Are the wider cuts more about the perilous state of TfL’s finances?

• FOLLOWING Ethan Pod’s letter (Commuters are being done down on Oxford Street, July 16), about the Oxford Street pedestrianisation plans being a smoke screen for bus service reductions, it is not just buses across Oxford Street that are facing the axe.

In Paddington the No 46 has already been withdrawn from Lancaster Gate and there are further cuts planned to the bus network across the Extra’s area.

In St John’s Wood, the No 13 faces a 29 per cent frequency reduction and soon Maida Vale will lose one of its two links with central London, as the No 414 is withdrawn between Maida Hill and Marble Arch; to name but two examples.

Transport for London’s reasoning is that they are responding to demand, because of reduced passenger numbers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic (and Brexit?).

But perhaps these wider cuts say more about the perilous state of TfL’s finances, rather than providing a service that Londoner’s need?

IAN STITT
Address supplied