EQRA has long campaigned for better local bus services.  The 343 will take you to Elephant and London Bridge but you have no other choice from Southampton Way or Wells Way.  If you want to get into the City or West End, you have to change (and pay again if you don’t have a bus pass or Travelcard).  This area needs a better choice of local transport services!

If you haven’t already signed the petition, click here

Numbers are limited so you do need to register in advance.  If you are interested in going along, please email Nadia Chowdari (nadia.chowdari@southwark.gov.uk) at Southwark Council to secure a place.

The park itself is expected to remain closed until around the end of May.  This is to allow the grass a chance to establish itself once it has been seeded.  We understand that the playground for older children, near Chumleigh Gardens, should be open by Easter.

11am at Gloucester School (main school hall, entrance on Burcher Gale Grove)

Please come along to show your support and get involved.

Elect a new committee.

Tell us what issues you want to tackle.

Full agenda TBC – watch this space … if you’ve got a suggestion send us an email.

Julia Edwards, a landscape architect from Southwark’s public realm division will be there to talk about the possibilities.

TUESDAY 6 DEC 7pm – 8pm

Over the last 2 years EQRA has raised this problem on a number of occasions with TfL.  Disappointingly, TfL have responded that they are satisfied that capacity is adequate.

We have now compiled a video which might help to challenge TfL’s view.

Watch this video on YouTube.

If you find you are being left behind by the 63, or have any other problems with our local bus services, please complain to TfL – and keep complaining every time it happens as this will help maintain the pressure to sort the problem out.  TfL’s contact details are:

phone: 0845 300 7000 (Monday to Friday, 8am to  8pm)

web: www.tfl.gov.uk/contact

Incredibly, Boris Johnson has now decided to overturn this plan.

Not willing to give up the fight, we’ve joined forces with the Wells Way Triangle Residents’ Association to campaign even more actively for improved local transport, and issued the following press release to voice our outrage.

We believe that the extra voices may give us more traction with TfL who now seem to be seriously considering diverting the 42 bus along Wells Way and Southampton Way. This would give us a link to the City and beyond and also a useful bus route into Camberwell.

Read the press release here

There’s also a petition online we’re encouraging everyone to sign : http://tinyurl.com/bus343

TfL have also assured EQRA that they consider capacity on routes 63 and 363 to be adequate, despite all the evidence we have submitted to show that it isn’t.

We will not be beaten on this, and will continue to press the case for adequate transport links in this area.  Can you help us to help you?

If you think better transport in this area would help you, now would be a good time to contact TfL and tell them.  You can either go to http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact and click on “make a suggestion” or you can send an e-mail to customerservices.buses@tfl.gov.uk  It will help if you tell them:

• which street you live in
• where you travel to regularly, and the reason (e.g. “to Oxford Circus where I work”)  You can name more than one place or reason if you wish!
• how long the journey can take (e.g. “the journey often takes at least three-quarters of an hour”)

If you have to change buses, or from bus to tube, tell them.  If you think this adds inconvenience to your journey too, don’t forget to tell them that too. 

If you find that buses leave you behind because they are full – it doesn’t matter whether it is the 63, 343 or 363, tell them which route.  Tell them how long you often have to wait before you can get on a bus.

If you find you often have a long wait before a bus turns up, tell them which route it is, and how long you find yourself waiting.

If you don’t use the 63, 343 or 363, either because they are overcrowded, or because you can’t rely on them or because they don’t take you where you want to go, do you walk to a more distant stop (e.g. to Old Kent Road, Peckham Road or Camberwell Road) before you get a bus?  Would you prefer it if there were more convenient services at one of the more local stops?  If so, tell them!

Don’t be disheartened if the only response you get is a standard reply which doesn’t answer in detail what you tell them.  What matters is to keep the pressure up.  EQRA thinks North Peckham deserves better than what TfL and the Mayor are currently providing!