The Bus Users' Group, whilst recognising the financial difficulties the County Council finds itself in, feels that the council does not plan to spend its remaining public transport money wisely.
After April 2016 the Council intends to stop funding all subsidised bus services and to use what little funding it has to provide minibuses to parish councils that volunteers would drive on locally-organised routes. Unsurprisingly, the Bus Users' Group has detected a complete lack of enthusiasm amongst parish councils or anyone else for this approach.
Therefore the Group has sent the following letter to the Cabinet Member for Transport at the Council asking that the planned "Parish Bus Scheme", which no parishes appear to want, be scrapped in favour of the county council working together with parish councils and others to maintain at least a basic bus service throughout Lancashire by means set out in the letter.
If you agree with the views expressed in the letter you may wish to tell your local county councillor
(addresses here on this link) and perhaps send him or her a link to this post.
LANCASTER
DISTRICT BUS USERS’ GROUP
Please reply to
98 Dorrington
Road
LANCASTER
LA1 4TD
County Councillor J Fillis lancasterbususers@gmail.com
77 Southport Road
ORMSKIRK 25th
January 2016
Lancs
L39 1LW
Dear Councillor
Fillis,
BUS SUBSIDIES AND PARISH BUS SCHEME
Lancaster
District Bus Users’ Group understands the reasons behind the reductions to the
County Council’s budget and accepts that bus services must take their share of
the cuts. We feel however that the proposed total withdrawal of all subsidies
and their replacement by a “Parish Bus Scheme” that will rely heavily on
volunteers for all aspects of its operation is not the way forward and does not
represent best value for money.
Even were it to
be successful the Scheme would lead only to a fragmented series of unrelated
local services each with an uncertain future and with a lack of co-ordination
between them or with commercial services and carrying far fewer passengers than
the current subsidised routes.
We feel that
the money allocated to the proposed scheme could be better spent elsewhere. In
recent years Lancashire’s rural and suburban areas have enjoyed a generous
level of bus service provision; in many cases the best services that some
communities have ever enjoyed. There would therefore appear to be scope to
reduce service levels, even quite drastically, and still maintain a basic level
of provision. Your current proposals do not do this and will lead, in a number
of instances, to communities moving from a seven-day-a-week, 07.00 to 23.00 hrs
service to no buses whatsoever.
We would ask
you to consider utilising the £2M that we understand is set aside for the
Parish Bus Scheme in one of two different ways:
To
maintain a basic level of service provision during the working week (excluding evenings and Sundays) particularly on routes
where communities would otherwise be more than two kilometres from an
alternative service, the actual service level being the best that could be
obtained for the money available. Parish Councils, or other interested groups
could be invited to provide funding to enhance such services where they wished
to do so.
Alternatively: To encourage Parish Councils and others to
procure their own services from commercial bus operators and to utilise the county’s
remaining funding to match the parish expenditure by way of grants.
Our discussions
with Parish Councils in the Lancaster District have uncovered no enthusiasm for
the Parish Bus Scheme as proposed and we believe this is likely to be the case
elsewhere. In any case, with subsidised services due to end on 2 April it is
extremely unlikely that any new schemes could be put into effect in time to
avoid a gap in provision. We would therefore ask you again to reconsider.
Please note
that although this letter has been sent as “hard copy” I would be happy to
receive your reply by email to the address above should that be more
convenient.
Yours
Sincerely,
Jim Davies
Chair
