Key bus service for elderly faces uncertain future over EU ‘diktat’
THE future of a Birmingham community minibus charity for the elderly hangs in the balance as it waits to find out if strict EU regulations are going to be enforced.
The 15 buses operated by Northfield-based charity Shencare make 30,000 passenger journeys each year, with more than two-thirds of them carrying elderly and disabled people to day centres, hospital appointments, shopping trips and other events.
But it is has been told by the Department for Transport that regulations could be tightened following a new interpretation of longstanding EU rules.
It would mean the bus charities would be registered and regulated like commercial bus companies and, if implemented, could cost the community transport sector £400 million.
Shencare chairman and former city councillor Peter Douglas Osborn said: “Much of the service that Shencare and many other community transport suppliers involve taking mobility-challenged people who else would be housebound out to day care centres, visits, hospitals, and shopping trips.”
The issue stems from a Department for Transport letter sent to all community transport operations last July, offering a new interpretation of a European regulation covering competition in bus services.
“It might have seemed relatively innocuous, but the implications were horrendous,” said Mr Douglas Osborn.
“We have volunteer drivers at Shencare and they were seen under this letter as potentially causing unfair competition for regular bus companies.
“It seems perverse that in Whitehall they are applying a European diktat after all these years just as we are negotiating to leave the EU.”
The issue could impact services like Shencare which uses its commercial home to school contracts with local councils to subsidise the majority of its not-for-profit work with charities such as Age UK, Focus and others.
Shencare chief executive Chris Busst said that they have won the backing from a range of MPs across all parties. “Hopefully there will be some common sense and thee Department for Transport will leave things as they are,” he said.