Council bosses say they need to save another £1m on bus subsidies.

Further £1m bus cuts loom for Norfolk

by DAN GRIMMER Monday, July 11, 2011
7:42 AM

The next raft of cuts to bus services in Norfolk will “inevitably” lead to fewer buses at night and on Sundays, with some services axed altogether, council bosses have admitted.

But Norfolk County Council hopes an army of volunteer drivers will step into the breach, with the council hoping to help community transport schemes grow.

Officers at County Hall are drawing up plans to cut £1m – a third of the budget – out of what the authority spends subsidising scores of local buses for the next financial year.

And they say that will mean “significant changes to how services are delivered”, with a warning that “provision will reduce overall”.

While the specifics for 2012/13 have yet to be drawn up, a report which will go before county councillors this week states the emphasis will be on protecting daytime and journey-to-work buses.

But to protect those services, evening and Sunday services would be sacrificed, with funding cut or withdrawn completely.

To make up for the loss of those bus services, officers plan to accelerate a move towards more demand responsive transport (DRT), especially in rural areas.

The council was recently awarded £480,000 by the government to support the community transport sector and hopes community transport, the award-winning Flexibus service, car sharers, car clubs and volunteer drivers will plug the gap left by bus service cuts.

A community transport steering group and a community transport providers forum have already been set up and met for the first time this month to consider how to ensure people in Norfolk can still get about.

A volunteer driver recruitment scheme was launched at last month’s Royal Norfolk Show, while moves are under way to set up a Norfolk Community Transport Association.

Graham Plant, cabinet member for planning and transportation at Norfolk County Council, said: “That is part of us asking people to volunteer, which is the direction the government has indicated it wants us to go in.

“We are asking people to use their own cars to help get people around and in return they will get some money for their petrol and an allowance.

“If we can build that up, it will reduce the need for unprofitable bus services in the rural areas. We’d like to build up a network which can be used by everybody.

“There’s lots of people out there with spare time and we can only ask if any of them are willing to do it and if so, we will help them do it.

“What you have to remember in all this, is that where the bus services are not profitable, we are having to subsidise them.

“We are having to look at whether that is the best way to spend the money and how much we can afford, especially given we are still trying to get £3m back from the government in money we didn’t get to cover concessionary bus fares.

“It’s really difficult and a balancing act to do what we can with the money we have available.”

But Andrew Boswell, Green Party spokesman for environment, transport and development at County Hall, said: “They are trying to do the Big Society stuff and, while I’d say, yes, it is good to encourage community groups, it’s not realistic to base the whole rural transport strategy on that happening.

“They will cut and erode the service and then hope the gaps will be plugged by volunteers. It shows the weakness of the Big Society idea.

“Once those rural services have gone, it will be incredibly difficult to bring them back.”

The report also reveals how the council hopes to stop subsidising Park and Ride completely within two years, having already slashed that subsidy from £1.97m in 2010/11 to an estimated £600,000 in 2011/12.

Frequency of those services has already been cut, some late night services and Saturday services have been dropped, free travel for concessionary bus pass holders axed and toilets have been closed at the sites.

But, in the longer term, the authority wants to transfer the park and ride sites, of which there are six around Norwich, to a not-for-profit organisation.

Mr Plant explained: “On the park and ride issue, the only bit we are still paying a lot for is the business rates on the sites.

“If we can form some sort of trust to take on the sites then they would not have to pay the business rates, so that would mean that hundreds of thousands of pounds which could be put back into bus services.

“We are trying to see if that is feasible.”

The county council is committed to making £155m of savings over the next three years and has already cut £450,000 from local bus services for this financial year.

dan.grimmer@archant.co.uk

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19 comments

Amazing, we are cutting services left, right and centre, expecting people to work for nothing, more redundancies announced daily, but we can syuudenly find another £52 million pound of aid to send overseas. Have we all lost the plot?

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Mr T

Saturday, July 16, 2011
And I suppose with the hike in energy costs, and the cut in the cold weather payments, the next call will be for us all to take in a pensioner or 2 over the winter so we can all keep warm together. Oh and then dont forget in our spare time, could we all please take a boat out to help anyone in trouble once the Coast guards are gone!

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MrsL

Saturday, July 16, 2011
ok so they cutting service, but they can afford 2 news bus's i see Yesterday 14,7,11 In Norwich City center both "out of Service" no surpise there then! but when in norwich you have 4 bus's and hour and half the time people don't use them half of them go empty into the city! well get in to 2 every 30 min on most services in the evening well i have to get the last bus to my house it leaves at 11:19 from the city and if i miss that or they axe it then i can't afford £11!!! cutting buses on a sunday thats stupid but it first we r talking about!!

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wardy1985

Friday, July 15, 2011
ok so they cutting service, but they can afford 2 news bus's i see Yesterday 14,7,11 In Norwich City center both "out of Service" no surpise there then! but when in norwich you have 4 bus's and hour and half the time people don't use them half of them go empty into the city! well get in to 2 every 30 min on most services in the evening well i have to get the last bus to my house it leaves at 11:19 from the city and if i miss that or they axe it then i can't afford £11!!! cutting buses on a sunday thats stupid but it first we r talking about!!

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wardy1985

Friday, July 15, 2011
In Norfolk we have rotten roads,few railways and now inadequate bus services. Without a decent transport infrastructure,there is no way we will pull out of recession.

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Harry Rabinowitz

Thursday, July 14, 2011
Without getting into politics too much NCC is facing a stark choice of where to make cuts. Ultimately it is the electorate who has continually voted for previous governments who have never had credible public transport policies who are to blame for this situation. Norfolk being a predominantly rural county was always going to be affected badly by any reduction in bus subsidies. Let's at least be thankful that NCC IS at least trying to preserve some buses during the day when workers need them most.

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Douglas McCoy

Thursday, July 14, 2011
@Cynical Bob, some Parish Clerks are doing it for £70,000 of somebody elses money....

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Valpy Word

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Thought Park and Ride was supposed to be to keep traffic out of Towns, Ipswich closed there one that I used to go on , so now I dont bother to go to Ipswich, so if councils cut buses there will be less people going to towns ,so in the long run less money for councils.

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Paula Cooper

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Instead of the council paying for park and ride, just let the carparking in the city be free, then they can drive and park all by them selfs , with out the tax payer havin to pay. Also all these park and ride buses going out of the city in the mornings with not the single person on them..

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billythebookie

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
What beggars belief is that schemes like the Park and Ride which cut traffic in the city are subject to business rates and that NCC has not found a way round it before. Volunteer transport is ludicrous-there is no privacy in it and a heavy overtone of being given a favour. Plus the matter of car insurance and security checks for volunteers who might be asked to convey teenagers-something the near sighted Plant doesn't seem to have considered. Leaves me wondering how much subsidy Eastern Counties used to get to run a decent bus service all over Norfolk.

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Daisy Roots

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
“emphasis will be on protecting daytime and journey-to-work buses” Yea because no one works on a Sunday or in the evening do they?! But i do look forward to Graham Plant giving me a lift home in an evening...... i assume he will be volunteering?

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Josh Helling

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Well said Allan,why should anyone volunteer for anything so that others can sit about on unreal salaries.Come on councillors lead the way,we parish councillors do it for free.

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Cynical Bob

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
With all this talk of volunteers taking over from paid professionals, isn't it time County Councillors show some leadership and become volunteers themselves?

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Alan Browne

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
With all this talk of volunteers taking over from paid professionals, isn't it time County Councillors show some leadership and become volunteers themselves?

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Alan Browne

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
My mum a pensioner and enjoys going out on buses, and she rather pay than them being cut, I already have to take her 3 miles to get a bus to Bury St Edmunds, because the feeder Bus was cut, I work and its not easy for me to run her about if they cut the Buses.

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Paula Cooper

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I managed to get round the reduced services and unreliability by cycling and walking everywhere. I'd recommend it, most refreshing.

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Valpy Word

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
That should read - "......running around with about 2 to 3 people on per journey?"

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NorthCity

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Here's a radical idea, stop putting double deckers on bus routes between 7p.m. and 11:30p.m., surely these must waste stupid amounts of money continuously running around with about 23 people on per journey?

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NorthCity

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
No buses on a Sunday? The economy is shrinking even further under this government and with the help of the County Council it is likely to do so even further.

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anglia_squared

Tuesday, July 12, 2011