Written evidence from I McLaughlin (BUS
130)
I am writing this letter in a personal capacity,
as a supporter of CT and public transport and to give additional
information, which has come to light since January 2011.
(1) Quote from Darlington and Stockton Times
(14 January 2011) "Bus contract signed weeks before consultation
ended" copy attached.[53]
NYCC officials refused to comment on claims that they had pre-empted
the outcome of the public consultation into the bus cuts by signing
a contract with a bus service provider that removed evening and
weekend services, three weeks before the consultation period on
bus subsidy cuts ended. The contract for services 31A, 31B and
31C in Richmond was signed on 8 October, consultation ended on
31 October 2010.
(2) Norman Baker £10 million of funding
to kick start Community Transport development. NYCC has received
£415,000 from this fund. At a meeting, 30 March 2011, for
Community Transport providers, NYCC were asked if the money was
ringfenced for CT? The reply was "no it wasn't" and
"NYCC would use the money to support its deficit". So
we the taxpayers can presumably not expect any improvement in
rural or evening/ weekend bus services.
(3) Hawes/Garsdale Head bus service. This service,
provided by Little Red Bus, with a subsidy from NYCC, (£4.31
per passenger journey) connected Garsdale Head station to Hawes
village and also took children to local schools. It then provided
demand repsonsive services to take residents to the Doctor, Hospital,
shops etc.
Garsdale Head is on the very successful Settle-Carlisle
line, which was saved from closure by the local community some
20 years ago. The railway provides a vital link for those travelling
to hospitals in Carlisle, Newcastle and Leeds and for work commuters
and also for students travelling to Craven Further Education College,
Skipton. (A car journey from Hawes to Skipton takes at least 60
minutes to cover 30 miles on hilly, winding roads.) Without the
bus service, Garsdale Head can only be accessed by car, as it
is remotely situated, high above Hawes about three miles from
the village. After taking children to school, LRB connected to
buses running down Swaledale to the larger service centres at
Leyburn and Bedale and connecting to Richmond and Ripon. LRB also
took walking parties and tourists from the trains into Hawes,
where what they spent was a great boost to the local low wage
economy. NYCC decided to withdraw funding for the service and
it was due to end first week of April 2011).
Miraculously, NYCC then found funding to provide
a new eight seater minibus, which meets only two of the trains
at Garsdale Head (10am and 7.30pm) The new service is being provided
by Upper Wensleydale Community Partnership in conjunction with
NYCC but LRB was never involved in any discussions about the service
and only learned about the service from press announcements. Strangely,
the service being provided by UWCP is not dissimilar in type to
that provided by LRB. The main difference is that LRB service
was much more frequent and comprehensive. Services ran Mon-Sat,
during 12 hours of the day and met all the trains coming in to
Garsdale Head. The UWCP service doesn't seem to be very integrated
when it no longer takes the children to school or meets each train
that comes into the station and attempts were made to persuade
drivers from LRB to join the new scheme which seems heavily reliant
on untrained volunteers. Journeys will be at "a very subsidised
cost", presumably up to £7.50 per passenger journey.
(Max subsidy that NYCC will pay.) (Article in Yorkshire Post 17
March, "residents get on board to save village buses.")
I cannot understand how the new service can be better
when service levels are reduced and cost must surely have increased,
when taking into account the provision of a new vehicle. I have
now learnt that the new service has not been able to commence
"because of a lack of resources" and so LRB have been
asked to step into the breach!!
(4) The rural areas of North Yorkshire are very
heavily dependent on cars and buses, as there are few railway
lines and these tend to be on the county borders, as far as the
very rural Dales area is concerned. (Carlisle-Settle-Skipton-Leeds)
NYCC committed to reduce carbon emissions from transport, which
are currently 38% of all emissions in N Yorks, by 32% by 2020.
(Nationally CO2 emissions from transport average 21%) Unless more
bus services are provided, CT or otherwise, people will have to
make more use of cars, with consequent increases in carbon emissions.
Cuts in bus subsidies and bus services, will only lead to higher
CO2 emissions.
— The
community of Sleights, near Whitby was going to lose its bus services
in the evening and weekends. This would have been a disaster for
those who work in the pubs and restaurants of Whitby and needed
to get home after their evening shift. NYCC totally ignored submissions
by the locals and their Councillors. Fortunately, they took matters
into their own hands. After discussions with the bus company it
was agreed that fares would be increased, but services will still
run and residents can remain gainfully employed.
(5) At a time of rising fuel prices, N Yorks
households in rural areas are spending at least £1,000 per
annum extra on transport costs compared to households in urban
areas and a further £1,600 extra on other household bills,
(heating oil—no gas in rural areas-food etc) because of
the costs of "importing" goods into remote rural areas
(ONS).
(6) There will always have to be subsidies for
rural bus services, but NYCC seem to think this is not the case.
There are not the volumes of passengers and the travelling distances
between customers and their services are much greater than for
those in the urban areas (60 minutes from Hawes to hospital A&E)
thus affecting financial viability of services. However, that
is not to say that subsidies cannot be reduced year on year. (As
they have been by Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company
buses.)
— The
current piecemeal attitude of providing subsidy for one or two
years and then withdrawing the subsidy means that passengers are
fearful of being reliant on public transport. Unfortunately, the
old, sick, unemployed and disabled are most affected by this policy.
If there isn't a bus service, they are trapped in their homes
and become reliant on others to do shopping for them, take them
to the doctor and the hospital etc. Isolation often leads to depression,
(an unnecessary charge on NHS.)
— Also
there is not much point having a concessionary bus pass if there
are no buses on which to use the pass.
— The
unemployed find it almost impossible to look for work, Internet
connections in remoter areas are very poor and if they find work,
usually low paid, how are they going to travel to it? (DWP then
has to pay unemployment benefit for those who cannot get to work—these
are NOT people who do not want to work)
— Students
have journeys of at least one hour to reach further education
establishments. The costs and time involved may well put off many
teenagers from furthering their education, thus exacerbating the
problem of young people without qualifications.
(7) NYCC Integrated Passenger Transport Unit.
I do not understand why NYCC feels the need to have its own in
house Integrated Passenger Transport Unit. (ITPU) I thought it
was a recognised fact that private operators, CT and public transport
providers are more likely to offer cost effective solutions. An
integrated service makes the very best use of the resources available
and delivers best value for money for those services, at the same
time keeping down CO2 emissions. Discussions with CT providers,
local employers, tourist attractions etc must be a starting point
when considering provision of rural bus services (subsidised or
not) NYCC only seem to understand that they have a pot of money
for Education, one for Social Services, one for Transport etc.
They all seem to be so busy fighting to preserve their own Empires,
that there is no co-operation and thus services are duplicated,
such as buses only for school pupils, which could also be used
by Social Services, employees, walkers etc. NYCC do not seem to
be interested in having discussions with CT providers as a whole.
They seem to fear competition with their own IPTU.
— In
the rural areas a properly integrated service would mean a 16
seater mini bus could pick up pupils from outlying farms, hamlets
and villages and take them to school along with people going to
work and transport them to a larger village or town for transfer
to larger vehicles or the train for onward travel to their destination.
The larger bus may well have been "fed" passengers by
a number of feeder services. The minibus can then be used during
the day (downtime) to pick up those who have appointments at the
doctors surgery, need to do some shopping, need to get to hospital
appointments, socialise with lunch clubs or daytime outings. The
minibus can then do the school hometime run and later in the evening
be used to bring commuters back and also children who might have
attended after school activities. It could also take people to
their evening/night shift jobs.
— NYCC
officers appear unwilling or unable to provide members with all
the relevant facts when it comes to making cost saving decisions.
The only option looked at for savings on bus subsidies was to
remove subsidies on all evening, weekend and Bank Holiday services.
The fact that some daytime services were receiving larger subsidies
than some evening services was conveniently overlooked. The officers
also appear not to understand that not everyone only works between
the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday -Friday. This was borne out by
questioning of an NYCC officer at TSC 22nd March 2011.
(8) Public and Community Transport is the key
to vibrant communities and with reliable services leads to more
tourists coming to the area, without their cars, and businesses
being willing to invest in the area because they would not need
to worry about how their staff would get in to work. Not everything
can be done by computer! A good integrated transport system, using
service buses, CT and train services would help reduce Carbon
emissions in the N Yorks region, would bring in tourists, whose
spending would support the local economy and would improve the
quality of life for the many isolated communities in the region.
When the travelling public see that there is a reliable alternative
to travelling by car they will switch. The key word is reliable.
Subsidies introduced for a year or two and then withdrawn, cannot
give reliability. It takes time and a lot of effort for services
to develop. Inevitably, subsidies will be high in the beginning,
but as more people use the local transport services and feel confident
that they can rely on them, so the passenger numbers will increase
and subsidies will reduce. It is however a fallacy that subsidies
will never be needed in rural areas.
— Over
the years NYCC has received £millions in grants, supposedly
for transport. There seems to be very little to show for it. NYCC
have bought vehicles for their Integrated Unit which are not being
used efficiently. Drivers fail to turn out in bad weather and
do not know the communities that they serve. In spite of LRB having
a very good scheduling system, which they have been willing to
share with NYCC in the past, officers seem determined to have
their own in house scheduling system, at great cost, which would
seem to duplicate what already exists.
(9) NYCC
produced its LTP in October 2010, the LSTF was mentioned. Along
with many others, I became involved with the Dales Integrated
Transport Alliance, in preparing a bid for the fund. We had to
liaise with NYCC ITPU officials who in my opinion were certainly
not very supportive. We saw the fund as a big opportunity to improve
transport in the very rural county of N Yorks. NYCC did not bother
to inform the seven District Councils in N Yorks about the LSTF
fund until mid February 2011, and suggested that Councils send
in bids by 25 March 2011, which would, if deemed acceptable by
NYCC, be put forward into tranche 2 of LSTF. (Funds not available
until mid 2012)
— A member
of the public at Ryedale District council meeting asked why the
LSTF was not on the Agenda, since surely all Councils could use
some funding for transport initiatives. The response was that
there wasn't time to prepare a bid and so there was no point in
mentioning the fund!
If NYCC genuinely wanted to provide the best service
for their Council tax payers, they surely should have informed
the District Councils back in October 2010 that the LSTF fund
would soon be available and perhaps "Districts would like
to start thinking of ideas for bids", so that they would
be ready when the criteria for funding were known. Instead they
"sat on their hands" and "took the easy way out
and did nothing". As a result, as far as I am aware, only
the DITA bid will be ready for the first tranche of funding. Once
again the taxpayers will miss out on funding to improve transport
in their region.
No doubt if there had been any bid criteria for the
£10 million of CT funding recently awarded, we in N Yorks
would have gone without yet again!
(10) NYCC, as part of its Service Centre Transportation
Strategy, recently announced plans to reroute the A61 away from
the centre of Harrogate, at a cost of some £800,000 minimum.
There has been a tidal wave of letters to the local press against
the proposal. I find it very perverse that NYCC Transport cannot
come up with suitable schemes for CT/improved local transport
for LSTF bid, yet can produce a transport scheme that nobody wants.
Until NYCC stop thinking in their silos and look at Transport
as a whole, we will never achieve an integrated, more environmentally
friendly and cost effective transport system in N Yorks.
In summing up, as a mere council tax payer, I strongly
believe that Community Transport providers are far better placed
and more willing to take note of what their communities want.
A major overhaul of how funding for transport schemes is disbursed
is long overdue. There seem to be too many different pots of money,
each with their own criteria. To work well, Transport needs to
be integrated and therefore those delivering the services need
to think in more creative ways. There seems to be plenty of will,
problem solvers and people ready to take action amongst the local
communities, The Big Society, but all their efforts seem to be
severely hampered by funding going to the top, where those "in
charge" seem unwilling or unable to commence a dialogue with
service users and be open to new ideas. Consequently bus users
in North Yorkshire have been severely and unnecessarily disadvantaged
by a system that is clearly not fit for purpose.
I sincerely hope that Transport users in North Yorkshire
and transport providers will see some life changing improvements
over the coming months to their rural bus services. With a little
co-operation from the "powers that be" we could all
enjoy a much better integrated service that actually gives value
for money and reduces CO2 emissions.
April 2011
53 www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/8792266.Bus_contract_signed_weeks_before_consultation_ended/
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