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Sport Governing Bodies

Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what criteria are applied by the Sports Council in recognising a governing body for any sport when there is more than one potential candidate. [172078]

Angela Smith: The Sports Council for Northern Ireland applies the policy criteria adopted by Sports Councils across the United Kingdom in recognising a governing body for any sport. This states that only one body will be recognised per sport. In addition, in recognising a body, criteria are applied under the headings of constitution and management, structure and organisation, promotion of the activity, safety and impact. When there is more than one potential candidate for any sport, the decision is based on which body best meets these criteria.
 
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Sporting Venues

Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what support he is providing to ensure that Casement Park remains a venue for Gaelic games. [172285]

Angela Smith: I have already provided, through the Sports Council for Northern Ireland's Interim Safe Sports Grounds Scheme, £150,000 to the Antrim County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) to help ensure that Casement Park remains a venue for Gaelic Games. The Sports Council has also recently begun discussions with the Ulster Council of the GAA, which is responsible for the overall development of Gaelic sports in Northern Ireland, about the future capital priorities for Gaelic games including those relating to Casement Park. Until these discussions are completed it would not be appropriate to comment on what additional support might be provided to ensure that Casement Park remains a venue for Gaelic Games.

Translink

Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many new buses were purchased by Translink for use in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years. [172062]

Mr. Spellar: Translink advise that buses purchased in the last five years are as detailed as follows.

	Buses purchased
2003–04	193
2002–03	17
2001–02	52
2000–01	41
1999–2000	124

Women's Aid Helpline

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether funding will be provided to ensure the continued operation of the Women's Aid 24-hour helpline; and if he will make a statement. [171760]

Angela Smith: The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is liaising with NI Women's Aid and I have met with the organisation regarding the projected funding deficit for 2004–05 in respect of their helpline. When all considerations have been determined a decision will be made and it is hoped that this matter will be resolved as a matter of urgency.

TRANSPORT

Aylesbury Southern Distributor Road

Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of whether the proposed Aylesbury southern distributor road should (a) be a dual carriageway, (b) be on an embankment and (c) have grade separated junctions. [172166]

 
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Mr. Jamieson: None. The Secretary of State has not received a proposal for delivery of the Aylesbury southern distributor road so is not undertaking any assessment.

However, we anticipate that the local authority will submit proposals in due course to deliver this scheme.

Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the cost of the Aylesbury southern-distributor road proposed in the Cross-Government Statement on the draft Milton Keynes and South Midlands sub-regional strategy; how it is planned that the road should be funded; and what his current estimate is of the timescale for the project. [172167]

Mr. Jamieson: The Secretary of State has not received any proposals relating to the Aylesbury southern distributor road and, therefore, has made no estimate of the cost.

It is for the Local Authority to bring forward specific proposals for a suitably phased scheme for funding under the Local Transport Plan process, taking into account developer contributions.

The indicative timescale for this scheme is set out in the draft Milton Keynes and South Midlands sub regional strategy.

Bus Partnership Forum

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what activities have been undertaken by the Bus Partnership Forum; and how often it has met in each year since its creation. [171938]

Mr. McNulty: I Chair the Bus Partnership Forum, which brings together senior representatives of the bus industry and local government, and first met in July 2002. Since then the Forum has met a further three times, January and July 2003 and on 23 February 2004.

Through the work of a number of task and finish groups and the official level steering group, the Forum is tackling problems that may hinder further growth in the industry and is identifying practical solutions. Achievements to date include:

publication of a report on understanding customer needs;

agreeing a code of practice on service stability (limiting the number of timetable changes made per year) for local implementation;

publication of a CD-ROM resource pack on bus priorities;

publication of model agreements on joint ticketing schemes as a way of encouraging further schemes;

and commissioning the first national survey of bus punctuality, with a view to establishing realistic standards and targets.

Further work is in progress on performance monitoring and integrated ticketing and a report on innovative transport and social inclusion issues is due in the summer of 2004.

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for    Transport what the (a) expenditure and (b) administration costs of the Bus Partnership Forum were for each year since 1997. [171972]

 
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Mr. McNulty: The forum was established in July 2002. The cost of administering the Forum is negligible and is met from the existing budgets of the constituent organisations. No additional public expenditure has been incurred from the work of the Forum over and above that already planned for in existing research and consultancy programmes.

Bus Stops

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what percentage of bus stops in (a) rural and (b) urban areas outside London have real time bus information. [171973]

Mr. McNulty: In April 2002, DfT awarded £20 million supplementary credit approval (SCA) to support 19 local authorities (LA) and passenger transport executives (PTE) in providing real time information (RTI) on their local bus services. The SCA programme ended at the end of March 2004. It has been used to support the provision of:

over 2,600 buses equipped to provide RTI

nearly 1,300 at-stop signs now providing RTI

12 new or extended websites

seven new or extended SMS services.

The transport direct team (TDT) is currently working on a national database of bus stops and public transport interchange points. Bus stops are recorded by LA, rather than by rural and urban areas. The information provided below is therefore broken down into PTEs and shire counties. PTEs are amalgamations of adjacent urban LAs, and as such have been used as an indication of urban areas. Shire counties have been taken to represent rural areas. The TDT database holds a total of 277,363 bus stops in England, of these 65,954 are in the PTEs outside London and 191,760 in the shire counties.

In late 2003, a survey of bus real time information capability in English local authorities, recorded 361 at stop RTI signs in the PTEs outside London, and 2,067 at stop RTI signs in the shire counties. In addition to signs, there are "virtual stops", which provide bus real time information through short messaging service (SMS). The total number of stops equipped with this capability is: 22,639 in the PTEs and 3,933 in the shire counties.

	PTEs (excl. London)	Shire counties
No bus stops	65,055	194,632
RTI signs	361	2,067
SMS capability	22,639	3,933
Total RTI	23,000	6,000
Total percentage	35.4	3.1

Note:
Table 1: RTI enabled bus stops for shire counties and PTEs.

For PTEs outside London, the percentage of bus stops capable of providing RTI to passengers is 35.4 per cent. For the shire counties the percentage is 3.1 per cent. This figure is skewed towards the PTEs due to the large number of stops that have SMS capability. For at stop signage only, the figures are 0.5 per cent. for PTEs and 1.1 per cent. for shire counties.
 
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