wrote:
Has London ever had any bus routes whose outer terminal operates on the
basis of a "loop" say round a big housing scheme perhaps with some
journeys going clockwise and others anticlockwise round the loop? I
suspect not because such "frying-pan" shaped routes don't tend to lend
themselves to having sufficient layover time to recover from
London-type congestion delays. Maybe some of the services which don't
venture into Central London run on this basis?
--
gordon

crap humour mode
Hmm, loopy bus services eh? Problem is they go round in circles.
/crap humour mode

Thamesmead has bus routes that service all or part of a loop, see the
Thamesmead spider map here (in PDF format):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/pdf/thamesmead.pdf

I'm no expert on the area whatsoever but Thamesmead is an interesting
and largely unknown part of London, a sort of experimental new suburb
built in the 1960's as a new utopia which hasn't quite worked out as
planned. I'd recommend those involved in local planning of all sorts
take some time to study it (as I'm sure many do) - there are I'm sure
lessons to be learnt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamesmead
http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/bexley/thamesmead.html

The latter Ideal Homes website is a great resource for the history of
the growth of south/south-east London (http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/).