Rural Bus Services

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I absolutely agree that collaboration with contiguous authorities is crucial. We must also provide confidence in bus services to increase footfall and make them more sustainable. I would like to thank the Somerset Bus Partnership for all the work it does to promote bus travel in my county.

In Glastonbury and Somerton, and across Somerset, we are facing a near-constant annual cycle where bus routes are threatened with closure and changes. Every year, the council and bus companies negotiate to come to an agreement to keep the route open for another year. If an agreement is reached, the bus route is saved for a whole cycle of events, until that cycle of events starts again, as a contract comes up for renewal a year later.

Earlier this year, I campaigned to save the 54, 58, 58A, 25 and 28 bus routes, which run through my constituency. Thankfully, Somerset council and First Bus South were able to reach an agreement to keep the routes, but some have had timetable changes imposed on them. Inevitably, some of those routes will be under threat yet again when the agreement needs renewal later this year. That is simply unsustainable.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

The reintroduction of funding for the Trowbridge to Bath bus service by Bath and North East Somerset council was vital for villages such as Freshford in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that cash-strapped local councils are going to need confirmed, long-term funding commitments to help support those vital services?

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I could not agree more; it is crucial that local authorities are given the funding they need to provide these essential services. Local authorities are once again currently waiting for further information regarding the future of various sources of funding they receive from central Government. I submitted a written question to the new Government in July regarding the future of the bus service improvement plan and BSIP Phase 2 funds. While the response affirmed a commitment to improving bus services as part of their growth mission, it failed to provide specific details of plans.

Rural areas desperately need to see plans and to have those assurances of how vital services can continue to run. Earlier this week, the Government laid forward a statutory instrument that opened up bus franchising for all local authorities in England. I welcome the Government’s ambition to fix the country’s broken buses, but they must understand that bus services outside urban areas face different problems.

Bus Franchising

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Lightwood]

I completely agree. This is fundamental to the work we have been pursuing to make franchising quicker and simpler, and to avoid the need for local transport authorities to spend their time filling in forms at great expense. Britain is one of the few places in the developed world that hands operators power to slash bus services and set fares with very little say for the communities that depend on those services. Decades of failed regulation have left communities with little say on the essential services on which they rely, and we are determined to change that.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, the Lib Dems broadly welcome the principle of this statement, as I think will the Somerset Bus Partnership. The volunteers of this fantastic organisation in my constituency work tirelessly to encourage people to use buses. Somerset council is facing an historic funding crisis and has narrowly avoided bankruptcy, so I am keen to understand how the Government will provide long-term funding so that such authorities can do the franchising that has been promised.