Government Support for Bus Services: West Dorset

Adam Dance Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)]

My constituency neighbour will know that in Somerset and Dorset, we get older models of buses no longer used elsewhere. At the same time, rural bus depots, such as the one in Yeovil, are closing. If a bus breaks down from Ilchester on the way to Dorchester, passengers have to wait over an hour for a replacement bus. Does my hon. Friend agree that if depots for repairs are going to be closed, we need newer buses in West Dorset and Yeovil?

[Edward Morello]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is right to raise the pertinent issues of older buses and the closing of depots, which are directly linked. I hope that has been heard by the Minister.

Across England, there were over 1 billion fewer passenger journeys in 2023 than in 2015. Bus service frequency in West Dorset has fallen by an astonishing 62%, and 10 of Dorset’s 14 towns are already transport deserts or at serious risk of becoming one. That creates barriers to employment, healthcare and independence. Patients miss hospital appointments, which contributes to the £1.2 billion annual cost of missed appointments for NHS England. Young people miss out on opportunities, older residents become isolated, and communities slowly lose confidence that public transport will ever return.

That is why simply maintaining today’s network cannot be considered a success; the scale of decline means that we must actively rebuild what has already been lost. Between 2026 and 2030, Dorset will receive £13.8 million in Government bus funding: the lowest allocation anywhere in the south-west. That is £10.9 million less than neighbouring Somerset receives and £7.5 million less than Wiltshire. Devon and Torbay alone will receive over three and a half times Dorset’s allocation and Hampshire will receive nearly four times as much. It is therefore unsurprising that neighbouring authorities can expand services, modernise fleets and increase frequency, while Dorset is often forced simply to maintain what it has left.

The Government deserve credit for recognising rurality, but rurality now needs to be given greater weighting within the funding formula. Serving dispersed populations inevitably costs more per passenger than operating in dense urban areas. There is a significant difference between increasing the frequency of an existing service and recreating a lost route from scratch. The latter requires considerably greater investment before passenger numbers can even begin to increase.

Every summer, West Dorset’s population increases by over 42% due to seasonal visitors. Around 4 million day visitors and 2 million overnight visitors place a huge additional demand on our transport networks, which were designed to serve a much smaller permanent population. Yet that seasonal pressure is barely recognised in the national funding allocations.

The Prime Minister in waiting takes great pride in the transformation of Manchester’s bus network. However, the Bee network demonstrates the scale of the investment required. Greater Manchester receives about £41.42 per resident, compared with approximately £4.84 per resident in Dorset—over eight times as much in funding per head.

Transport for Greater Manchester manages a budget exceeding £480 million and subsidises almost a quarter of the network. That level of investment has transformed services, and I want Dorset to have the same level of ambition. However, rebuilding transport across hundreds of square miles of villages, market towns and dispersed communities is significantly harder than doing so in a major urban area. If the Government truly wish to level up rural transport, the funding formula must recognise that restoring services in rural Britain costs more, not less, than maintaining them in our cities.

The consequences of poor bus services are perhaps felt most keenly by young people. The recent Milburn review identified transport as one of the main drivers of young people becoming detached from education, employment and training. The review found that in rural, deprived and coastal communities, transport itself had become a major barrier to opportunity for those without access to a car. The proportion of 17 to 20-year-olds holding a full driving licence has fallen to 29%, while for many families the cost of owning and insuring a car has simply become unaffordable.

At the same time, bus services have become less frequent and more expensive. Bus fares increased by 59% between 2015 and 2023. On average, young people are now 15% less likely to travel than they were just 15 years ago, which should concern every Member of this House. When the last bus leaves before a hospitality evening shift finishes, a young person cannot access that hospitality job; they have been presented with a challenge that they cannot overcome. That is why I was pleased to table amendments to the Bus Services Bill during its passage to improve connectivity for young people by providing free bus travel for 16 to 18-year-olds, to encourage better co-ordination between buses and trains, and to ensure that funding reflects the realities that rural communities face. Those amendments were not adopted, but I hope the Government will start to move in the positive direction that they indicated.

West Dorset has an ageing population, and many people rely on buses to reach GP surgeries, hospitals, pharmacies and shops. When the bus services disappear, independence disappears with them. Poor transport also increases pressure on the NHS, on social care and on local authorities—all these things are connected. That is why I believe we should return to a sort of “total place” thinking, which was first developed over a decade ago: looking across departmental boundaries, instead of operating within them. The Dorset total transport pilot brought together school transport, adult social care transport, public bus services and community transport.

With just £180,000 of funding, the pilot improved services in some areas while identifying longer-term efficiencies and introducing more flexible, demand-responsive transport. It also explored digital technology to better match transport supply with demand. Rather than allowing buses to sit empty after a school run or to return to depots, we should ask how those vehicles could transport patients home from hospitals, connect isolated villages or just provide additional journeys during the day.

We also need a more joined-up approach between different modes of transport. People should not wait 40 minutes for a bus because the train was three minutes late. We need a properly integrated local transport network with more regulated and co-ordinated bus services. In many rural communities, community transport is often the only reason people remain connected at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Dance]

My biggest concern is that we have no electric buses in Yeovil. There is nowhere to charge them because other depots have been shut down. How will we cope with an electric future if First Bus is closing depots?

[Simon Lightwood]

That will be a commercial decision for First Bus about whether to invest in those services. The option remains for local leaders to consider whether they want to pursue franchising and take greater control over that issue. They could also lift the ban on establishing new municipal bus companies. There are options there. I will continue to work across Government to ensure we get grid connections for future deployment of electric buses. Funding from local authority bus grants and other sources can be used to purchase electric buses.

In closing, I reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for West Dorset for securing this debate, and to the other hon. Members for their interventions. Improving bus services, importantly in rural areas, is central to the Government’s mission to drive growth and opportunity across the country. We know there is more to do, but we are taking meaningful steps to ensure that wherever people live—in a city, rural area or small town—they have access to the reliable, accessible and affordable transport that they deserve.

Question put and agreed to.