Croydon and Sutton’s Assembly Member has urged Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to rebalance bus services from inner to outer London.

Steve O’Connell AM asked him to ‘press a fast-forward button’ on it for Zones 5 and 6.

Mr Khan agreed with him when the question was posed at City Hall during Mayor's Question Time on May 17.

He said: “For some considerable time we and I have been talking about the rebalancing of bus services from inner London to outer London.

“Particularly Zones 5 and 6, which may of us [Assembly Members] represent, where they are over-dependent on bus services because there are no alternatives.

“I regret, over a period of time, we have not seen an improvement.

“We’ve seen strategies or words about it but Mr Mayor can I urge you to press a fast-forward button on what I call the ‘rebalancing of bus services’ away from Zones 1 and 2, where there are plenty of other alternatives, out to Zones 5 and 6?”

Mr Khan responded by saying, ‘We need to show that, we’re doing that’.

He added: “Later on this year, when the next plan from transport [committee] is published – I think Florence Eshalomi also raised this issue last time – giving details of the movement [of bus services].

“So you can be reassured that we are seeing more bus kilometres in outer London than in inner London, as is the plan."

Encouraging commuters to opt for public transport over cars depends on Transport for London (TfL) redistributing buses ‘to where more capacity is needed – particularly to outer London’.

That is according to a report on London’s bus network which was published by the London Assembly's transport committee in August 2017.

It read: “On average, outer London residents make twice as many car journeys than inner London residents, and significantly fewer bus journeys.

“Changing this would be vital to achieving the target the Mayor has set in his draft Transport Strategy to have 80 percent of journeys in London made by sustainable modes.”

However, Mr Khan said in his latest Transport Strategy report current plans for bus network development involves rearranging resources to reflect demand.

Released in March this year, it went on that making buses a more attractive option needs ‘significant enhancements’.

Trip times must be ‘comparable to car journey times’ and high-quality bus stations, bus stops, and other facilities are ‘vital’.