Call for More Cash for Yorkshire Coast Buses

Thursday, 8 December 2022 06:00

By Matthew Pells with additional reporting from Stuart Minting, Local Democracy Reporter

A Yorkshire Coast councillor is calling for more government subsidy for rural bus routes.

North Yorkshire County Councillor David Jeffels has asked Scarborough and Whitby's MP if he can put pressure on the government to find more funding.

Councillor Jeffels fears some services could be lost.

Scarborough and Whitby MP - Sir Robert Goodwill - says some government money has been made available but hinted that it may not be enough.

Sir Robert agrees that some rural routes are struggling financially and says that new ways of providing rural bus services may need to be looked at if some services are to continue.

Mr Goodwill says he gets a great deal of correspondence from local people about bus services and says much of that relates to the problems that any reduction in service causes for the area's younger bus users.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for highways and transportation, Councillor Keane Duncan, issued a stark warning last month the county’s bus network is “facing a really grave situation”.

Councillor Duncan said bus services in the county were facing unprecedented pressure due to higher costs and passenger numbers falling to just 80 per cent of pre-Covid levels.

He said:

“For many of the routes that represents the difference between profitability and not profitable services.

“It is important to point out that the bus network is North Yorkshire is facing a really grave situation. I think unprecedented pressure as a result of reduced passenger numbers, as a result of higher costs."

Councillor Duncan said the services were at risk of being cut back or ceasing altogether, but there was “positive progress” with the prospect of government help so bus operators can cap single adult fares at £2 per journey, and that the authority was working to introduce between January and March.

Referring to bus services, he added:

“The message across the county is use it or lose it. We need people to support these services.”

He said the authority subsidised routes to the tune of £1.6m annually, but the situation in the county would “outstrip that many times over”, adding:

“That subsidy is not at a level that which we would be able to support those 79 routes, so it is a very grave situation.”

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