Woolhope Bus Service to be Halved
“The Council yet again shows it has no overall transport strategy. It has recently won a bid which commits it to spending £11.5m on reducing congestion by promoting public transport and cycling while at the same time it is cutting buses to save £294,000. Some at least of the £11.5m should be spent on improving our buses rather than all this money going on advertising an inadequate service. We have to have substance as well as words.”
Mark Hubbard, Leader, It’s Our County
The Council announced the results of its bus survey at the Cabinet Meeting on July 28 2011. The list of exactly which buses are to go is not entirely clear but there is a ‘required saving’ of 15% over the 2010 spending on bus subsidies, which is £294,000, meaning some services have to go. However this is slightly misleading. We know Herefordshire Council has to make cuts, between £10m and £12m, but it is free to cut services as it wants. Funds are not ring fenced.
It’s Our County says cutting buses directly contradicts the Council’s aims of reducing congestion, helping people to retain their independence and making services accessible to people who live out of the main market towns. Community transport, a type of volunteer ring and ride, which the Council claims will fill the gap; just doesn’t fit the bill.
A number of evening and market day buses are set to go. Those hit include the 453 to Woolhope service, the 672 Bromyard to Ledbury and the 45 Ledbury to Ross. It is true Bromyard and Ross buses are little used, but the times are inconvenient, if they were better and the routes were promoted, they would be used. Halving the 453 will leave Woolhope with very little. It currently has a reasonable service, early morning, mid day and early evening bus – not brilliant but sufficient, the cut will take out the early morning and early evening, making the service useless for most. The cut seems parsimonious and rather silly, because it is only another three miles to continue the 453 from Fownhope, which is not due for cuts, so just how much money will this three mile cut save?
The Council’s own survey has found people do not want ‘Community Transport’; they want to retain their independence and use a timetabled bus. They want to be grown ups and be treated like grown ups.
The £11.5m Local Sustainable Transport Fund
This is why the Council’s successful (sorry about this) Local Sustainable Transport Fund – we’ll call it the LSTF from now on, is so misguided on some fronts, because it will direct precious funds to ‘Community Transport’.
In July the Council won £4.9m from the Government LSTF, which it must match, making the overall spend in four years £11.5m.
About two thirds of the money will go on promoting cycling, walking and public transport and one third on enhancing Broad Street, to make it more bike and pedestrian friendly (in the same way as Widemarsh!).
For this money the bid could be so much better. One disappointing element is the focus on Car Share for Rural Areas. This is doomed to failure. The Council’s own research shows people want to be independent, they hate ‘Community Transport’ being beholden to anyone, getting in someone else’s car. It is disappointing that the funders didn’t recognise this and guide the bid to what it says on the can – a Sustainable Solution for transport. Cycling and walking promotion yes, but for a rural county like Hereford with 54% of people not living in a town, rural buses are needed. Herefordshire’s rural buses have never been anything more than a skeleton service, providing the barest minimum for people without a car. With this minimal survival service it is not surprising they are not used. True people must take some of the blame. If you have a car it is too easy to jump in and whiz into town. Car parking fees are low (though set to rise slightly), why should you pay more AND have to find out about your local bus (those of us who do by the way know it is fun, relaxing and convenient).
There are also some rather questionable financial elements to the bid. The £4.9 will be matched funded by £2.8m from the Local Transport Plan funding – this is funding from government already allocated towards sustainable transport. The Council are also using the long delayed and much awaited Connect 2 Sustrans £350,000 cycle grant for the route across the river Wye to Rotherwas as matched funding. This cycle route should have been built by now, funding was there a few years ago, now we are told it is still short by £335,000 and that is coming from this LSTF – with Sustrans contribution being the match funding. Another £157,000 comes from the Government’s Community Transport Grant that is meant to kick start Community Transport. At the same time as cutting the 453 bus, can this be right?
No doubt this £11.5m package will provide some decent jobs for people encouraging us to ride bikes and use buses, but the fundamental fact remains, buses are infrequent and expensive compared to cheap parking. It’s Our County has the greatest reserves about the Park and Share and Community Transport part of the bid. People don’t like it, it will concrete over green spaces in the countryside (more car parks), and what is wrong with buses? Why cant we have rural buses at the right time, correctly promoted and priced combined with some balanced rises in car parking fees and restrictions by employees on parking at work. £11.5m could do this with money to spare.
Herefordshire Council is always stating its commitment to young people, encouraging them to stay in the county, providing jobs and homes for them. But a very key component for young people is transport. Buses are perfect for teenagers. They provide safe and convenient connexions to the places they want to go giving them the independence they crave. Few youngsters can afford a car and the high insurance rates. They need rural buses. With rising prices and declining living standards, so will the rest of us. This £11.5m could have been so much better used, on a decent network of buses throughout the county, properly promoted, combined with some balanced changes in parking policy. If the bid had been this, it would work. It would be goodbye to Hereford congestion and hello to decent transport to everyone. Sadly the bid isn’t this and little will change. Yet another wasted opportunity.
Notes for Editors
- For further information contact: Mark Hubbard, Leader of It’s Our County, mark.a.f.hubbard@btinternet.com 01432 272684 07753 397260 or Rebecca Roseff, Exec Committee Member Transport rebeccaroseff@aol.com 01684 541408
- It’s Our County is the largest opposition political party in Herefordshire. It has nine Councillors plus one Green member in its political grouping in the Council. It’s Our County stands for independence, openness, accountability, fairness and sustainability.
- For more information go to http://itsourcounty.org/
From Herefordshire Council Bus Cabinet Report 28/7/2011:
There is a pressure of £264K on the Council’s route subsidy budget in 2011/12 following the withdrawal of the Rural Bus Subsidy Grant and overall reductions in funding for local government.
An alternative option available to the Council would have been to provide sufficient funding to cover the budget pressures impacting supported bus services. However, given the overall budget pressures facing the Council it is acknowledged that this might only have been achieved by further reductions in other services.
Whilst the Council has used reserves to help support public transport in 2011/12 the budget for route subsidies is £1.616M which is a reduction of £130K from the 2010/11 budget of £1.746M. In addition, there was a budget pressure of £134K as a result of contract price inflation in 2010/11 meaning that the overall pressure is around £264K. This means that there is a budget reduction of 7% but an overall savings requirement of 15% compared with 2010/11.
There are 31 out of a total of 66 contracts due for renewal in September 2011 with a total value of £1.01M (representing 55% of the total value of subsidised services).
The change over date has had to be put back to 23 October to allow for the results of the public consultation to be taken into account when determining any changes to services this year. This means that savings will need to be realised in what remains of the financial year – November to March. Clearly, this could require a deeper cut than would be necessary if the savings had been introduced at the start of the financial year. To help ease this pressure on the bus route subsidy budget a contribution will be made from other transportation budgets during the current financial year.
from Herefordshire Joint Corporate Plan
In the Joint Corporate Plan • 5.6 Sustainable public transport provision is a long term outcome under the priority to ‘Create a Resilient Herefordshire’.
From ‘The Review of Buses’: Aims:
Create a thriving economy:
• 1.1 The regeneration of Herefordshire with a particular focus on Hereford City
• 1.2 The delivery and maintenance of key infrastructure including actions to reduce congestion
Improve health care and social care
• 2.7 More people retaining their independence through greater choice and control
Promote self reliant local communities
• 4.4 Ways of working that reflect the needs and priorities of people and place
Create a resilient Herefordshire
• 5.2 Accessible services and countryside
From the Councils successful application to the Local Sustainable Transport Grant; See:
http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/docs/Destination_Hereford_-_LSTF_Application_Form.pdf
• £1.3m will be spent on travel awareness
• £3.6m on work travel plans and the Cycle Route Connect2 (why has this not been completed yet) which is taking £335,000 from the new fund – surely it should have been completed by now.
• £1.1m on encouraging children to cycle to school
• £1m on encouraging households to walk or cycle more
• £3.3m on upgrading Broad Street, extending the Widemarsh Street and Cathedral Close changes further into the city
• £1.2m on Park and Share and extending Community Transport.