Committee warns of further cuts to bus services
Summary
The Transport Committee reveals that extensive cuts to rural, evening and weekend bus services will prevent disadvantaged people from reaching essential facilities.
The report, 'Bus Services after the Spending Review’ (HC 750) details how severe cuts, scheduled to commence in 2012-13, will affect the old, young and disabled substantially leaving them unable to participate in employment, education or voluntary work and to access vital services such as healthcare and retail facilities.
In a review of England's bus services (outside London) after the 'Spending Review 2010’ (Cm. 7942), the Committee warns that even deeper cuts in bus services are likely in 2012-13, as local authorities struggle to deal with budgetary reductions, and calls for the concessionary travel scheme to be preserved so that the elderly and disabled continue to enjoy free bus travel.
The Committee also concludes that the concessionary fares scheme was "discriminatory" because it did not apply to most community transport providers such as independent charities that provide transport like dial-a-ride bus services.
It calls on the Department for Transport (DfT) to monitor the extent of service cutbacks made this year and to review service provision again after BSOG (Bus Service Operator Grant) grant cuts take effect in 2012-13 so that it can analyse and draw conclusions about the wider costs and benefits of its policy changes to the country as a whole.
The Local Government Association should identify and disseminate information about good and bad practice in the delivery of cost effective, flexible services including community transport and/or area-based transport integration.
Local authorities and commercial operators must, the Committee states, consult more widely where services are being changed.
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