Government needs to look at funding of bus services

YOUR recent stoy about bus services in crisis refers to a report by the Campaign for Better Transport (National). This is excellent and raises some very good points. As chairman of CBT’s Leicestershire local group, we have been actively involved in campaigning for some years. In 2011-12 we campaigned with other colleagues in the county to save 45 services threatened with closure. 25 were saved most of them still running now,

In fairness, Leicestershire County Council in recent years has behaved a lot better than some other local authorities in this respect. There have been no recent closures and services threatened with closure have been given a reprieve until next year while the situation is looked at in more detail.

But this does not take away the basic fact that with ever shrinking local authority funding, these services remain under threat. In your circulation area, this includes services 3 to Three Potts, 8 to Lutterworth, X55 via the Fosse Villages to Leicester and the 58 Lutterworth Market Harborough as well as service 7 (Atherstone, Witherley, Sheepy, Twycross, Measham).

If people in these areas want these services to continue they need to start using them more often. Use them or lose them.

Another big issue this time affecting all bus operators is the declining rate of reimbursement to operators for accepting free bus passes.

The Department of Transport allocates funding for each local transport authority each year for this purpose. But the amount supplied is arbitrary and reduces every year.

So the local authorities are forced to cut back their rate of reimbursement.

When the scheme was introduced in 2008, Leicestershire reimbursed approximately 80% of the invoices supplied by the operators. Now that figure is a good deal less than 50% and operators are losing out.

What is needed is a fair system of reimbursement which takes into account the contribution to society that people using these passes, support for local businesses, a reduction in pressure on health and social care services due to the enhanced mobility of pass holders etc.

National government really needs to wake up to this.