Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 5 MAY 2004
MR TIM
DAVIES, MS
SHEENA PICKERSGILL,
MR GEOFF
GARDNER, MR
JOHN SYKES,
MR ALLAN
EDMONDSON AND
MR STEVEN
SALMON
Q140 Chairman: That is a danger,
is it not?
Ms Pickersgill: Yes, it is a danger.
Q141 Chairman: And that is being
evaluated, is it?
Ms Pickersgill: It is, Chairman.
Q142 Chairman: You would be worried
about that, Geoff, would you not?
Mr Gardner: Yes.
Q143 Chairman: Have you two talked
about this?
Ms Pickersgill: Yes.
Q144 Chairman: It is an unintended
consequence.
Ms Pickersgill: It is an unintended
consequence, or could be.
Chairman: So all these kids in Hebden
Bridge could be getting flabbier and flabbier. David is an expert
on Colne Valley.
Q145 Mr Chaytor: As it happens, the
head teacher of the school in Hebden Bridge is a very good friend
of mine. I know his scheme extremely well and I know his school
and the location of his school. I think it is almost inevitable
that the large majority of that missing 25% will be walking or
cycling to school and will continue to walk or cycle given the
particular geographical location of that school.
Ms Pickersgill: It is very hilly
around there.
Q146 Chairman: The 25% is already
being diverted, is it not? The figures suggest that you are already
getting the 25% from somewhere so they must be off other modes.
Ms Pickersgill: Obviously we are
looking at the shift, at the numbers of children that used to
travel in the car and now travel by bus. Obviously one aspect
we are delighted with is taking cars off the road and addressing
the pollution issues, another is truancy. There are a few schemes
underway in your area as well, Chairman, in Kirklees, where we
have been trying to address behaviour issues on buses, truancy
issues and non-attendance at schools. I have not got quantifiable
evidence for you today, but we were speaking to the schools yesterday
and at one of them they assured me, although they were not able
to give me the figures, that attendance at their school had improved
markedly particularly in the Rawthorpe area. One example they
gave me for you is that there was one little girl at the infant
school who was attending, on average, two days a week and she
now attends five days a week because of the yellow bus scheme.
The enormous benefits to be had from the yellow bus scheme are
more than all the positive benefits around congestion and transport
simply by getting the children to get to school in the first place,
which has got to be a good thing. That is why I mentioned earlier
about looking at transport in the round and looking at children's
accessibility in its broadest sense, not just to school but to
other activities, at weekends and all sorts of things. With our
yellow bus scheme, the big major scheme that we have secured funding
for, we are working very hard with lots of partners to make sure
we use those buses for other activities during the day and also
at weekends and we are working with federations of schools to
look at how we do the interlinking.
Chairman: Ms Pickersgill, you have really
won me over in terms of your mention of Rawthorpe school in my
constituency, you are absolutely right. There is all this exciting
stuff you are doing in West Yorkshire and yet not one bit of this
relates to this Bill. This is what concerns us.
Q147 Valerie Davey: In fact, all
that we have talked about in terms of pilots this morning has
been very generic. We are hoping to get best practice shared out.
Would it not be fairer to say that rural/urban, for example, or
inner-city suburbia all have different contexts or, dare I say,
hilly/flat? Is it possible to transfer generic good practice or,
indeed, should the Government ensure that these pilots are very
different and bring together good practice over a range of different
situations?
Mr Davies: It is certainly important
that we do have a wide range of different situations and innovative
measures tested in the pilots. There is some difference between
rural and urban but I think it is mainly perhaps in the proportion
of children who have free transport currently as against those
who do not. Obviously in the big Shire counties such as Devon
a much bigger proportion of children already receive free transport,
but even there it is not the majority of the children who go to
school. We are talking about a school population of 150,000 and
only 20,000 actually receive free school transport. So there are
big numbers of children in the small towns, and in a city like
Exeter, of course, who are within the current walking distances,
who do not get any assistance with transport. Obviously in the
urban areas the proportion of those children receiving free transport
is even lower, with the vast majority of children living within
two miles or three miles of their schools. Where I think we do
have another difference in the rural areas is the longer distances
that some of the children travel to school and we must make sure
that the travel schemes and the pilots that we promote actually
do embrace all the children, that we provide properly for those
children who live 10 or 15 miles from school as well as for those
children who live 2 miles from school. One critical area there
is with after-school activities and again social inclusion issues
come in here. If students are all forced to go home at 3.30 because
that is when the only transport runs, are they being denied the
opportunity of twilight courses and after-school clubs and other
features which are part of the school experience for the rest
of the children? We have to find a pilot which perhaps embraces
this issue of how we get children home from school at 4.30/5.30
rather than them all having to go home at 3.30.
Q148 Valerie Davey: Could I ask whether
the Bill's focus, which appears to be congestion and getting children
out of cars, should be the main target? Are you not suggesting
that there are clearly other criteria or another criterion which
ought to be as important as congestion and car transport?
Mr Pollard: Yes, I believe there are
certain issues of social inclusion and the wider school experience
which could be promoted by the Bill. From my Association's point
of view, we do feel it is the congestion aspects which have perhaps
not received as much attention as they should have done over the
last few years and, therefore, we particularly welcome the attention
that is being given now through this process to that.
Q149 Chairman: Would you put in for
one of these pilots in Devon?
Mr Davies: That is an interesting
question in that at a political level the Council has decided
currently not to go forward with offering to do a pilot based
on charging those children who now have free transport, but many
of the other ideas which were in the action plan and which are
suggested in the preliminary material to the Bill we are actually
already working on with our local transport plan and school travel
plan colleagues.
Q150 Chairman: So you are not queuing
up to be a pilot?
Mr Davies: Not at this moment
in terms of the charging issue, no.
Q151 Chairman: You are either in
for a pilot or not. You are not in for a pilot, are you?
Mr Davies: We have yet to see
all the details of the Bill and the Government is inviting pilots
for other measures in addition to charging.
Q152 Chairman: Are you up for a pilot
in West Yorkshire?
Ms Pickersgill: No. At the moment
there is a problem around funding. Somebody has got to address
the funding issue of a pilot.
Q153 Chairman: But you will save
loads of money. You can charge and make a lot of money. Why does
no one want to do that? Some people think the Government is introducing
this to save money.
Mr Sykes: No, certainly not.
Q154 Chairman: You do not think they
are?
Mr Sykes: I would hope not.
Q155 Chairman: You would not be that
cynical?
Mr Sykes: No. I would take a more
positive view and say it is about improving transport.
Q156 Chairman: Some people see it
as a money saving measure, do they not?
Mr Sykes: Very much so.
Q157 Chairman: You do not agree?
Mr Sykes: Personally, no.
Q158 Chairman: But you are not putting
in for a pilot. Why not?
Mr Sykes: The funding for the
exercise is going to be so front-ended in terms of human and resource
costs. For a commercial operator it would be just as difficult
as well. There is a real issue around funding.
Q159 Chairman: So you are saying,
"Show me the colour of your money, Charles, and we might
be interested," are you not?
Mr Sykes: No. I am saying if you
approve my financial profile and there will be a profit after
the three or five years, if you are confident to rubber-stamp
that, then could you not give me some of the grant in advance
that we could use and then pay you back.
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