Buses arrive late or fail to stop at all on new routes in north-east London, residents say.

The W12, W13 and W14 bus routes – which serve Walthamstow, Wanstead and Woodford – were changed in September to “simplify services,” Transport for London (TfL) said.

The 549, which went between South Woodford and Loughton Tube stations, was scrapped entirely.

One parent living on the Nightingale Estate in Wanstead said on most occasions her son had been “unable” to take the W12 to school.

The reasons included the bus being full and unable to take any more passengers, failing to stop entirely, or terminating early at Charlie Brown’s Roundabout with “no reason given to passengers”.

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She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Fortunately, I work from home some days and my husband works shift work and occasionally has weekdays off, so we have been able to pick him up and take him to school when there is a risk of him being late.

“For half the time this term, we have had to rely on a car for that purpose – going against the mayor’s (Sadiq Khan's) plans to reduce the number of cars and pollution in London.”

Fellow resident Irene Leary, 77, said residents “couldn’t understand” why TfL had changed the routes, adding: “They’re asking people not to drive and use public transport, but you’re taking the transport we use.”

She added that it had become “difficult” to go shopping and a trip to her local stores was a “good morning’s walk”.

Under the new timetable, the W14 is an hourly service. Some residents have reported them running late, leaving them uncertain if they had missed the bus.

Resident Peter Hucker said: “On cold winter nights, an old person could wait in the elements for up to an hour.”

He added: “Revert it to three an hour, or two at a push, and voila – everyone is happy, for very little cost or disruption to TfL.

“I thought it was a service not a business.”

Residents are also facing longer hospital trips, as the W12 bus no longer goes into Whipps Cross and stops at the bus stand. Irene said a ten-minute trip “now takes 45”.

However, TfL says that 26,500 people now live “within one bus journey” of the hospital, which serves both Redbridge and Waltham Forest.

Geoff Hobbs, TfL’s director of public transport service planning, said there had been a raft of improvements.

He said: “The changes to W12, W13 and W14 mean these routes now run more frequently to major hubs, making it easier to travel in and around the area.

“Many users on route W12 have seen frequencies doubled and W13 passengers can travel to Leyton without changing.

“On the new route W14, passengers have a higher frequency at the northern end of the route as well as an evening and Sunday frequency for the first time.”

Electric buses are also being phased in, he added.

Liz Martins, leading the Save Local Buses & Routes For Local Residents campaign, has launched a petition for the Mayor of London to reconsider the policy change.