Rural local authorities (LAs) in England making Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) submissions were “set up to fail” by the government and a lack of guidance on expectations for bus services in those areas, the Transport Select Committee heard on 25 January.
The remarks were made by countryside charity CPRE Campaigns Manager Chris Hinchliff as part of a session on rural connectivity. CPRE had “quite a lot of concerns” around the BSIP process, principally because LAs did not know how much funding would realistically be made available to them.
On plans for rural bus services, Mr Hinchliff says that insufficient guidance was provided to ensure that LAs were working around the same general aim. “In some BSIPs, you see plans for hourly rural and suburban routes between 0700-1900hrs. There is another one that commits only to exploring interurban service frequencies. There are no set standards for rural areas,” he told the Committee.
Difficulties with existing rural bus services were covered in the session. Go South West Managing Director Richard Stevens noted that even with proactive LAs in Cornwall and Devon, some mileage has been lost.
However, Mr Stevens adds that where rural network reshaping has taken place, Go South West has “worked heavily to integrate school transport” into connectivity. That helps to support bus services, but he notes that keeping a holistic view is imperative. Otherwise it becomes “a self-fulfilling prophecy of cuts” under a route-by-route approach.
Possible change to BSOG payments via promised reform of the mechanism in England to focus on mileage rather than fuel could assist rural bus services, the Committee heard. “In a rural setting… that should be an opportunity to enhance provision,” says Mr Stevens, but he adds that any such shift must not negatively affect urban routes.
Alongside various other measures, “BSOG is a sophisticated tool to help protect services for passengers, and to grow those opportunities in a rural setting,” he adds.
Mr Hinchliff had earlier criticised what he says is messaging that “very strongly” encouraged LAs “to focus on demand responsive transport (DRT) as the solution for rural areas.” Acknowledging that DRT has a role to play, he says that CPRE has worries about its wider adoption.
“Evidence suggests that DRT does not match the passenger transport numbers that you can achieve with regular fixed route services. Given that we need to reduce traffic for a number of reasons, that was quite a concern.”
Also highlighted at the Committee session was the competitive bidding process behind BSIPs with no guarantee of success. “It is always down to time. Time, of course, is money,” Dorset Council Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment Cllr Ray Bryan says, adding that allocating the necessary resource by LAs causes worries that it may be wasted.
