Asked by: Chris Bloore (Labour - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many bus routes were closed in Worcestershire between 2010 and 2024.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain only publish data on a Traffic Area wide basis. The West Midlands Traffic Area includes the West Midlands conurbation, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire. Between 2009-10 and 2023-24, the Traffic Commissioners recorded that 3,992 existing registrations in the West Midlands traffic area were cancelled. An existing registration being cancelled does not always mean a bus route was closed. For example, a registration could have been cancelled and replaced with another registration that covers much of the same route, or the route continues to be served by different operator.
It should also be noted that prior to 2019-20 the total number of live local bus service registrations included an element of double-counting as services running across multiple local authority areas were recorded multiple times, e.g. a service running between the West Midlands and Staffordshire was presented as two services when it should have been counted as a single service. This has now been rectified.
Asked by: Chris Bloore (Labour - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to review the safety measures and responsibilities of local authorities on water crossings.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Under the Highways Act 1980, local highway authorities are responsible for the maintenance and safety of the highway network in their area, which may include bridges, fords and other types of river crossing. The Act does not set out specific standards of safety or maintenance for these assets. It is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances, and the Government has no plans to change this. The Department does, however, plan to update its guidance to local highway authorities on the management of their highway networks. As part of this it will consider whether more guidance is needed on the management of river crossings.