Another Rural Crisis

A report this week suggests that the cost of living in rural areas is 20 per cent higher than in towns. Higher fuel and travel costs are cited.

You can’t take £180mil out of the bus industry from April 2011 and £240mil from 2012 without experiencing some considerable pain. The second figure relates to a 20 per cent reduction in BSOG of £60mil added to the first figure. The first is the possible saving outside London following the DfT’s new free travel reimbursement rates.

No surprises: the worst reductions in free travel will fall outside the large city regions. Here, routeONE suggests that this may be a reduction in rural areas by as much as 40 per cent. The CPT suggests the new rules will pay “so little for passengers on longer routes that it will be uneconomic...”. Will this inevitably lead to something of a rural crisis? Don’t expect local government to help: with its own cuts of 28 per cent, it will collectively look to reduce rather than increase its bus service funding.

This reminds me of the very real crisis in shire county bus services of exactly 40 years ago. Then, local government *did* help.

Back in 1970, Britain’s non-Metropolitan bus services were in the hands of the National Bus Company. For up to 50 years, core & urban surpluses had sustained deeper rural services. As the sixties elapsed, this was increasingly unsustainable. Inflation-busting fares increases and a better standard of living were eroding profitable passengers to the extent it was becoming impossible to rely on cross-subsidy. And, NBC subsidiaries needed to break even year on year.

Operators were already helping themselves: regular fares increases, accelerated OMO and a steady reduction in PVR. Yet, matters were worsening.

Recognising this, the government offered a 50:50 rural support package, jointly with councils. Though this wasn’t enough, it did mitigate the worst cuts.

Even so, cutting operators came under scrutiny and indeed considerable criticism. There was much contention, as communities accused their operator of issuing an ultimatum. Operators, on the other hand, argued that it was up to the whole community to support ailing rural services and not just urban passengers. They might’ve added, had they thought, it was socially unacceptable for the worst off urban users to pay higher fares to support people in the countryside.

Many in the community called for:

• Smaller operators to take over. The willingness to operate upto 18 hours a day on stage work was so unlikely that this was but a marginal solution. With a degree of condescension, NBC considered smaller operators well-intentioned amateurs.


• Minibuses and taxis, rather than larger buses. These could not cope with peak loadings, especially at school times (by then the only journeys that were full).

Local councils begrudgingly coughed up less than operators needed but more than councils wished to pay. We started the era of network support and a crisis was averted. The rural industry survived. Crisis averted.

But it wasn’t long before urban services also turned loss making. Therefore, in 1974, the government gave transport authorities powers to support the entire network. After that, well, we seemed to lurch from one crisis to the next, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. ’Twas ever thus.