Bus review will cost £2m
THE Welsh Government plans a £2m cash injection for buses, but the money won’t restore any axed services or buy a single new bus shelter.
The government has decided to spend the money instead on a “review” of buses.
The £2m earmarked for the review is equal to the amount cashstarved Welsh councils have stripped from their subsidy for unprofitable bus services over the last two financial years – resulting in further service cuts.
First Minister Carwyn Jones recently told the Senedd that creating certainty for passengers would reverse the decline in bus usage, but said this required legislation “in the next few years”.
In the interim, the government could do “nothing” about service cuts because buses were privately run.
The government’s draft budget for next year includes “£2m to support the bus review”. Asked for details of the review and who would receive the £2m, a government spokeswoman said: “The funding identified in the draft budget is for Transport for Wales to take forward detailed business cases for improvement to bus services in Wales.
“TfW have been working with local authorities and industry in the identification of business cases.”
Bev Fowles, who chairs bus industry body the Confederation of Passenger Transport Cymru, was unaware of the review until the Western Mail asked for a comment.
He said consultants and academics were thriving on Welsh Government contracts for transport studies and advice. “If you told the local authorities or bus companies: ‘There’s £2m sloshing around here boys – what can you do with it?’, they would improve infrastructure or the number of services.”
Bus operators had spent about £140m over 10 years on new buses with wi-fi and mobile charging facilities, but traffic congestion made services slower and more expensive to provide.
“Massive investment has gone into vehicles and technology, but because of congestion and the lack of infrastructure investment we can’t get the bus in front of anything.
“They’re investing in rail, so why would buses be any different?” said Mr Fowles, who runs a Swansea-based bus company.
“They have to alter the [road] infrastructure and alter the attitude to the car if they’re to improve air quality and public transport.”
The draft budget also reveals that rail subsidy under KeolisAmey’s new contract will be £170m next year. The government had previously budgeted for £120m.
The additional money for trains contrasts with funding for buses, which serve many more communities and carry three or four times more passengers than trains.
In 2012, the government announced that its grant to bus operators would reduce by 25%, to £25m a year. The grant has since remained at £25m, despite inflation and other cost increases for bus companies.
Councils’ spending on supported bus services reduced from £24.1m in 2012-13 to £17.8m in 2015-16, and to £15.8m in 201718.
Many services have been withdrawn or reduced, fares have risen and bus stops have decayed.
Passengers have voted with their feet. There were about 115 million bus passenger journeys annually in the years before 2012. Now the annual total is 97 million – a drop of 16%. Welsh buses lost 2.6 million passenger journeys in the last year alone.
The Welsh Government has responded with reports and consultations. It ordered councils’ transport consortiums to produce four regional bus strategies by April 2014, but in the same month it binned the consortiums and their strategies.
It set up a Bus Policy Advisory Group, which made recommendations in 2014. Last year it consulted on future Welsh bus policy. It has held two bus “summits” and many bus “workshops”.
In March, transport secretary Ken Skates said another public consultation on bus policy would be held in the summer. Asked why this had not taken place, the government spokeswoman said: “We are working with Transport for Wales on a White Paper which we plan to publish before Christmas.”
Carwyn Jones’ claim that legislation is needed contradicts feedback his government has received from councils.
Responding to last year’s bus consultation, the Welsh Local Government Association said: “We remain to be persuaded whether new legislation is required to solve the problems facing the sector.
“Increased and refocused funding, together with an increased capacity in local authorities, would go a long way to addressing many of the issues raised in the WG consultation paper.”
The government’s proposed formal partnerships between councils and bus companies were already possible now, said the WLGA. “However, there is not sufficient capacity in local authorities nor the funding for capital improvements to allow this [to] happen.”