Councillors defend bus services review with some costing £200k to subsidise

Councillor Nick Rushton was speaking at today’s cabinet meeting at County Hall where members were told that the council was paying between £40,000 and more than £200,000 a year to subsidise 26 routes.

This equates to average passenger subsidies of between £8 and £22 per journey to ensure the services continue as they are not commercially viable due to a shortage of people travelling on them.

The cabinet approved a review of all services with a need to make £1milion in savings – the outcome could mean some routes are axed or cut back to make them more cost-effective.

Services to be reviewed in the Melton area include some town routes and buses taking passengers to and from towns and villages including Loughborough, Grantham, Syston, Bottesford and Stathern.

Addressing cabinet colleagues today, Councillor Rushton said: “£40,000 to £200,000 is unsustainable and, in all honesty, if I was given money by the government to subsidise a bus route for £200,000 I would struggle to justify that to any man or woman on the street.

“I would probably spend it on adults or children or filling more potholes.

“I understand we’ve got to make these savings and look at the routes and see which ones we can afford to subsidise.

“Passenger numbers are down 25 per cent, the cost of inflation with the war in Ukraine is up 35 per cent and, to cap it all, since Covid we can’t get the blessed bus drivers.”

There has been widespread anger at the proposed cuts from residents in the Melton borough and across Leicestershire, with many pointing out that some elderly people will be isolated without a bus service and that students rely on public transport to get to college or university.

Centrebus, which operates many of the subsidised routes in the Melton area, is concerned about the outcome of the review and the impact on its passengers.

Councillor Ozzy O’Shea, the county council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, told the meeting: “I completely understand that bus users and operators will have concerns about proposals to review the service.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that no decisions have been made yet about any service subsidy.

“Should any communities be affected by the outcomes of our review we will be closely working and engaging in those areas and I want to assure those residents that they will not be left without access to essential services such as food shopping and healthcare.”

Demand response transport could be introduced in some areas where passenger numbers are low with taxis deployed at times when most people need to travel.

Councillor Deborah Taylor, county council deputy leader, said: “There are examples in the county where demand response transport has worked well and it is more reliable than the buses in some cases.

“Bus companies need to step up a little bit as well. If we are subsidising a service they need to work hard to built it up to a commercial level.

“If they don’t run a reliable service people are not going to use it.”