Two dozen areas in region risk decline through poor transport
PM must provide clear routemap
MORE THAN two dozen neighbourhoods across Yorkshire and the Humber which are disconnected from jobs and essential services due to poor public transport and low car ownership risk falling further behind the rest of the country if action is not taken, it is feared.
A new report reveals that socalled ‘left behind’ areas with the poorest connectivity are mostly on the coast or the outskirts of post-industrial towns and cities in the North and Midlands.
Of these 225 areas which have seen their social infrastructure decline disproportionately compared to the rest of the country, 28 are in Yorkshire, according to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods.
And two communities, Orchard Park and Greenwood in Hull and Stainforth and Barnby Dun in Doncaster, rank within the top 20 most disconnected areas on the list.
The report ‘Connecting communities: improving transport to get ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods back on track’, produced by Campaign for Better Transport, highlights how people in these areas are reliant on public transport but have worse access to it than other areas.
Some 84 per cent of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods have worse overall connectivity than the England average and 40 per cent have no car, compared to the England average of 26 per cent.
Local authority-supported bus services in ‘left behind’ areas declined by 35 per cent over the last six years, while commercial services declined by 11 per cent.
Earlier this month, the Government launched its long-awaited National Bus Strategy for England which aims to reform the way local bus services are planned and delivered, requiring local transport authorities to form enhanced partnerships with bus operators, backed by £3 billion investment over the course of this parliament.
Other measures include simpler, price-capped fares, more services in the evenings and at weekends and bus priority measures to improve journey times.
This week Greater Manchester metro mayor Andy Burnham announced that the area’s buses would be brought under local authority control for the first time since deregulation in the 1980s. Such a system, which already
operates in London, is being considered by South Yorkshire’s metro mayor Dan Jarvis and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
Silviya Barrett, Head of Policy, Research and Projects at Campaign for Better Transport, said: “Reconnecting lost rail links, reinstating cut bus routes and ensuring local authorities have the funds and skills to provide the public transport local communities need is key to reinvigorating the areas featured in this report and, crucially, ensuring these communities don’t get further left behind.”
The report used Knottingley in West Yorkshire as a case study, where locals on the Warwick Estate are lobbying for better public transport.
Only one bus route serves the community but does not run after 6pm.
The lack of an evening bus service worsens social isolation and contributes to low level crime, says the report. And while there is a train station less than half a kilometre away, there is no easy, direct route to it, because the station entrance is on the ‘other side’ of the tracks.
The report recommends that government prioritises investment in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods and suggests funds should be directed to the hyper-local level to support communities and advocate for their needs.
Hull North MP Dame Diana Johnson, said: “The Government must do more to provide equality of opportunity for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, so they don’t end up falling even further behind, and providing good quality public transport is an essential part of this.
“Whilst investment in town and city centres can provide opportunities, that’s little help if people living several miles away aren’t able to get to them.”
BORIS JOHNSON had not even sat down at The Yorkshire Post’s offices in September 2019 when he mentioned the B-word – buses (as opposed to Brexit which was the dominant issue at the time).
He was a big fan, he declared, and he wanted them to drive forward his aspiration agenda because of the extent to which reliable bus services had boosted social mobility in London under his mayoralty.
This also explains, in fairness, the Prime Minister’s newly-announced £3bn bus ‘revolution’, a genuine attempt to tackle economic disadvantage and, in the year of COP26, reduce harmful carbon ambitions.
What is less apparent, however, is how this will bring about the intended societal benefits when the North only receives a fraction of the public money for buses that London enjoys and when Mr Johnson’s own flagship ‘levelling up’ policy remains undefined amid suspicions that it is merely a ‘sprucing up’ fund for Tory areas and target seats.
This is made even more apparent by a new report by a Parliamentary group, headed by Bradford South MP Judith Cummins, which reveals the extent to which 28 so-called ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in this region are paying the price for poor public transport provision and low rates of car ownership.
These are precisely the type of areas that should be receiving priority treatment from the Levelling Up Fund. Instead, areas like Barnsley and Hull have to play second fiddle to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Richmond seat where the infrequency of bus services is offset by more families having access to their own car.
And while Ministers contend, fairly, that countryside areas are also worthy of investment, a far more clearer policy routemap is needed if the bus is to become the default mode of transport that Mr Johnson envisaged with his customary ebullience over 18 months ago.