High-Speed 2. Not coming to a station near you!
The recent announcement by the government that it was cancelling the HS2 railway line north of Birmingham was accompanied by a statement that the money saved would be redirected to other transport projects in the Midlands and North of England.
It appears that much of the money will go on building yet more roads to increase car traffic, although the promised money for repairing potholes and damaged road surfaces will at least be welcomed by many bus passengers, particularly in Lancaster and Morecambe.
More money for buses
Some money was promised for buses and now the government has announced a £1 billion fund to improve bus services in the north and midlands. The first tranche of the money will be £150m to be distributed to local councils in the next financial year starting in April 2024: Lancashire County Council's share will be £7,025,000.
The money is to be spent on providing more regular and reliable services, or cheaper fares initiatives and price caps. As the national £2 fare cap will remain in place until at least December 2024 it is unlikely that many authorities will want to use the money for this purpose. Instead, the Department for Transport (DfT) suggests it could fund the reintroduction of evening services, improve frequencies, add new routes or facilitate demand responsive transport. Crucially, it appears that for once, the DfT is prepared to allow councils to spend the money on things that they feel will be most beneficial, rather than being micro-managed by civil servants in London as has been the case with Bus Service Improvement Plan funding. The only stipulation is that it cannot be used to maintain existing services, which means that local authorities won't be able to cut their own budgets for bus service support and use the new funding instead.
You wait ages for bus funding. . .
The announcement is just the latest on bus funding in recent times, following on from Bus Service Improvement Plan funding in 2022, by which Lancashire received £34.2m over three years and "Bus Service Improvement Plan Plus" funding earlier this year of £2.4m for Lancashire for this year and next. Although the latest funding is just for 2024-25 it does come with a promise that the remainder of the £1bn will be rolled out over the next five years, something that is essential if any new or improved bus services are to be maintained.
The Bus Users Group welcomes the new money - Lancaster was never going to benefit much from HS2 anyway - and will be discussing how we think Lancaster's share should be spent in our meetings over the next few months.