An end may finally be in sight to the legal saga relating to the use of Section 19 and Section 22 permits. The Judicial Review called by the Bus and Coach Association (BCA) will sit next week.
Its ruling – expected to follow later – may be a defining moment. It has seemed for some time that the Department for Transport is preparing for the verdict to go the BCA’s way, at least partially.
It’s true that the BCA is confident. It has every right to be. It studiously ignored advice – well-meant or otherwise – from parties that have attempted to dissuade it from proceeding.
When the BCA set out, its wish was to see a fair playing field. If one operator is subject to the O-Licensing regime when undertaking a piece of work, for the sake of fair competition it’s difficult to argue that others should not be.
However, there can be no doubt that most of the organisations that use permits do so safely and with honourable intentions.
Should next week’s Judicial Review go the BCA’s way, where will most of those permit holders that undertake ‘commercial’ work to fund socially necessary but otherwise unremunerative duties be left? In a hard place, no doubt. So will their passengers.
routeone has said it before, but it bears repeating: The government is to blame for this unbecoming episode. It carries the can. It has caused the withdrawal of funding while knowing that permit holders could, and would, work ‘commercially’ elsewhere.
Politicians have promised much money for conventional bus services. Depending on the outcome next week, they may need to ringfence some of that for the permit-holding sector.
