PLANS to cut a popular bus route are set to cause further transport misery for people living near a multmillion pound roadworks scheme.

Residents in Gants Hill have suffered traffic gridlock since engineering work began on a £7.2 million project to improve road layout at the busy roundabout.

But they have now suffered another blow after Ilford South MP Mike Gapes announced that Transport for London (TfL) was planning to cut the heavily used 179 bus route in February next year - leaving hundreds of people without a direct bus link to Barking.

He said on his blog site: "As a result of this my constituents living in Gants Hill and in the streets off Cranbrook Road and anyone getting a 179 further north will now have to get off in Ilford and get another bus if they want to go to Barking.

"Not only have many of my constituents suffered months of disruption to their lives as a result of the chaos caused by the roadworks for the East London transit. Now we find that others will have a worse service as a result of the cuts introduced by Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson’s TFL organisation."

A TfL spokeswoman said: "When the first phase of East London Transit is introduced in February 2010, route 179 will be shortened to operate between Chingford Station and Ilford.

"Passengers will still be able to travel between Ilford Lane and Barking using East London Transit services or route 169."