Dorset County Council Consultation on bus subsidy cuts

[whole diary]

[Lee]

Not great news potentially for Dorset bus users - consultation page can be found here.

The county council are now consulting on this option with the Town and Parish Councils and directly with the public. The main elements of the proposals, intended to start in January 2014 are as follows:

^Rural services costing over ^5 per passenger withdrawn
^Services carrying an average of less than 7 passengers per journey withdrawn
^School services not carrying entitled children withdrawn
^Summer only tourist services withdrawn
^No subsidised services evenings, Saturdays (unless they average 20 passengers per journey or more), Sundays, Bank Holidays and school holidays unless additional external funding
^No specific subsidised journeys early mornings/evening peaks
^Service 103 not replaced
^Dorchester to Poole route - significant changes - no service between Bere Regis & Poole
^Revised North Dorset network
^Revised Dorchester - Yeovil services
^Revised Christchurch services
^Southill service extended to run during school holidays
^Cross boundary route support significantly curtailed

Unfortunately, it does rather appear that DCC^» (Devon County Council - website) are using the conclusions of the Spring 2013 bus service consultation, in which the top priorities for service users were found to be the provision of bus services during the daytime on Mondays to Fridays to enable access to health, shopping and leisure opportunities, as justification for withdrawing support for services on Saturdays, Sundays, Bank Holidays and school holidays.

Here is a further article. The consultation closes on 24 September 2013.

[ChrisB]

ouch. Anyone on shift work using buses will be hit hard....

[ellendune]

So anyone who needs the bus to get to work on a Saturday or Sunday, who has to work late will be forced find an alternative or become unemployed.

[chuffed]

This is only a consultation, that runs to September 24th. What seems to happen in these circumstances , is that these ' 'worse case' scenarios are projected by the County Council or the major public transport operator.Then after an outcry. far less draconian cuts are proposed, leaving the travelling public thinking 'phew, maybe that wasn't quite so bad after all!'. Seen it happen time and time again with hospitals ,schools, libraries etc.

[Lee]

Somerset?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Yes, Somerset.

North Somerset have some form on this, too. 

[Chris from Nailsea]

An update, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Dorset bus service cuts plan revised

Plans to cut bus services across Dorset are being revised following the results of a public consultation.

An ^850,000 cut was deferred by the county council in July in order for the consultation to be carried out.

At its cabinet meeting on Wednesday the authority said it would produce a new report based on the feedback, including 10 petitions against the plans.

Concerns include access to medical services, and travel to and from work and school.

The authority said it also received more than 1,000 letters from individuals during the consultation, as well as from councillors and organisations.

Other concerns include social isolation, particularly to the elderly or disabled, and the effect on the economy, which were mirrored by some councillors during the meeting.

Councillor Alex Brenton, chair of Morden Parish Council, also said the cuts would cause major congestion in the county's "honeypot villages".

The council said 10 routes, of more than 60 affected services, had attracted the most comment, including the 21 service from Bournemouth to Burton and the 387 from Dorchester to Poole.

In its original proposal the council planned to withdraw rural services costing over ^5 per passenger and urban services costing over ^3 per passenger.

During the meeting Hilary Cox, the county council's cabinet member for environment, said: "We need to consider what is affordable, reasonable and cost-effective".

A final decision on the cuts is expected to be made on 4 December.

[Rhydgaled]

Pembrokeshire have launched a consultation on further bus cuts after they axed the county's remaining Sunday services (except coastal path buses in Summer) ealier this year (or was it a year ago now, I can't remember?)

This really is concerning for efforts to attract passengers onto buses to help prevent climate change.

The Welsh Government's latest transport minister is on record as saying:

A sustainable bus network depends on increasing the number of fare-paying passengers.

link to source.

The rural bus services can be quite hard to use as it is, any reduction in evening services for example will cut the number of fare-paying passengers, leading to more cuts. It's Beeching all over again, just this time with buses.

So, if anyone has any inovative ideas to attract more passengers, or at least maintain current service levels for less subsidy, speak up please.

I think I read somewhere that a free bus service in Chester had to be cancelled because a commerital operator started running services. The strange thing was that the 'subsidy' for the commertial operatation was actually higher than the subsidy for the free bus due to the cost of concessionary travel pass reimbursment.

Would making Pembrokeshire's current bus network free actually cut the subsidy required? The other question of course is whether it is the council or Welsh Government who has to pay for conncessionary travel pass reimbursment?

[FarWestJohn]

Mid Cornwall has a new Company operating some of the abandoned routes.

I wish them well.

Fal river buses.

http://www.falriver.co.uk/getting-about/buses