Buses in Wiltshire - potential changes and where we stand at the moment
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2016-05-30 17:11:08 - Graham Ellis
Last year (2015), starting in April, Wiltshire Council investigated options for reducing the amount of money it spends on subsidising public transport buses, with a view to halving the amount spent. Through the summer and autumn, stakeholder meetings were held, inputs sought and a public consultation put together which ran from January until early April this year (2016). Some 11,500 responses were received - making it the second biggest response to any Wiltshire consultation to date.
Wiltshire has a history of community interest in public transport, and a number of us learned quite early on of the "Public Transport Review" and its financial objectives. We were (and still are) concerned at the social impact, economic impact and impact on other bus services and wider budgets of simply looking at each supported service and choosing what to cut. Cutting purely supported services threatens a downward spiral, with reduced use of remaining supported, and connecting commercial services too, with more services then needing support and more difficult "what do we cut next" decisions on an annual basis.
After Wiltshire Council started their work, we had a general election and returned a Conservative government. And in the autumn, there were widely touted suggestions of a "Buses Bill" to be forthcoming, offering to rebalance some issues in the current bus service provision regime which had proven to be impractical or not always in everyone's best interest. Wiltshire Council took heed of this, but as their consultation briefing notes explained there were substantial systemic and timing risks involved in offering elements of the new (and at that point unspecified) systems in the poll of public opinion.
During December, the 'drift' of the Bus Bill became much clearer, so when the public consultation went live in January we (as a community group) were able to have a much better bet on what could be there than the timing card the council had drawn. Thus was born the "option 24/7" suggestion, widening the scope of the review to look at public transport as a network / system rather than just the 44% to 50% of subsidised buses in isolation, and looking at the mechanism expected to be in place or nearly in place by the time that the budgetary savings are called for.
Initial 'official' reaction to Option 24/7 popping up on the scene wasn't exactly welcoming. However, from a London conference in February and further briefings it became the more likely that Option 24/7 ideas were in line with the forthcoming government's legislation, and that both the legislation and the Option 24/7 suggestions addressed the "elephants in the room" - ensuring continuity and return on investment for operators, dealing with cross-border issues, providing a system that does if necessary allow the clothing to be cut from the cloth that's available, yet providing a wider range of network opportunities and a much better and interchangeble fare and information system.
If you had asked me in mid January what I thought the probable outcome of the consultation would be, I would have said that in all likelyhood the inputs would have been noted but that decisions would be based purely on offered alternatives. However, things moved forward. Alternative significant public campaigns which called for "as is" retention didn't take note of either the council's requirement to save, nor future year spiralling of costs. And our proposals looked increasingly in line with government thinking, increasingly moderate, increasingly taking account of all parties, increasingly researched, and likely to be rather more popular than any of the council's options at the May 2017 Council elections. On the downside, there remained / remains the concern of the bus operators (but then if the council cuts support as originally in the options they still loose millions and don't get anything more stable for next year). There remained the small matter of the proposed law and what it would contain. Anyway - the consultation closed and we've had the opportunity to discuss with officers, to present to the Public Transport Review Board, and we're now embarking on deeper technical discussions. No decision made yet - but a very fair look being taken at all the options, and a proper evaluation being made.
The draft bill - now known as the "Bus Services Bill" - was announced in the Queen's speech earlier this month. It's had its first reading in the House of Lordsalready. It's been published together with guidance online. And we've had a change to look through it, discuss it with others from around the country and indeed with central contacts, and on Friday we presented what we believe it can do in a Wiltshire context to our MP, Michelle Donelan. The story is very much a positive one; no great shocks and pretty well what we had anticipated in the bill. Michelle and her team, who offered us support at both political and press levels, will be continuing to do so. And we have our next meeting (the first after the bill's publication) with Wiltshire Council coming up very quickly; it's clearer now what we haveto do to persue this option.
I have 'mirrored' the Bus Service Bill publications, and also our presentations to Wiltshire Council, on our links page - http://option247.uk/links.html . Further detail is being worked on, and will be published via the website and Facebook group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/option247 ) together with the MP presentation once the Wiltshire Council meeting has gone ahead.
Should meetings go well these next 10 days, we'll need to move the community involvement onto a formal base - I've already had requests to engage with service providers formally, and without a formal setup to do so, that's kinda hard. But it can be set up quite quickly, probably under the TransWilts CIC umbrella where the constitution allows formal partnership working like the one we have on the trains (and I say "we" because quite a few of our team are TransWilts members).
A diary date - Saturday 25th June. Venue to be advised but it WILL be reachable by bus. A public briefing, and looking forward to the next stages. I can't give you an agenda just yet, because it depends on what happens in the meantime.
A big "thank you" for your support / assistance so far. We may appear to have been quiet for the past couple of months, but that's simply because the work that's been going on has been in the background and we've been keeping our limited resources concentrated on that; we can and will be calling on people to be heavily involved as we (hopefully) move forward; a public transport network for the future - fit for the purpose of residents, visitors, bus operators, councils, government and the public purse and economy is possible. Wiltshire finds itself well positioned to proudly take a lead.