Bus services in North Yorkshire are said to be facing a financial cliff edge when government funding disappears in October.
The Bus Recovery Grant was introduced during the pandemic to provide bus operators and local authorities with funding to help cover a sharp fall in revenue due to lower passenger numbers.
That scheme will end in October - North Yorkshire County Council's Transport lead - Councillor Keane Duncan says that's a problem.
The bus recovery grant has provided millions of pounds of funding to keep bus routes running after a sharp downturn in passenger numbers and revenues.
Councillor Keane Duncan says the county council would struggle to make up the funding shortfall when the grant ends.
Councillor Duncan said the authority was aware several of the county’s commercial routes were facing “significant pressures”, due to the loss of government subsidies in three months.
The warning from the Conservative-led council’s executive member for highways and transportation comes ahead of bus services across the country having to introduce a £2 price cap on local and regional journeys from October.
It also comes just three months after it emerged the authority’s £116 million Bus Back Better bid had been rejected in its entirety by the government, which claimed the bid had lacked “sufficient ambition”.
As winning the grant had been crucial for elements of the county’s Bus Service Improvement Plan, the authority expressed dismay at the decision.
Even ahead of the decision in March, members of the authority’s executive had underlined the need for bus services for the county’s rural communities, which dwindled following significant austerity cutbacks.
Councillor Duncan said the council had launched a review of the passenger service network across the county to understand which could become threatened in the coming months.
The authority’s opposition leader, Councillor Bryn Griffiths, said concerns had been mounting for the viability of some bus services as they appeared to have reached a tipping point.
Councillor Griffiths said by giving one-off grants for specific projects limited to certain places the government was failing to provide the resources needed to improve access to public transport across England’s largest county.
He said:
“It’s an appalling situation. We lose out in the North of England in rural areas because the government doesn’t recognise the issues.
“Places like Bilsdale have no bus services on Sundays because the county council cannot afford to subsidise them, so people can’t get to hospitals to visit their loved ones. Cutting services even further is just ridiculous.
“It’s a vicious circle. You get fewer services, so it gets less and less attractive for people to use.”
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