Bus funding leaves out rural areas
9 December 2011
Responding to the Government’s announcement of a £60m package of measures to support buses and community transport, Campaign for Better Transport’s public transport campaigner Sophie Allain said:
“We welcome this announcement and we’re glad that minsters have been able to find money to improve bus services. However, this extra money comes in the wake of severe and continuing cuts to services with cuts to council-funded services and changes to funding for concessionary fares, which are hitting rural communities especially hard. The new Better Bus Areas fund will focus on urban areas, whilst the additional funding for community transport is not of a sufficient scale to truly transform transport in rural areas. Government should look at what more can be done to get new approaches to providing transport services in rural areas.”
The charity also wants to make sure that the Better Buses Areas can support a full range of measures, including moves to quality contracts. The fact that applications for funding need sign-off of from a major local bus operator could make it much more difficult to do so.
Notes to Editors
1. Quality Bus Contracts allow a local transport authority to specify what the local bus network should be and how it should be operated and to contract with a bus operator to run those services on their behalf (similar to the way that bus services are run in London).
2. Save Our Buses is a campaign from Campaign for Better Transport that makes the case for buses to Government decision-makers and supports local campaign groups to fight bus cuts in their area. For more information visit the Save Our Buses website.
3. Previous research conducted by Campaign for Better Transport showed 74 per cent of local authorities across England have decided to make cuts to their bus budgets, with £36 million having already been cut from local authority funding for supported bus services. This represents a 13 per cent drop in total spending on supported bus services from the previous year.
4. Over 1000 bus services (1114) have already been lost in the English regions (non-metropolitan areas outside London), that’s 21 per cent or 1 in 5 supported services.
5. The Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) will be cut by £99.6m (20 per cent) from April 2012. Changes to the way the free bus pass scheme is administered and its budget calculated mean a further £50 to £100 million is being removed from local bus services.
6. Campaign for Better Transport is the UK’s leading authority on sustainable transport. We champion transport solutions that improve people’s lives and reduce environmental damage. Our campaigns push innovative, practical policies at local and national levels. Campaign for Better Transport Charitable Trust is a registered charity (1101929).
