7 BUSES BACK BETTER PDF 251 KB
Purpose of report:
To inform the committee of the council’s
obligations in respect of the new National Bus Strategy, ‘Bus
Back Better’, and to seek its views on the Council’s
proposed approach.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Witnesses:
Matt Furniss, Cabinet Member
for Transport and Infrastructure
Katie Stewart, Executive Director – Environment,
Transport and Infrastructure
Lucy Monie, Director –
Highways and Transport
Laurie James, Bus
Service Planning Team Manager
Key
points raised during the discussion:
- Officers introduced the item and outlined the key aspects of the
report.
- The
Committee was informed of the Council’s obligations in
respect of the new National Bus Strategy, ‘Bus Back
Better’. A new national bus strategy, ‘Bus Back
Better’, was published by government earlier in
2021.
- In summary, Bus Back
Better required a local authority to consider its role in
encouraging more people to travel by bus post-COVID-19 and set out
aspirations for bus services that were more frequent, more
reliable, easier to understand and use, better-co-ordinated, with
understandable fare structures and with high quality information
for passengers.
- To achieve the
desired aims of the strategy and to be eligible to access further
government Covid-19 support funding for bus services and a share of
other new funding from a £3bn national fund. Local Transport
Authorities must agree to pursue either bus franchising or to
develop an Enhanced Partnership with all local bus operators in
their administrative area.
- The Council issued a
formal Notice of Intent to the Department for Transport on 29 June
2021, which stated that it would introduce an Enhanced Partnership
with bus operators, in accordance with section 138F of the
Transport Act 2000.
- To address carbon
emission levels and to mitigate the national decline in bus
patronage, which had been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic,
central government recognised that action was required. It also
acknowledges that of all public transport modes, buses were the
most adaptable and change could take place relatively
quickly.
- In responding to Bus
Back Better, there was a challenging requirement for Surrey County
Council to create a Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) by 31
October 2021.
- A Local Transport
Authority’s BSIP needed to contain a range of aspirations and
ambitions to make the bus travel option more attractive, including
various initiatives. The BSIP needed to be developed in
collaboration with bus operators, community transport providers,
adjoining Local Transport Authorities and other stakeholders, and
it would be guided by issues in connection with bus services that
had been identified by residents’ feedback. A BSIP would set
out the local measures proposed for achieving the objectives of the
national strategy and for encouraging greater bus use as part of
the county’s ‘building back better’ more
sustainably.
- The new National Bus
Strategy and the proposed BSIP for Surrey needed to be aligned with
several key themes from the new draft Surrey Transport Plan, in
particular the proposed hierarchy of modes and the ambition to
shift journeys from the private car to other more sustainable
modes. Moreover, central to the Surrey County Council’s
response to Bus Back Better would be to highlight and
cross-reference the strong linkages to the aims and ambitions of
the Council’s Greener Futures programme of work and the
delivery of the Council’s 2030 Community ...
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the full minutes text for item 7