Free Bus Travel Descoped

A Cumbrian writes

Reaching national news on Saturday following breaking news on Friday was the DfT's intent to reduce from 1 April 2009 the legal requirement for free bus travel to exclude certain types of bus service, following a consultation. For the record (from the statutory instrument), these are those where:

• (a) more than half of the accommodation on the vehicle by means of which the service is provided can be reserved by members of the general public in advance;
• (b) it is intended to operate for less than six consecutive weeks;
• (c) it is operated primarily for the purposes of tourism or because of the historical interest of the vehicle;
• (d) it is a [rail]bus substitution service; or
• (e) the fare for the service includes a special amenity element.

Sections (a), (c) and (e) are the most worrying. Section (d) didn't really apply anyway seeing as rail replacement buses were rarely or never registered services (they operate as special services for rail ticket holders only, conveniently getting past the regulation requiring registration of buses charging separate fares).

I have written before about Cumbria, as you might expect, and the tourism and historical element could hit us hard. There is only one real example of the latter—Cumbria Classic Coaches—which runs the only service to/from various communities between Kirkby Stephen, Barnard Castle and Hawes. Its service is extraordinarily popular with non-farepayers (even though the fares are fairly comparable with other commercial routes in the county).

There are, however, many seasonal services into the Lakes—buses to such honeypots as Whinlatter Forest Park, Tarn Hows and Grizedale Forest to name but a few, which could be less viable when councils no longer have to fund travel for OAP visitors who, hoteliers have noticed, are increasingly visiting the Lake District by parking up at the hotel and flagging buses down for the rest of the time. It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming weeks—to see how ‘purposes of tourism’ is interpreted, as it could include almost all bus routes in the Lake District National Park.

Kirkwhelpington

Section (a) worries most residents of certain rural areas travelling long distances on legitimately registered National Express services. While there are few such opportunities in Cumbria, in Northumberland for example an elderly person would be deprived the right of a shopping trip from Otterburn, Kirkwhelpington or Belsay that would involve a convenient 1620 departure using National Express ser 383—they would need to return earlier on a different bus. One wonders how hospital appointments might be affected.

Park & Ride is difficult too [section (e)], but we should bear in mind that (1) parking is only free and bus tickets paid for to avoid VAT and (2) there are quite a few older people who might want to avoid parking charges (and fair play to them). It would also affect disabled people who have blue badges who might have liked the convenience of a low floor bus over a multi-storey car park... but can probably park free in the town centre in any case.

Most of the consultation respondents seem to be local authorities (curiously in some cases just counties where districts control concessionary fares: not a single Cumbrian district responded and one wonders whether the consultation, then, was botched). Authorities would in some cases I assume be likely to want to make savings from excluding older people.

The grannies are upset. We all should worry.

i Cumbrian Classic Coaches ~ Nexus advertise coach services with additional local stops