners that TfL was having to consider reducing the bus network due to conditions attached by the government to the funding deal.

“The strength of feeling across the capital was clear to me, and I was adamant that I would explore every avenue available to me to save as many buses as possible.”

Views on the No 4 received the fifth highest number of comments (1,391) out of all the consultation.