A law firm has warned that proposed cuts to bus services would come just as young women and men feel less safe on the streets.

Transport for London has proposed the biggest cuts to London’s bus network in decades.

Under proposals being considered, 100 services per hour will be slashed and nearly 80 routes are facing cuts, while 16 routes could be axed, including six night buses. Locally these include numbers 4, 24, 31, 88,168, 214.

Ham & High: The 24 bus from Hampstead Heath, earmarked to be scrapped, serves two Camden hospitals - The Royal Free and UCLHThe 24 bus from Hampstead Heath, earmarked to be scrapped, serves two Camden hospitals - The Royal Free and UCLH (Image: PA)

A comparison of ONS data for 2021 and 2022, suggests almost a third more UK women now feel unsafe in public spaces during the daytime, and a third more men now fear walking in public areas at night.

Muggings in London have risen by 58% in the last year.

“It’s not difficult to see why people, particularly women, are frightened to walk through parks and other public spaces. We’ve seen some terrible cases of violence against women in recent months," said Stephen Halloran, criminal defence solicitor and director at Lawtons Solicitors.

“With police resources stretched and cuts to public transport on the horizon, more people will be turning to private transport and ridesharing services in an effort to stay safer.”

In August, TfL said it expects to receive around £1.2 billion of funding from the Government until the end of March 2024.

It said despite an 18% reduction in bus services no longer taking place, it "expects some reductions will still be needed."

A Tfl spokesperson said "no decisions have yet been made on the proposals" but that officers would "ensure the right number of buses are allocated to each route to meet demand".

The spokesperson said under the proposals "there would remain dedicated policing for the bus network, hundreds of enforcement officers deployed to priority locations and an extensive CCTV network".

Bus services proposed to be removed from the network "are in locations that already have a higher provision of buses or other public transport options".

Geoff Hobbs, director of public transport service planning at TfL, said: “ As with all our consultations, we will take into account all public and stakeholder responses, along with the latest ridership data, before reaching any final decisions.

He said an equality impact assessment which looked at the impact on vulnerable group "will be updated to reflect feedback from around 20,000 responses we received”.