£10m fund to plug rural bus gap
This article identifies how councils in England will share a £10 million pot to pay for community transport schemes aimed at ending rural isolation.
The cash will be used in part to plug the gap left when bus companies scrap scheduled services which they consider to be no longer commercially viable.
In many cases the services have been dropped after councils said they can no longer afford to subsidise them because of public spending cuts.
A study by the Campaign for Better Transport found that services were being cut by 70 per cent of councils across the country. The countryside was particularly badly hit.
In Cumbria, for example, £340,000 is being cut from the £1.7 million budget putting 19 services at risk.
This has got to be good news – I think there is oodles more people could do at the community level around rural transport.
I have often thought too many councils think “bus” when we talk of rural and community transport and I am sure there is scope for real innovation around this whole agenda.
It would be good to have a little more than £10 million in this new fund though.