Problems on the buses are a national issue

It’s difficult not to feel some sympathy with Cllr David Brazier, the KCC cabinet member overseeing the ending of 38 bus services across Kent.

He openly admitted the cuts would place a heavy burden on many people, and said: “I’m human too. I don’t want to see this happen.”

But he said the money was not there to continue the subsidies. He told opposition councillors that even if they voted to save the services, he simply didn’t have the money to run them.

The net result is that thousands of bus users will be left stranded. Parents will be unable to get their children to school. The elderly will be marooned and rural villagers made totally dependent on their cars.

The problem is a systemic one. Ever since Margaret Thatcher de-regulated the bus industry in 1986, it has been run by private companies. Naturally there will always be some routes that are more popular and more profitable than others, and naturally private companies with the need to make a profit, will concentrate on those and withdraw from the others.

The result is an inevitable shrinkage of services.

Surely with the climate crisis - and with the frustration we all experience from increased congestion on the roads - it must be obvious that the more people we can encourage onto buses, the more we all benefit, even non bus-users.

Just as recently there has been a realisation that privatisation has not worked on the railways, with the Government looking to establish Great British Railways, so it should be realised that buses are a public service and may well benefit from the same approach.

‘The more people we can get onto buses, the more we all benefit’