Written evidence from Newton on Ouse Parish
Council (BUS 83)
You asked for evidence of the impact of recent public
expenditure cuts on local bus services. Our bus service has been
thoroughly inadequate for some years, with about nine buses a
day. The age structure of our village is skewed towards the older
range with a very substantial number of people aged 60 and over,
many of whom do not have access to a car. There is no shop in
the village, no post office (the nearest two were closed or partially
closed last year) and no other amenities other than a pub. For
a while, the Parish Council ran a bus for older people going to
York for Friday mornings (a 20 mile round journey) but ceased
because it was unaffordable.
We have now been informed that the county council
subsidy to the local bus is to be substantially withdrawn and
that bus service levels in the county are to be "equalised":
this effectively means being levelled down to the worst service.
The result of this is that we are losing key buses during the
day and evening such that some young people will be unable to
get to sixth form collage and further education or to go to York
for other reasons; and buses will cease altogether between mid-evening
Saturday and Monday morning. Others dependent on buses will be
unable to visit the city for leisure activities. We are effectively
becoming completely isolated community over the weekend. You will
now from research of the impact of isolation on the physical and
mental health of older people, that this is likely to lead to
earlier admission to residential care. Economically, the cuts
make no sense whatsoever because against the short term savings
we can envisage long-term costs. Given the costs of petrol now,
providing an adequate and reliable bus service makes clear economic
and environmental sense.
Ours is not the only rural area to suffer this loss
and potentially disastrous impact. We ask the Committee to recommend
strongly that county councils covering deeply rural areas such
as ours should be provided with adequate subsidies to enable an
effective, socially useful, affordable and reliable bus service.
Consultation incidentally was derisory. We asked to meet the operators
and county council to discuss our concerns and this request was
met with a blank refusal. Consultation here means being told what
is going to happen and putting up with it.
March 2011
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