UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1066-ii

HOUSE OF COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

SOUTH WEST REGIONAL COMMITTEE

 

TRANSPORT IN THE SOUTH WEST

MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2009

(TAUNTON)

BILL BILLINGTON, TIM CHARLESWORTH, JAMIE CHRISTON, JULIAN CROW, MICHAEL GREEDY and MIKE LAMBDEN

ALAN COUSINS, JEREMY FILMER-BENNETT, DAN JAMES, ISOBEL MACK, ANDY SHAW and ADRIAN WELSH

 

Evidence heard in Public

Questions 41 - 125

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1.	This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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4.	Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.

 

 

Oral Evidence

Taken before the South West Regional Committee

on Monday 2 November 2009

Members present:

Alison Seabeck (Chairman)

Mr. David Drew

Dr. Doug Naysmith

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Bill Billington, RAC, Tim Charlesworth, South West Regional Ports Association, Jamie Christon, Exeter Airport, Julian Crow, First Great Western Trains, Michael Greedy, Passenger Focus, and Mike Lambden, National Express, gave evidence.

 

Chairman: As people settle down, I think we will get going. We are a little bit late and apologies for that. I appreciate that we have a significant number of people here again today. I also apologise for my lack of appearance at last week's event. Unfortunately it took me six hours to get to Reading and back. It was not the fault of First Great Western, I hasten to add.

I would like to thank David and the other members of the Committee for stepping in, particularly David for taking over the Chair for the day. Thank you for that. Thank you also for the huge response we have had both from organisations and the public. I am pleased to see that a lot of people have come here again today to listen to the evidence.

There was frustration last week that the format of the Select Committee did not allow members of the public to ask questions. We are going to go away and look at that and see whether there is any scope for changing the format within the existing structure to enable some form of more direct involvement-but that is further down the line, part of the modernisation issue. Do we have any declarations?

Dr. Naysmith: Yes, I have a declaration. We are going to be discussing ports this morning and the port of Bristol is in my constituency. I used to be chairman of the Port of Bristol Authority and, although I do not have any pecuniary interest in it, I am still a trustee of the Bristol port pension scheme.

Chairman: I need to declare that I have Plymouth airport and therefore Air Southwest in my constituency. There are issues around regional airports. Again, I have no pecuniary interest, but there are constituency interests. I think we all have interests in the broader sense in transport.

Mr. Drew: I have Sharpness docks, if you want me to declare an interest. I have a long-term association with them.

 

Q41 Chairman: We will kick off. I should like to start with direct questioning to the RAC and to Mike Lambden from National Express. This is a question for the RAC. Do you think the objectives of delivering a sustainable transport strategy present a significant change in transport policy?

Bill Billington: In summary, no. They provide the framework, and within that the observations we have made are still very relevant. Obviously we would need to relate anything you decide to do to the strategy.

 

Q42 Chairman: How does that play with your members? Clearly there is a view that we need to reduce car journeys.

Bill Billington: If you can reduce car journeys cost-effectively, and provided that you can do so more cost-effectively than improving the roads, we will go along with that, but all experiences show that it is extremely difficult to reduce car journeys cost-effectively. It is unrealistic to contemplate a future in which we will not have expanding car use.

 

Q43 Chairman: You also talk in your evidence about the A30. You flag up a number of roads, including strategic links in. As part of the submissions we have had a large number of individual responses, including one from Mr. Peter Mulley who basically made the points you made about the A30 and about the strategic links in, but have you done any work on the costings, for example, for the bit between Exeter and Camborne that still needs to be upgraded?

Bill Billington: We have not done so ourselves-it is not part of our remit-but a certain amount of preparatory work has been done on what we believe the case is there.

 

Q44 Mr. Drew: Can I ask Mr. Lambden, who I believe is from National Express, a question? My understanding is that National Express has increased the number of journeys, but that they are from a more limited number of venues. Let's take Stroud for example: some National Express coaches still go through it, but, in the main, people have now got to get to Cirencester to pick up a National Express coach. Surely that is the antithesis of sustainable transport, because people have to find a way of getting to Cirencester.

Mike Lambden: What you say is broadly correct. Yes, we did have some reductions on the service through Stroud-

 

Q45 Mr. Drew: I am using that as an example, but that is presumably true of many of the Strouds in this world.

Mike Lambden: It is true of a number of places, but it is not true overall. Over a number of years, points have been taken out of the network because most people want to go as directly as possible. It is a combination of getting the balance right between people who want to go direct and those who want to call everywhere. You're never going to please everyone at the same time. We'd like to serve some places better, but it is not easy to do so without adding significantly to the journey time.

 

Q46 Mr. Drew: The point I was going on to was whether you have talked to other bus operators about how they can provide a link, because to me, the whole point about sustainable transport is you can't guarantee that you can get someone from one place direct to another unless you have the nodal routes that come from the original starting point. If it's all joined up, I think people in the main are aware of that, but if it's not, clearly they're not going to use a National Express coach.

Mike Lambden: Throughout the South West, we provide quite a number of links through other operator services and people can buy through-ticketing through our system. I think, from memory, we don't actually do Stroud, but I'll check on that and report back to the Committee.

 

Q47 Mr. Drew: All right, but let me know. Please start. I am making the point that if we are going to use the road network in a more collective way, we've got to be able to do much more joined-up work. That seems to be a real weakness at the moment.

Mike Lambden: I agree with you on that.

 

Q48 Dr. Naysmith: Again, to Mr. Lambden, why do you think that the region should prioritise improving the current network, rather than just building more roads?

Mike Lambden: I do not think that there is a need for more roads most of the time. There are a few pinch points to address. Clearly, as a Bristol MP, you will be very familiar with the issues around the M4, M5, A38 and M32 junctions, and the congestion you get there, which interferes with our ability to deliver the services consistently. Most of the time, there is plenty of space on the roads and our services operate well to time. There are some places where we think that priority should be given to-clearly-our coach services, but there are other modes of transport as well that are not single occupancy and should be part of that priority.

 

Q49 Dr. Naysmith: You are quite right. That's certainly of importance in the Bristol area, but, of course, the Committee is looking at transport all the way down to the tip of Cornwall, which is why I asked the question. However, I agree that there are lots of pinch points that need to be sorted out. Do you think that the use of traffic control measures, such as hard shoulder running, and more effective short-term solutions to congestion, rather than increasing capacity, offer the opportunity to address these problems?

Mike Lambden: I have quite a bit of hands-on experience of that because I work and live in the Midlands and we have the original active traffic management on the M42. To date, that has worked well and has made a big difference to the robustness of the journey times along there, which I think is one of the objectives of the Highways Agency and the DFT. Time will tell how well it works in the longer term. If it generates more traffic overall, ultimately, the space will run out; but what it has done is keep the traffic running at a more consistent speed. As you probably know, speed control helps to stop the bunching effect and is better for the environment as well, because emissions are lowered.

 

Q50 Chairman: Can I come in on that? Clearly, there is a difference of opinion here between of the RAC and National Express on priorities. When I read National Express's evidence, I found it quite interesting. I was not expecting you to come out as firmly in favour of other measures, as opposed to new road building, as you did. The RAC takes a different view. Could you, from a motoring organisation's perspective, counter the points that Mr. Lambden has been making?

Bill Billington: Essentially, if you look at the road network around the South West, first you have the motorways-we have spoken about them-then the higher-quality trunk roads and then the local main roads. As you move down the scale, you increasingly find sections of road that are really not fit for modern purpose. They are carrying quite large flows of lorries along what are effectively country lanes-part of the A39 is a good example of that. Stepping back one, on the A303, which is a big concern of ours, you have dual carriageway, single carriageway, dual carriageway, single carriageway; that is not satisfactory for the basic operation of the road. You can manage with it as long as the flows are not high, but on main through roads such as the A303, which are alternatives to the motorways and a basic link for traffic originating in the south-east corner-Kent, Dover and traffic coming across the channel-will always be under quite a bit of pressure, and that pressure builds up. Then, the change in standard has considerable effects on flow. That should be rectified, and the only practical way of rectifying it is to dual.

 

Q51 Chairman: The whole of the A303? If money was limited, which bit of the A303 would you start with and why?

Bill Billington: Stonehenge first, then the section following that.

Mike Lambden: Can I come back on that? I would agree with the A303. If there are any problems on the M5, as we had a few weeks ago when the whole network stopped in the South West and people were stranded on coaches trying to get to the airports, there is no real alternative. The A303 is all right to a point, but as Bill has just said, it has issues around Stonehenge.

 

Q52 Chairman: But it is a challenge for the region, because if we are going to think strategically about which bits of road we do-you have flagged up that there are a number of small sections of road in different parts of the region that need action-we need collectively as a region to say, "This has to be our priority, and this is what we must press Government for."

Mike Lambden: Yes.

 

Q53 Dr. Naysmith: Quickly, just as far as National Express is concerned, how much money do you think that you lose in a year because of that kind of congestion? Can you put a figure on a typical year?

Mike Lambden: In the South West? It is not going to be a huge amount. That's a question that I have never been asked before, so my answer will come totally off the top of my head.

 

Q54 Dr. Naysmith: What we are doing is talking about whether it is worth building roads or not. If the loss is not very much, it isn't.

Mike Lambden: It has a deterrent effect to customers, which is difficult to measure. If you take that into account, you are probably looking at, say, £2 million-that is a figure that has just been worked out sitting here. It is not one that I could go away and prove.

 

Q55 Dr. Naysmith: But it is a significant problem for you.

Mike Lambden: It can be, yes. It deters people from using us at busy times.

 

Q56 Chairman: Shall we move on to rail and rolling stock? I think that everybody in the region across the piece has been pressing for additional rolling stock. Can you tell me where you think we are on negotiations with Government on rolling stock and where, if you get it, you would put it and use it?

Julian Crow: Certainly. It has been a bit of a moveable feast of late, largely because of the recent, very welcome, announcements about electrification of the Great Western Main Line.

Chairman: I am sure that we will come back on to that.

Julian Crow: Prior to that point, Government were actively pursuing a new build of 200 diesel multiple-unit vehicles, and we were actively pursuing 100 of those for use in the Thames valley and the west. That would have enabled a major upgrade to the Cardiff to Portsmouth services and a cascade of vehicles across the rest of our local lines. The announcement of electrification rendered those trains superfluous, of course, because the electrification programme would cascade sufficient electric trains around the country to mean that building new diesels was unnecessary. Of course they are relatively unsustainable in relation to electric trains.

 

Q57 Dr. Naysmith: Has that decision to mothball the diesels been taken?

Julian Crow: I believe it has, yes. We are currently in discussion with DFT about two tranches of rolling stock. One is to replace those trains that we currently have on short-term lease, and the other is to obtain a relatively modest number of additional vehicles to enable us to cater for the very real growth that has continued and is still continuing, despite the economic conditions, across Bristol and Exeter. Those negotiations are continuing. We are hopeful of a positive outcome, but we are not there yet.

 

Q58 Dr. Naysmith: Can I just be clear on that? There is the possibility of hiring rolling stock, even though we are not going to build any more.

Julian Crow: There is a possibility of additional vehicles over and above those we are currently operating at some point during the latter part of next year. That is probably the most accurate way of describing it. It depends on delivery of new builder vehicles elsewhere in the country and the subsequent cascade.

You asked where they would be used. Primarily, it will be on services across Exeter because that is where the overcrowding and the growth is currently greatest. I am also anxious to see a modest amount of that capacity come down to the Exeter area where there is strong growth.

 

Q59 Chairman: So Bristol and Exeter?

Julian Crow: Yes, Bristol and Exeter are the key places, but in saying that, I am conscious of other people in the room with different priorities.

 

Q60 Dr. Naysmith: At times, there is quite a lot of overloading between Paddington and Reading, but that is a different problem.

Julian Crow: Indeed, but that would be addressed through electrification with the cascade of four-coach electric trains into the Thames valley, which will provide a lot of additional capacity. The issue is the gap between now and when electrification starts to deliver that cascade, and that is potentially challenging.

 

Q61 Mr. Drew: Julian, you know that I am pursuing a particular issue-we will not go into it today, as we pursued it last week. However, can you spell out what you think is the strategic decision-making process for rail improvements in the South West? Do you understand what it is?

Julian Crow: I think it comes from two directions. I am conscious of the creaking of thin ice under my feet at times, but one is clearly from the Department for Transport with the strategic decisions made about the network and rolling stock. In that respect, electrification and new rolling stock go closely hand in hand with the replacement of the high-speed trains.

The other element is that which is pursued in the region. I am part of the RDA's infrastructure advisory board, which has developed with the RDA a rail priority for the region. We have been part of that decision-making process and support it. Other schemes have emerged along the way, such as the one with which you will be familiar: the redoubling of the line between Swindon and Kemble.

 

Q62 Mr. Drew: I am always intrigued about this. You are at the sharp end. If you want a decision taken and you are prepared to invest some time, money and rolling stock in it, who would you go to now? Would you start with the RDA? Would you go to the Strategic Leaders Board or would you forget all that and say to DFT that the South West needs to get its act together? Do you talk to Network Rail? Or is it all a jamboree where you get together periodically and do the business?

Julian Crow: It is a combination of all of those.

 

Q63 Mr. Drew: Is that a problem and are we in the South West unique?

Julian Crow: It is a challenge. As you are well aware, the South West is a very disparate region. Different elements of the region have very different priorities and economic circumstances. The way that we would approach this is to look for some sort of commonality of interest across the region and produce a groundswell of support for particular schemes. I can give you two examples of that. One is the redoubling of the main line in Cornwall between St. Austell and Truro a few years ago, where it was generally accepted across the region that that would contribute to improved performance and additional capacity in Cornwall. Another has been the support that the region has given generally to the rebuilding of Reading, because Reading is understood to be critical to the importance of both the performance and expanding capacity across Great Western. A scheme such as redoubling between Swindon and Kemble is potentially a little more of a challenge for the region because of achieving the commonality of interest that is required to get the necessary support behind it.

 

Q64 Chairman: Can I come back to your comments about electrification, which I think most people welcome? We heard evidence last week-I didn't hear it, but I read it-confirming that it is thought to be quite significantly cheaper to operate, and the wear and tear on infrastructure is better in that there is a lot less. We therefore welcome it. You were talking about the linkages between the decisions on rolling stock and electrification. Do you have any fears or worries that there will be a delay in bringing forward the rolling stock, because of the new emphasis on electrification?

Julian Crow: I think there is an inevitability about the decision not to build new diesel trains. I think that the decision to electrify is to be warmly welcomed, and the future issues depend to a large extent on the continuation of a rolling programme of electrification. My understanding is that some of the trains that will replace the high-speed trains will be built with a dual-mode power supply. Obviously, it is very critical to the region, particularly this end of it, that through journeys remain possible and that the benefits of the new train fleet are captured.

There is a great deal of benefit to be gained in the Thames valley from the extra capacity of new electric trains. There is also a great deal of benefit to be gained around the Bristol area with the cascade of the existing trains in the Thames valley. They are good trains that will be well refurbished and they will provide a lot more capacity. The critical thing is to ensure that enough of them are allocated to the Bristol area to continue that growth, especially given the degree of housing growth planned around that area.

Without trespassing too much into another area, one of the critical things is to ensure a commonality of planning, so that the planning of new housing goes hand in hand with the allocation of additional rolling stock. We must make sure that the journeys that are generated to Bristol and to Exeter-the same thing applies to both-can be catered for without significant overcrowding.

 

Q65 Chairman: But is there some risk of slippage in the rolling stock being brought forward as a result of recent announcements?

Julian Crow: There is a capacity gap at the moment, and the extent of that gap depends to some extent on economic conditions and the degree of growth that we see continuing over the next few years. I see a risk of capacity up to the point at which electrification is completed in the Thames valley and units can move across into the Bristol and Exeter areas.

Chairman: Doug, did you want to move on to integration?

 

Q66 Dr. Naysmith: We have heard a little bit of evidence, and perhaps we can move on to talking about integration between different train companies and other modes of transport. There seems to be a little bit of a disjunction. The train companies say that the integration is good, and that their "connections with other train services are always good"-that is a quotation-but passengers don't seem to be quite so focused on that. Perhaps Mr. Greedy might want to comment on Passenger Focus in a minute or two.

Chairman: There might be comments from almost everybody on the panel. You all have to integrate in one way, shape or form.

Dr. Naysmith: We will start with Julian, because he is being very helpful this morning. What concrete steps have you taken to try to integrate timetables with other train and bus companies? What do you do in order to try and bring about that much desired integration?

Julian Crow: My first comment is that having created the Great Western franchise out of three others has been enormously helpful in enabling us to integrate services together. An example of that is the way in which we have been able to use high-speed trains and local trains to improve services at local stations and branch lines. We are now in the position where the community rail lines in Devon and Cornwall have the best service they have ever had. That is a result of integrating services together to make better use of the rolling stock, so that is one positive from it.

As far as integration with other modes is concerned, I would refer back to the draft route utilisation strategy that Network Rail has just published, which assumes in future a more even interval timetable of services across the region, so that trains run on each route at the same minutes past the hour, which makes integration with branch lines, buses and everything else so much simpler. As an industry professional, I would very much support that. If you have a standard timetable pattern every hour or half hour, you can make it work so much better. That, of course, depends on a modest amount of extra rolling stock, so we are back where we started.

 

Q67 Dr. Naysmith: The other point about all this is what sort of incentives are there for you to integrate services, given the kind of railway system we now have in this country?

Julian Crow: The incentives almost inevitably flow with the passengers, and the money flows the same way. In other words, we are incentivised when producing connections to produce the set of connections that will generate the most customers. That is inevitably in the passengers' interest in the majority of cases.

 

Q68 Dr. Naysmith: Not necessarily in a place like the South West where there might be social reasons for wanting a service. Then, the Government or the local authority have to cough up.

Julian Crow: Potentially, but if you take a station like Exeter, you cannot connect everything with everything. There are a number of local lines flowing in. In the generality of timetable planning, you try to create the connections that suit the majority of customers. You cannot please everybody. In another example, South West Trains will be running an hourly service from Waterloo to Exeter in December. The timing of that service is determined by the pathways out of Waterloo. Similarly, the timing of our services from London is determined by the pathways out of Paddington and through Reading. There are a certain number of fixed things, but outside that, we will always try to do what will generate the most passenger journeys.

I have one further comment on integration that leads back to the road debate. In a rural area like this, integration means car parks to a large extent, be they car parks for current petrol cars or future electric cars. We need provision to integrate whatever form of transport is available in rural areas into the rail network. Part of our strategy on the Barnstaple line, which feeds a lot of travel-to-work journeys into Exeter, is to work closely with Devon County Council, which is very co-operative and is keen to work with us, to acquire land for car parks at stations that are rural railheads where there is currently no car parking.

 

Q69 Chairman: Can I come in on car parking charges?

Dr. Naysmith: No, you can come in in a minute.

Chairman: Excuse me, I'm the Chairman.

Dr. Naysmith: This will help you, Alison. It is not just in rural areas. I use Bristol Parkway regularly and was there when it opened. It has now trebled or quadrupled in size and still cars spill out in the surrounding areas. I cannot find a place to park, which is bad enough, and then my constituents get on to me saying, "We do not want cars parked outside our doors." Car parking is an important subject.

Chairman: On that, I would like to bring Mr. Greedy in and come back to the question of car users. A number of issues to do with integration are important for your passengers. Evidence from Devon and Cornwall Business Council talked about the need for more real-time information on how the different bits of the transport network are connecting. There were also concerns about car park charges. I am sure that Julian will explain why certain charges are changing. Car users who drive to stations are certainly unhappy. What is your perspective on integration and on where it is working and where it is not?

Michael Greedy: Certainly, integration is very high on our agenda. Recently, we have only been involved in rail, but now we are being pulled into the bus arena. Hopefully, legislation will go through to assist us to address some of the key integration issues. We are really more interested in the end-to-end journey, involving not just cars or buses, but walking and cycling-it is the whole agenda. We recently produced some research that lays out some very good guidelines on how we think you can improve integration.

Having listened to the comments this morning, the elephant that sits in the corner, which affects your ability to influence your services across the region, is the franchise process. That does not work in the interests of the passenger because the franchise specification outlines the minimum level of service that the train company will supply to you for the next 10 years. That specification is created by the DFT, it is put out to tender and the train companies tender for the services. Really, in the South West region we've got three main operators running through the region. None of their specifications were taken looking holistically at how it affected the other two franchises, so we went through three periods of cuts in services, cuts in rolling stock: that was the First Great Western specification, the South West Trains specification and CrossCountry.

We are fighting a rearguard action all the time, trying to keep ahead of the game in terms of the services being provided, so I think the second issue that comes into play here is our ability as a region to put forward a unified voice on what exactly we need. It's too fragmented at the moment. We've got Bristol-a very loud voice; we have the South West-you've got Devon with one agenda and Cornwall with another in terms of their local services. Funding also then comes into that arena.

The comparison for me is north to south-how they do it in the north and why they are successful and how we do it in the south and why we are unsuccessful. That's where we can learn the lesson, because where you've got very strong passenger transport executives looking at the whole agenda of transport, all with a strategic purpose, which is cross-party, long-term planning where funding is available, they can actually then make a difference. We can't make that difference. I think that's where we've fallen behind-not just in integration but also in terms of our rolling stock capacity and all of the issues that fall around that.

Chairman: That is a very helpful contribution to our debate.

 

Q70 Dr. Naysmith: It is very helpful, but I asked the local authorities in the Bristol area last week, and they said they didn't want one-they didn't need a passenger transport executive.

Michael Greedy: I am coming at it from a different perspective. I'm looking at it to, as they say, take a holistic view of transport in general and to see what are the weaknesses. Our weakness is that we cannot present a strong enough unified voice to compete with other areas of the country that do it successfully.

 

Q71 Chairman: So we're not batting at our weight as a region?

Michael Greedy: Not at all.

 

Q72 Mr. Drew: I'd like to go on to fares. Julian, let's take an example: Bristol to London. How many different fare rates are there between Bristol and London?

Julian Crow: There's one fare for the journey that you want to make at the time you want to make it.

 

Q73 Mr. Drew: You should be a politician. So what does that mean then? Obviously last week they had a problem with my line, and that is one of those things; but you know that advert when the person gets on and says what they pay for their holiday, and the others are about to lynch them? If people on a train were to say how much they paid for their tickets, I imagine it would go from virtually nothing, if you're a pensioner who knows how to play the system, to a substantial whack of money.

How far can we go with price discrimination? That is what it is, and there's a level of fairness beyond which we are to some extent taking the mickey out of the customer. My problem is the casual rail user: they don't know what to ask for; they don't know what special discounts are available, and they come along and they're often horrified at the price of a ticket. What are you going to do about this?

Julian Crow: I guess, at the root of it, you probably come back to Mike's point about the way in which franchises are let, effectively to the highest bidder, which again, to a degree, reflects Government policy that the taxpayer should pay a smaller and smaller proportion of the cost of running the nation's rail system. In terms of the way in which we set fares, some are regulated, obviously, and we set them according to the way in which they're regulated; others are not. As a commercial organisation we set our fares in a way that we believe will give us the best result.

Mr. Drew: They give you the best result. They don't give the customers the best result. That's why they hop in their car.

Julian Crow: We have seen very substantial growth, so we can't have got it entirely wrong.

Mr. Drew: There are a lot of people that travel once.

Julian Crow: At the cheap end of the scale, the advance booking fares that we now have are historically probably as cheap as rail travel has ever been, and we do sell a very large number of those. We don't just hold up a figure and there's one ticket available at that price; there are hundreds of thousands of the cheapest tickets available. Clearly, if you can choose when you travel, there are some great bargains, but if you have to be in London in the morning peak tomorrow, you're not going to find a cheap bargain.

 

Q74 Chairman: So a single, peak, from Taunton to London costs what, approximately?

Julian Crow: I'd have to check the exact fare for you.

 

Q75 Chairman: It is reasonably inexpensive-£30 or £40, I think. How would that compare with the cost of a car journey?

Julian Crow: Our fare levels overall are not out of line with other long-distance operators'.

 

Q76 Mr. Drew: It would be interesting to hear from Michael. Taking my analogy of Bristol to Paddington, what research work have you done on the differentiation between ticket prices? Have you made any recommendations to the effect that this is blatantly unfair-price discrimination gone mad?

Michael Greedy: We majored on fares last year. I did a huge piece of work on value for money, because passengers tell us in our survey that value for money is one of the highest areas of dissatisfaction that they have. Value for money is very intangible, so we did a huge piece of study on that. The report is available to you, if you wish to see it. It looks at what constitutes value for money, which is not just price, but a whole range of issues.

Coming out of that report is the recommendation that fares need to be less complicated-passengers do find them complicated. We say that there should be more use of carnet tickets, which is like buying for the price of eight tickets but getting 10 journeys, in areas where passengers cannot take advantage of season tickets. That is particularly relevant for the South West, because you have passengers who travel three days a week, say, from Dawlish to Exeter: they cannot buy a weekly season because it is not cost-effective but, because they do not offer any other discount, they have to pay the full-fare price. There is no discount for those regular passengers. So, carnets are another thing, simplification another.

Certainly what we are advocating is that train operators should display at their main stations the cheapest available walk-up fare for the day from that station. I cannot give you prices from Bristol or Taunton, but I can from Bath, which is my home station: peak fare is £149 return, off-peak is £49 and super off-peak is £39. That is fairly simple, but you go on to the web and you get some 26 different fares. There are cheap fares if you can afford to change your journey time, but it is the complication that confuses passengers. It makes older people frightened to travel and they therefore stay in their cars. I think that there is a lot more that the train companies can do in terms of publicising the sorts of fares that are out there and how easy they are to access.

 

Q77 Dr. Naysmith: To what extent are these really expensive fares used to control congestion?

Julian Crow: A reasonable proportion of our income comes through full-fare travel.

 

Q78 Dr. Naysmith: But is it one method of keeping trains liveable with and not fully packed all the time?

Julian Crow: I think it's called market pricing.

 

Q79 Chairman: We must move on, because time is pressing and I want to bring in issues around aviation, freight and ports.

So, Jamie, from Exeter, the latest civil aviation figures show generally that passenger numbers are down, although I have to say that Plymouth's are up-that was a little parochial interest there, and Mike might wonder why. Could you say, from your perspective, if there is still a demand for regional airports and who is using them? Where is the business?

Jamie Christon: Yes, there is still definitely a demand for regional airports. Taking car miles off the roads into London is probably one of the main reasons that Exeter airport is there.

Yes, passenger numbers for 2009 are down. Most airports in the UK are seeing that trend-apart from Plymouth-and we are probably on average with the rest of the UK airports, but it is starting to change now. We have been down about 15% since November or December last year, but we are coming to year-on-year with that, obviously, and are seeing how it is coming back on par with last year, and next year we shall see growth again.

We are not intending to see significant growth until 2011, but one thing that I would say is that, from a charter perspective-people who are flying to go on holiday-Exeter is the only airport in the UK serviced by Thomson, that is Thomson First Choice or TUI now. That has seen growth in the past two years: we had 12% growth last year; this year we have 2% growth; and we are seeing growth again next year. So, yes, there is definitely a demand.

 

Q80 Chairman: But in terms of using regional airports for intra-UK travel, particularly in the short term, because we are hearing a lot about rail improvements which will be coming in the medium term-longer term for some parts of the South West-where do you fit into that picture? The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport last week actually said that we should be giving priority to expanding air links to other population centres, particularly in the short and medium term. Would you have a view on that?

Jamie Christon: Yes, definitely in the UK, because of our very geography down in Exeter. For people to be able to travel on business, especially to places in the north of England-Newcastle or Manchester, for example-or Scotland, the only viable way to get to those places and back down in the same day is by air. To give you an example, our Manchester service leaves Exeter at 20 to 7 in the morning and you can be in Manchester by 8 o'clock. With our Edinburgh service, you can be on Princes street at 8 o'clock in the morning. There is no other way to travel on business like that. Flybe, especially, does not have steps for its aircraft, so it is very easy to get on and off, very quick and efficient. I live some 30 minutes away from Exeter airport, and I am on the Manchester flight quite a bit-I can be home on Dartmoor within half an hour of that aircraft landing. Most other airports in the UK are larger and you are probably still waiting for your bags half an hour after the aircraft has landed. So, it is all about efficiency and having the right flights at the right time of day.

Chairman: The same applies to Air Southwest, because you can be in London or in Plymouth very much earlier than you can if you catch the first train at the moment. David?

 

Q81 Mr. Drew: What is the shortest flight distance that you do, and what is the longest?

Jamie Christon: The longest is Toronto-we have been flying to Toronto, coming up to our 22nd year next year, throughout the summer once a week. Our shortest flight is probably Leeds-Bradford or Manchester, a 50-minute flight.

 

Q82 Mr. Drew: If the Government say to you that you have to do more to restrict short flights, what is your response?

Jamie Christon: It depends. How short is short? There has been a lot of debate about Exeter having a London service. You can get from Exeter to London in two hours and 20 minutes on the fastest train, in the morning. It is not something that we are particularly interested in, although there is apparently still a niche demand out there from certain business people to be able to fly into London. Manchester is 50 minutes away by flight, but by rail I am not sure-three or four hours, possibly.

Julian Crow: Not my train set, sorry.

Jamie Christon: The complications of getting to certain destinations by rail means that even a 50-minute flight into Manchester, or Edinburgh or Glasgow, is a lot easier than going by rail.

 

Q83 Mr. Drew: That is obviously an environmental concern. Is there a temptation to look at the economics of some of this? Presumably Exeter is quite attractive for people in the South West to travel longer distances. How do you set up those flights? Let us say you wanted to go to Quebec as well as Toronto-I do not know if you go via Quebec, but let us say that-how would you go about setting up that flight?

Jamie Christon: We have to provide the airline or tour operator evidence that there is demand from the South West for people to fly to those destinations.

The Civil Aviation Authority publishes, normally about every three or four years, a full-year survey from an airport, and Exeter has published its 2008 survey. The CAA comes down to the airport, spends a full year at different points of the year speaking to travellers and passengers and saying, "Where have you flown in the past three or four years? Where would you like to fly to from Exeter? Why would you like to fly to that destination? How many times of year would you like to fly?" Putting all that information together means that we can go to the tour operator and say, with Quebec for example, that there are 4,000 or 5,000 people in the South West who travel to Quebec on a regular basis and are currently having to travel into Heathrow by rail or road. We can therefore give evidence of a demand for that particular service at a particular time out of the airport. It is providing that evidence to the operators, so that they can see that they can make it work.

 

Q84 Mr. Drew: Then you have to talk to the CAA about how you get a licence?

Jamie Christon: No, the airline will do that itself. All we do is go to the airline and say that we can provide evidence that this will work. We then talk about freezing tariffs and charges for that particular airline to come into the airport, a deal is set up and the airline or operator will deal with the CAA independently.

 

Q85 Chairman: How many of your passengers come by public transport?

Jamie Christon: At the present time about 80% come by private car. What we are trying to do through our master plan is to reduce that to around 60% between now and 2030. We do not believe that we are going to get any lower than that, again because of the very geography of where we are, but we are starting work to reduce the number of car journeys.

 

Q86 Chairman: Finally, do you receive any support or funding from the regional development agency?

Jamie Christon: No.

Chairman: Let's move on. Ports.

 

Q87 Dr. Naysmith: Mr. Charlesworth. It is now your time of glory, your chance to talk about ports. Do you think ports are given the attention they deserve in regional transport plans?

Tim Charlesworth: No. Not on the South West of England Regional Development Agency's agenda anyway. We do have a relationship with them and we attend infrastructure board meetings with them. They try hard to understand what we are about, but I think there is a general mislink there on what we do.

 

Q88 Dr. Naysmith: Why do you think that is?

Tim Charlesworth: I think they struggle to understand what facilities we can offer and what services we can provide around the coast. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a very odd geography around the peninsula, there are some significant trade routes.

 

Q89 Dr. Naysmith: I know the port of Bristol pretty well. Can you tell me what benefits you think the port of Bristol offers to the wider region of the South West?

Tim Charlesworth: I am not an expert on Bristol, but my understanding is that the centre is closer to the main distribution hubs than Felixstowe, Southampton or any of the south-east coast ports. That puts it on the map straight away.

Chairman: May I come in on that point?

Dr. Naysmith: You are the chair.

Chairman: I know you are in full flow, Doug, and I would hate to stop you. My understanding is that there is a scheme currently with the Department for Transport for some additional work to be done in Bristol.

Dr. Naysmith: Are you talking about the deep water terminal?

 

Q90 Chairman: Do we know where that is at? Because clearly that brings freight, as you say, much closer to the centre of England.

Dr. Naysmith: It is waiting for the harbour revision order.

Chairman: Sorry, you are answering the questions.

Dr. Naysmith: There are two or three threats to that, one of which is that we need a harbour revision order and it has not been opposed. There was no need for a public inquiry. It is stuck in the Department for Transport. I suspect that if it has not been released by the time we write the report for this it will be in our report. The other thing that is possibly holding up the deep water terminal, or may do in the longer term, is the question of the Severn barrage.

Tim Charlesworth: I would pick up on the word "stuck" at the Department for Transport. When we tried for a harbour revision order just to reconstitute our board it took five years. Five whole years.

 

Q91 Dr. Naysmith: I would associate it with the harbour revision order at the time before and that took ages. But this is really important. The other thing is the Severn barrage and we need a decision from the Government about that one way or another, not just pushing it off. I know David might want to come in on that. Basically, the problem is that there is investment all lined up for this deep water terminal but it may not get the go-ahead if the Severn barrage is still going to be built. One way or the other we need a decision. Would you agree?

Tim Charlesworth: I would. It is worth noting that on one particular important sea route into our home port of Plymouth we ship in 11/4 million tonnes of refined oil every year, the majority of which comes from Pembroke and the Avonmouth area, so that would have a distinct impact on it.

 

Q92 Dr. Naysmith: The other thing is the proposed ferry service across the Severn to Wales. Do you think there is still room for that, given that we now have two bridges going across?

Tim Charlesworth: Certainly, when you look at the map it makes sense. I will stand back and see how successful that is. We wish any entrepreneur on the waterside success and we very much hope it will work. It will need some infrastructure improvement in the town of Ilfracombe to make the road better. As a general statement, any successful port has a successful background infrastructure.

 

Q93 Chairman: Finally, may I ask you about the wider integration between ports and road? Do you think we have the capacity to shift additional amounts of freight from road to water?

Tim Charlesworth: The ports are there ready to respond to any entrepreneurs who want to come in. The ports' statutory authorities do not always make the business happen. You are looking for private businesses generally to recognise the need and seize it.

 

Q94 Chairman: Is there something that could be done to encourage that?

Tim Charlesworth: The DFT already has a port master planning initiative on the table. It is there, but it is not compulsory. I am not saying that it should be compulsory, but the plans are in danger of being paid for, created and then put on the shelf in a dusty back cabinet. It would be useful if they had a better status within the planning infrastructure.

 

Q95 Dr. Naysmith: What can we do to get SWRDA more involved in ports? You were saying that it doesn't really understand. What can we do to get that happening?

Tim Charlesworth: I wonder whether the body should have a maritime person in there.

Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen. We are very grateful for your time. We move to the next switchover, as we are running a little behind. Could we have the next witnesses, please?

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Alan Cousins, St. Germans Rail Users Group, Jeremy Filmer-Bennett, Devon and Cornwall Business Council, Dan James, Exmoor National Park Authority, Isobel Mack, CPRE, Andy Shaw, Dorset County Council, and Adrian Welsh, Cornwall Council, gave evidence.

 

Q96 Chairman: Could you quickly run through who you are and the organisations you represent, starting with Adrian?

Adrian Welsh: I am Adrian Welsh, the transport policy manager for Cornwall council.

Andy Shaw: I am Andy Shaw, the transport policy manager for Dorset county council.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: Jeremy Filmer-Bennett, chief executive of Devon and Cornwall Business Council.

Isobel Mack: Isobel Mack from the CPRE. I have also been involved with South West analysis.

Dan James: Dan James, Exmoor National Park Authority.

Alan Cousins: Alan Cousins, St. Germans Rail Users Group.

Mr. Drew: I declare an interest as a CPRE member, but I do not always agree with it.

 

Q97 Chairman: There's a surprise. Could each of you say briefly what you see as the main transport challenges for the rural and peripheral areas of the South West?

Adrian Welsh: It is important to look at transport issues and challenges in the wider context because transport is very often trying to achieve wider outcomes and goals. One of the first things I would say about Cornwall is that there are poor levels of productivity and low levels of income. Income levels are substantially lower than the national average and indeed the regional average.

Chairman: Rural poverty issues.

Adrian Welsh: Absolutely. The majority of Cornwall is rural in character and there is a dispersed population. Over the last 20 years, rural services have been eroded in many ways. There has been a centralisation of many public bodies, such as health bodies. Things such as parental choice also create difficulties for getting people to where they need to be. There are also issues of safety, health and ensuring there is good well-being for people living in rural areas. One final concern is that most policies nationally and regionally have put more emphasis on urban issues. I understand the reasons for that, but it has presented particular challenges. There are limited resources and not much current infrastructure to build upon.

Andy Shaw: The biggest challenges are the rural issues, as Adrian said. In Dorset, the main urban areas are generally catered for locally by bus services and sustainable transport links, such as walking and cycling. That does not pertain in rural areas. It is difficult to provide reasonable public transport services for a dispersed population, particularly for employment journeys in the morning when people are going in a number of different directions. Rather than provide a service to the local service centre in one direction, the challenge is to service a number of journeys. That is clearly difficult and is generally done by car.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: I support what my colleagues have said. Particularly in rural areas, the issue is getting anything connected to anything. Quite simply, on the existing 14 to 19 Government agenda for young people, it is not unusual for a young person to go to school in one town, go to college in another and live in a third. Not surprisingly, the public transport system is not built around that contingency. That is a major problem which has a direct impact on the economy because of our skills shortages, which are exacerbated in the rural areas, and because of the problems of getting people and customers around. Getting businesses around can be hugely problematic.

Isobel Mack: I would like to endorse many of those comments. It is worth pointing out that in the South West overall, more than 20% of households do not have a car. That is a large sector of the population. Bringing in transport solutions for those people will also give everybody else greater choice.

Dan James: Likewise, I would endorse many of the earlier comments. Somewhere like Exmoor national park is obviously a rural area, but it is also nationally significant and there are people who come in from further afield. There are two key issues-transport into the area, and transport around the area. A lot of it is to do with lack of services, but where there are services, it is about an inter-connectivity between them, and trying to get a joined-up promotion that is easy for people to understand when they get there. The other point is that funding mechanisms do not necessarily favour rural areas, in particular the use of transport for leisure, which is quite a big component in a national park.

Alan Cousins: There are two focuses to that. First is the need for more integrated transport systems between buses and trains, so that buses do not run at the same time as trains and one can connect from a bus to a train and so on. There has been some evidence in the past of subsidised taxi services to bus and train services, and that needs to be developed. The other main focus has to do with what Dan was saying about promotion, and the need to promote and raise awareness of public transport, and the services that are, and could be, available.

 

Q98 Mr. Drew: Let us look at people from outside the region. Suppose I want to holiday in the South West. I am coming down from the north and I don't want to drive. What is the joined-up thinking about someone coming to the South West? Given the diversion that there was this year, was there a real attempt to allow public transport to take the strain? Is there any evidence for that? Were there more trains? Were there better services on stations that people who came down were able to use?

Chairman: Where do you want to start? Do you want to start with the rail users at the end?

Mr. Drew: Did you as a rail user notice that more people wanted to come down?

Alan Cousins: We were surprised that people were coming who it was predicted might not come. In our station, and on the bus services, there have been more people than in the past. Some of those people are visitors coming from outside, and some are people from within the area.

 

Q99 Mr. Drew: What about the CPRE? Here we are talking about sustainable transport and how we can get people to come to the South West who are not going to sit on the M5 for hours, as they might well have to. How can we make that work?

Isobel Mack: There needs to be more on the fares point. For someone who does not come from the area, and might not be from the UK, coming into the area is complicated. It needs to be made more straightforward. One of the things that has worked well in London-although I don't know how it could work in the South West as it is not my remit-is the Oyster card. I have been to London as a tourist. It is great, you can decide, "Right, I'd like to go to the V and A now", and you just get on either the tube or the bus and swipe the card and it works. It allows much greater freedom for tourists there.

 

Q100 Mr. Drew: It will be interesting if you want to say something, Jeremy. Then I would like to hear from the councils about how they geared up for this. This was an opportunity.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: One of the biggest problems is that lovely phrase, "joined-up". The answer is that it isn't. Nor is the information joined-up. It is not just about tourism, which is a huge chunk of our economy. In all honesty, the only way in and out of the far South West in terms of freight and rail currently tends to be road. When you get a problem like we had earlier this year, the impact is massive.

A lot of the problem lies around people not knowing what to do. You can sit happily in your caravan. Are you going to move caravans on trains? It is incredibly unlikely so you have to accept that people come down to the far South West for a specific type of holiday. They will use public transport if it is going to work for them, but if you look at the models most of the people come, to be honest, from middle class backgrounds with those sort of earnings and so they will drive.

 

Q101 Mr. Drew: And the councils, did you have any strategy for gearing up for more tourists and making sure that there were ways in which they could get here and enjoy themselves without having a car?

Andy Shaw: Certainly, speaking for Dorset, the Jurassic coast is becoming a major draw. We have developed a transport strategy to try to encourage sustainable transport along there. That is still work in progress, although travelling along the coastal area by public transport in Dorset is relatively easy. Travelling further afield is perhaps harder. I am not aware of specific measures to get people into the area in the first place.

 

Q102 Dr. Naysmith: Was that the demand-responsive sort of transport initiative that you put to the Government and which you said in your evidence they would not support?

Andy Shaw: No. The demand-responsive transport is effectively the key element of our public transport strategy for the rural area of Dorset. It was heralded in the last local transport plan. The response we got from the Government office was not very supportive. Effectively the local transport plan was marked down as a result of the inadequacy of the bus strategy.

 

Q103 Chairman: What was their logic for not supporting you? Was it purely financial or were there other reasons?

Andy Shaw: Not being an expert in that area, I know it was not supported, but that is all that I can say.

 

Q104 Mr. Drew: Do you want to say something about Cornwall? You must have had a bumper year.

Adrian Welsh: There are two elements to this. How do people get to Cornwall and how do they get around once they get there? To some extent the local transport authority has only limited influence on how people get there. We work very closely with the rail organisations. The tourism organisations of Cornwall do a great deal to promote rail journeys from London and other places. There is a big market. We are also working with the aviation industry on how people get in and out of the county. But when they get to Cornwall we have done a number of initiatives and car-free days which we promote through the accommodation.

 

Q105 Mr. Drew: Do you put your own money into it as a county council?

Adrian Welsh: Yes we do. The other thing we have done recently is to look at the Oyster card. We are waiting for the technology to catch up. There is a regional study to try to get that to support us. We are hoping to do something in Cornwall in 18 months' time as a pilot.

 

Q106 Chairman: What are the railway connections like for bringing cyclists down who may want to cycle when they come to Cornwall?

Adrian Welsh: It is a very difficult area because of the capacity on the trains. One thing I should have said earlier on is that the trains in the summer to Cornwall are packed. There have been new services to Newquay recently that are well used. There have been substantial improvements, but in terms of bikes on trains, it is tricky. It is one that Julian should perhaps have asked earlier.

 

Q107 Chairman: Perhaps you should look at a scheme similar to the one that Boris Johnson is running in London for people to pick up bikes and drop them off in various parts of the county.

Adrian Welsh: I have been looking at that. We are working on projects to ensure that people understand better how they can hire bikes when they get to their destination.

Alan Cousins: Can I add something to the point that was being made about the possibility of Oyster cards? One of the things that is needed is integration between say Cornwall council and Plymouth, or Cornwall council and Devon, and a system of tickets that can be transferred from one bus company to another. Let me give one recent example of the people who live in Downderry, which is a little village on the south-east coast of Cornwall. To get into Plymouth now, if they are going by bus, they have to travel on a Western Greyhound into Torpoint and then buy another ticket to get into Plymouth, whereas up until September, I think, they went on a First Group bus into Torpoint and could then use the same ticket to go into Plymouth. There needs to be that sort of integration, maybe between trains and buses as well.

Chairman: At the moment we have a bit of a bus war going on in Plymouth, which is not helping that sort of integration, but that is a separate issue.

 

Q108 Dr. Naysmith: I wanted to ask Mr. James about Exmoor. Are bus services popular in your area, and are they useful for the kinds of functions used by the people of Exmoor?

Dan James: They certainly can be. We have a coastal bus that has been established for many years and is primarily funded by Somerset county council. That has been exceedingly popular this year and has almost been a victim of its own success: at times, it has not been able to pick up passengers because it has been full, so there is an issue there. What we are really trying to do now is get more joined-up thinking, because people who come to Exmoor are not necessarily coming to Somerset or North Devon; a lot of them don't necessarily know which local authority they are in. At the moment, they have to pick up a Somerset and Taunton Deane timetable and a North Devon timetable if they want to cover Exmoor. More services would be great, but we are aware that the public purse is stretched at the moment and that the likelihood of significant increased funding, certainly in the short term, is small, so what we are trying to do is better promote what we have and co-ordinate it between the two local authorities.

 

Q109 Dr. Naysmith: Have you considered setting up your own bus service?

Chairman: A taxi bus.

Dr. Naysmith: Well, it doesn't need to be a taxi bus. The University of the West of England in Bristol has set up its own bus service.

Dan James: We have supported various initiatives. This year, we launched the Moor Rover, which received funding from our sustainable development fund to establish itself. It is basically a demand-responsive minibus service for walkers that also carries bikes, dogs and luggage, and serves those areas of Exmoor that are not covered by public transport.

 

Q110 Dr. Naysmith: So you are thinking of slightly out of the ordinary solutions?

Dan James: Yes, which is going to be the answer. Exmoor's visitor numbers are a bit lower than some of the other national parks, such as the Peak district, the Lake district and Snowdonia. The viability of commercial services is therefore largely decreased, so we need to look at small-scale solutions.

 

Q111 Dr. Naysmith: May I ask, Mr. Shaw, whether you have thought of taking up the powers for local authorities that are in the recent Local Transport Act?

Andy Shaw: I'm afraid I can't answer that question; our bus expert contributed to that part.

 

Q112 Chairman: Is it possible to get an answer to that question from your colleagues in Dorset before we report?

Andy Shaw: Yes.

Dr. Naysmith: This is something we have heard in evidence a lot: people saying they should make much more use of the provisions in the 2008 Act.

 

Q113 Mr. Drew: Could we look at the issue of subsidy? You in Cornwall have clearly taken the initiative to some extent. What is the effectiveness of the rural bus grant? Is that something that you know anything about? Is it a prime consideration, or are there other forms of subsidy that are important to get people on buses?

Adrian Welsh: Certainly, the rural bus subsidy is important to Cornwall. We have maximised opportunities to benefit from it in the past. It is now part of the local area grant process, which is something that we utilise, but the biggest element of funding comes directly from the coffers of Cornwall council. The rural bus subsidy grants have been particular schemes, but right across the county it has been a big commitment from the organisation.

 

Q114 Mr. Drew: And that is common across the whole South West, is it? Obviously, not all of you are interested in buses, but the bus system has supposedly been helped by the rural bus grant. You are nodding, Mr. Cousins.

Alan Cousins: We have found that, generally, bus services have been improving, but as I was saying right at the beginning, there need to be ways in which those services are linked in with other bus companies, trains and so on.

 

Q115 Chairman: It takes us back to the ticketing and the way that that is managed as well as timetables.

On issues of broader connectivity, particularly Devon and Cornwall Business Council and CPRE, transport schemes are enormously expensive. In terms of connectivity for rural business with people perhaps working from home, is transport the sole answer, or should we be looking at other solutions, such as ICT and the speeding up of broadband?

Isobel Mack: I think there have to be other solutions as well, but clearly there will still be issues. Where there is a product to be sold, or people who cannot work from home, there still has to be that element of transport, so there has to be solution.

 

Q116 Chairman: There a lot of small businesses across the county.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: We must be much more robust about it. We really believe that Government, nationally, have to throw as much as they possibly can at enabling broadband across the far South West, but especially in all rural areas. We have seen a massive influx of people in the far South West who have come down here, initially to retire, who then look at their pension and discover that they cannot. Happily, though, they all make cheese, which is good. But they have all gone into other businesses in one way or another, and it has been the advent of broadband that has enabled that hugely.

Distribution is an issue, but that is something you can get over because you tend not to use public transport systems to do that-the Post Office is currently a problem, but hopefully that will be resolved-so it is something we see as massive. There is certainly a lot of evidence that, if you can get people to work from home and you make it comfortable and safe to do so, and they deal with the social issue-which is one that is not very well researched, but has been done-it works for much better local economies. People spend the money locally. They tend not to then travel into towns and so on, so we are very keen on it.

The other point is does it make the transport system we would hope to have obsolete? No, of course it doesn't. You still need the connectivity, you still need good roads, you still need all of that, but in business terms, it is hugely important. It is growing all the time, particularly as we move into utilising what natural assets we have, which are all environmental-water, wind, and air and so on. It is those experts who are coming into the area and hopefully we develop our schools, colleges, universities and so on. It is something we would fight for very hard.

 

Q117 Chairman: Turning to encouragement of new train services and train lines, we are seeing a growth in community rail. What more can Government do to further encourage that, other than just straightforward funding, or do you think some of the answers are with private developers, as we see in the Tavistock proposal?

Alan Cousins: There are a couple of things. The Tavistock proposal is very interesting. The experience in St. Germans-perhaps I will draw out something that we were alluding to in our written evidence-was that in 2006 the franchise, in its minimum specifications, would have entailed a cut in rail services by half. We then mounted a campaign-the rail users group was set up and we got into discussions with First Great Western. Gradually, over those three years, the services have returned to something like they were before-in fact, in some ways, they are better, although there are one or two gaps. The sort of discussions we have had, and certainly the sort of discussions that the Devon and Cornwall rail partnership have had with First Great Western-one can see this elsewhere with the Heart of Wessex line and so on-have been very useful.

There is also a need to address some of the social and economic needs of people in the area we live in and other rural areas, and to recognise that there needs to be some sort of national Government or local government support for that. But partly, this goes back to promoting rail services and awareness of rail services. It seems to me that either Government or local government could put something into promoting public transport. Perhaps there could be a fund to trial ways of promoting public transport.

 

Q118 Chairman: And you would volunteer?

Alan Cousins: I am sure that Richard Burningham from the Devon and Cornwall rail partnership would volunteer to be part of that.

 

Q119 Chairman: Your passenger numbers have increased, so clearly you have been doing something right. How have you been encouraging people?

Alan Cousins: A number of ways. Some of it has been in six-monthly leaflets that we put out-they go to all households in the three parishes in our area. We have carried out surveys, once or sometimes twice a year, and that raises people's awareness-some of those have been of people using the station; some have been household surveys, where we have gone round and dropped in leaflets-and we have had meetings. People are aware that the discussions that we have had with, for example First Great Western, have borne some sort of fruit. Those are some of the ways in which one can see promotion going on.

 

Q120 Mr. Drew: In terms of where we go from here with trying to get increased use of the trains-this is not necessarily just addressed to Mr. Cousins-where would the greatest investment yield the best returns? Give me some examples. I am obsessed with Kemble to Swindon, as certain people know. I fought for 10 years of my life on that and we are almost there. Give me some real-life examples in your areas where pretty good investment streams would yield considerable benefits, and what are you doing about it? Exmoor? Is there anywhere on Exmoor where the train could take the strain?

Dan James: Yes, but obviously on Exmoor we have not got any main line rail connections at the moment. There is a very ambitious plan from a heritage rail charity that has got a small line-the old Lynmouth to Barnstaple line. At the moment it is just running for three-quarters of a mile within the park; they would love to see that restored right up to Barnstaple. Obviously that is going to be a huge investment, so I think that that is very long term.

In the short term, another great opportunity we have is to link up with the West Somerset railway on the other side of the park. I understand that about £274,000 has been spent in recent years upgrading that line so it can now take main line trains, basically, linking up from Taunton with main line trains up to Bishops Lydeard where the West Somerset railway can take people on to Minehead, which is very much a gateway to the national park. At the moment, no service is operating along that line so it would not take huge capital infrastructure grants because that is already there, but we probably need some seed funding or revenue funding to encourage a train operator to extend something like a Cardiff to Taunton line and say, "Okay, we'll operate Cardiff through to Bishops Lydeard and then link up with the West Somerset railway". It becomes part of a holiday experience.

I think that in terms of marketing things, just to be able to say, "Actually, it's within three hours of London. On a Friday night, leave your office at half four or five o'clock and by 8.30 you can be sat in front of a roaring fire in a thatched pub having your Exmoor ale," is going to start encouraging people to use it, but at the moment that link just is not there. You get to Taunton-

Mr. Drew: You've sold me already.

Chairman: I'm there as well.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: I wish that there were a simple answer but the answer is that we are on the Network Rail members group, we work with people like First Great Western, and all of those things. Some of the things are apparently very simple but are actually very expensive. I think Julian mentioned one this morning, which is clock-face timetabling. A very simple example of that working incredibly well locally is the Barnstaple to Exeter line. We had one opportunity-literally one chance in 10 years, when the timetables change-to fix it. We work very hard with Network Rail and everybody else to do it because you affect five or six franchises as soon as you do that, but it has paid off, particularly in terms of commuting. In fact, it is not just people commuting from Barnstaple and the surrounding area into Exeter, it is the other way round as well. A lot of people commute the other way, particularly students.

That is an expensive thing to do, but is something that you can only do nationally, you cannot just do it regionally. I wish that there were local solutions to that sort of thing but, unfortunately, there are not. The other thing, which you would expect us to cover, is the whole rolling stock debate, but you have had that this morning already.

 

Q121 Mr. Drew: You've got pet schemes?

Andy Shaw: Certainly, Dorset proposed, through the regional funding allocation, the reconnection of the Swanage railway and for what appears to be a minor piece of signalling work, actually costing £3 million, 12 miles can be added to the network and another town connected-a seaside town, which would meet the tourism agenda. I think that there is a prospect of that being delivered through a major re-signalling scheme that Network Rail is implementing in 2012, and so the Swanage rail partnership needs £3 million to make that connection.

 

Q122 Mr. Drew: And that's a real project?

Andy Shaw: It's a real project. We have been pressing for it for many years. The county council has even bought rolling stock to operate on that line. So, yes, it is something that should go ahead.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: That shows the joined-up stuff. An example on the back of that is that we will work with our colleagues there and other business organisations, to work with Network Rail to push the case there, because it is never going to happen unless you get its investment in signalling.

Adrian Welsh: There are certainly rails in the area in which we have invested heavily in recent years. We had a project called the Riviera project. We have upgraded nearly all the stations in Cornwall-there is still more work to be done, but there is a substantial amount of investment there. In an earlier session you heard about the improvements between St. Austell and Truro-

Mr. Drew: That is a rather dramatic impact.

Adrian Welsh: Absolutely, and earlier this year we saw the opening of the Truro-Falmouth service, an extra doubling of track and half-hour frequency. So that has happened. In terms of aspirations, the eco-town status of St. Austell is an interesting proposal, and the transport solutions are still being worked up, but it is interesting to see whether that would increase the current case for running direct trains to Newquay.

 

Q123 Dr. Naysmith: The other thing that was mentioned in the earlier session was the lack of parking facilities at existing stations. Is that a real problem? Just nod if you think so.

Chairman: Yes or no?

All panel: Yes.

Isobel Mack: There are other issues. For instance, at Westbury station there is a railway bridge that the buses would ideally go over to get to the station, but apparently it won't take buses-it's not strong enough.

 

Q124 Chairman: Most of us, I think, have to get trains somewhere shortly, so may I finally ask you about the regional funding allocation and whether appropriate weight is given to non-economic benefits-the socio side of things.

Isobel Mack: One of the major failings of the way the scheme was worked out, which really came out of the analysis we did, was how badly it did against a lot of the sustainability stuff.

Chairman: For the benefit of the people back there, Isobel is showing us a piece of paper with lots of red marks on it, and I think the red means failing.

Isobel Mack: Yes. This is how well it's doing against delivering sustainable transport, and against the regional economic and transport strategies.

Chairman: There are clearly some real problems there-very few greens.

Isobel Mack: There is a lot of red. A different system, which was more policy-led rather than scheme-led, would be good.

 

Q125 Chairman: Do the two councillors at the other end have a view about the regional funding allocation and where the emphasis lies?

Adrian Welsh: Certainly. To pick up on that point, I think that it is important to remember that the RFA is for schemes of over £5 million, so by their very nature we are looking at big schemes. I think that it is fair to say that generally the bigger schemes do relate to issues such as connectivity, and I think that that there was a contention in the past from various councils that perhaps there was not enough balance on those issues. It is the best place to fund them, but it does put into play whether the integrated transport block is big enough to deal with the agenda that we all collectively pick, of developing sustainable communities. I think that the extent to which RFA can help that process becomes more questionable the smaller the area you are talking about, so I think there is increasing potential for transport.

Andy Shaw: I agree with that. The emphasis on sustainable transport is not high, particularly in local areas. That relates to LTP allocations as well. For instance, something that could make a big difference in a lot of urban areas would be personalised travel planning schemes. They can be quite resource hungry, but they have some measured effects. They have improved the sustainable transport travel demonstration towns-Darlington, Peterborough, etcetera, have seen reductions in car use of about 10%. There are clear benefits to be delivered, provided that we have the funding.

Alan Cousins: I don't really know the details of the funding allocation, but it seems that what is written on paper about social needs, for example, does not necessarily translate into what is there on the ground. Let us think about our area and those, such as young people, who are disadvantaged by not having access to a car. For example, bus services stop at 6 o'clock or something like that, and there are not many trains in the evening, yet they have leisure activities for which they need to travel eight miles or something like that to the nearest town.

There needs to be a rethink on the part of councils and regions about how to deal with some social needs, such as for those who are disadvantaged like pensioners or single-car families. When the wage earner is out, the rest of the family become a carless family. Those sort of issues need to be taken seriously when considering what actually happens as opposed to the plans that are written down.

Dan James: It is agreed almost across the table that there is not enough emphasis on sustainability. We need to be looking at assessing various options of true opportunity costs that public transport can bring. A study in Northumberland national park showed that every pound of public subsidy spent on public transport resulted in a further £14 to local economy. That is a great opportunity cost for getting people out of their cars, so they are not just stopping at Tesco on their way into the area, buying their lunch and driving around not putting anything into the local area, but by using transport, they are investing in the area. That one thing that needs to be looked at is the true opportunity costs, but also the externalities, and cost of pollution and everything else.

One thing that we have not mentioned yet is peak oil. We are coming to a time when prices will escalate far higher than we have seen them do before, and the availability of fuel will be decreased. That will further disadvantage those who may be able to afford a car. For leisure use and things, it might mean that their dependency on public transport will be far greater.

Jeremy Filmer-Bennett: I have just one very quick thing. I mentioned at the beginning the problem of skills and the future economy issues. The one-car argument is there. What happens in the end is that we have to aggregate lots of groups that do not necessarily hold hands naturally to bid for schemes to make it big enough for it to get on the radar. Doing that in community terms is difficult.

Chairman: Thank you all very much from all of us. We appreciate your time. I am sure that we could have spent a hell of a lot longer, but we have your evidence, which has been very good.