Bus services in the south should not be overlooked for funding, some in the industry have urged after the government detailed local transport authority (LTA) distributions for the Midlands and North of England from reallocated HS2 monies.
As the £2.5 billion for the North and £2.2 billion for the Midlands was last month allocated, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) warned against a “postcode lottery”.
CPT Chief Executive Graham Vidler welcomed news of the funding allocation but says: “Councils in the South of England now also need the same level of long-term investment in local transport, in particular in buses, which are the UK’s most popular, affordable and accessible form of public transport. Frequent, fast, reliable buses are required by all people across the country to get to work, school, and to access essential services. This should not be a postcode lottery based on the cancelled HS2 route.”
Meanwhile, the Chair of ALBUM, whose membership includes many independent bus operators in the South of England, feels that LTAs in that area had already lost out when it came to Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding.
Bill Hiron, who is also Managing Director of Stephensons of Essex, says: “No local authority in the South has had any HS2 money, but of course some local authorities — and that includes most in my area — have also had no original BSIP money. So they have had no extra funding at all apart from a bit of BSIP Plus.”
While acknowledging “very good projects” in the North, he adds there were, “some local authorities in the Midlands and North who, dare I say it, have probably got more money than they are capable of spending on sensible things”.
He further says of the HS2 allocations: “There are some perfectly good worked-up plans by local authorities in the South who got passed over for BSIP that would have been in a much more ready-to-go position and potentially make a more sensible use of those monies.”
