What’s happened to the ‘promise’ to remove bus lanes on the A4, council leaders have been asked.

Slough Borough Council introduced bus lanes along the length of the A4 running across the town in 2020, then declared them permanent in 2022. But Conservative councillors promised to ‘review’ them when they took control in May 2023.

Labour councillor Rob Anderson demanded an update at a meeting on Thursday, November 28. He said: “Given that the controlling group got elected on a manifesto promise to remove the bus lanes, I just wondered where we were with that.”

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He also argued that the bus lanes had contributed to improvements in the quality of air in Slough.

Conservative councillor Mabu Shaik said the Tories had not promised to remove the bus lanes, but only to review them. He said a review was ‘still in progress’.

He said: “We have taken the painful exercise of looking where the pain points are for the bus lanes and we looked at how we can address some of those pain points.”

Draft spending plans published by the council earlier this month suggest it hopes to make £100,000 next year from bus lanes, 20 miles per hour limits and borough-wide parking controls.

A council spokesperson told the Observer that the plans could include removing ‘the short stretch of bus lane on Wellington Street’. The council said most bus lanes would ‘remain as they are,’ although they could be shortened near turnings to help drivers turn left across them.