A bus route between Sutton and Kingston will be reduced by one bus an hour later this month, it has been revealed. Transport for London has blamed a drop in passenger numbers for the change that will come into force on January 21.

The 213 will go from having six buses an hour down to five. The subject was raised at a Sutton Council meeting on Monday night. Councillor Luke Taylor said the bus is a "key link" for residents from Sutton West and East Cheam to travel into Sutton, Worcester Park and Kingston. 

Chair of the council's environment and sustainable transport committee, Councillor Barry Lewis, said: "The route is going from six to five buses an hour, a cut of 17per cent. The rationale by TfL for cutting the route was that passenger demand has dropped by 9pc whereas TfL is cutting the buses by nearly 20 per cent.

"If you want to encourage people to use public transport, you improve the services not cut them. How will making services worse encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport?

"Sutton has the lowest investment of all the London boroughs, in 2019 Sutton received £16 million investment into public transport whereas for example boroughs like Westminster received £656 million.

"We are demanding that Sutton's public transport needs to be improved."

An update from TfL said: "The following changes will take place from Saturday 21 January. Route 213 will have a new timetable from this date.

"Buses will be revised to run every 12 minutes during the daytime on all days of the week and every 15 minutes during the evenings. Route 213 will continue to run every 30 minutes throughout the night on all nights of the week."

Geoff Hobbs, TfL's director of public transport planning, said: "We are constantly reviewing our bus network to ensure we are providing the right numbers of buses in the right places.

"We have seen a consistent and significant decline in demand for route 213 in the four years prior to the pandemic, which has not picked up in recent years. We have amended the route's frequency to reflect this and customers will still be able to rely on the service to get where they need to be."