Agenda item

Following the Local Transport Review report to Cabinet on 23 September 2014,

 

1.         That the proposed changes to local bus services in Surrey, as detailed in Annex E of the submitted report be approved, and authority be delegated to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning and the Strategic Director for Environment & Infrastructure, to agree any minor adjustments before these changes take effect from 29 August 2015.

2.         That Surrey County Council retains its policy in relation to concessionary fares as described in paragraph 3 of the submitted report.

3.       That the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning and the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure  report back to Cabinet on the consideration of further proposals for change to local bus services in Surrey in the financial years 2016/17 and 2017/18.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

These recommendations will enable SCC to achieve the required savings needed from the Local Transport Review, as outlined in the MTFP. It will also ensure that Cabinet is kept fully informed throughout, and can take decisions on changes based on best practice and best value in subsequent years of the review.

 

Recommendations for change are based on:

 

·         Responses to two public consultations.

·         Full understanding of the impact on the changes to the public (including those with protected characteristics) and the environment.

·         Maintaining services that residents rely on the most such as services that get people to employment, healthcare, school and essential shopping.

·         A funding arrangement with partners that is financially sustainable in the long term.

 

[The decision on this item can be called in by the Economic Prosperity, Environment and Highways Board]

This report was presented by the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning, who informed Members that the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) included a requirement to make savings through a Local Transport Review of £2m by 2017/18 and this report set out proposals to achieve £840,000 savings in 2015/16, whilst at the same time maintaining services that residents relied on, which was and remained a challenging objective for the Council to achieve.

 

He said that the Surrey taxpayer currently subsidised half of the 29m bus journeys made in Surrey each year, which meant that 150 of the 200 services provided for residents were being subsidised.

 

He acknowledged that, whenever any reductions of bus services were made this would affect some residents and that was regretted. The report indicated that 234 passengers would be affected. However, officers had continued to work with the bus companies and a number of changes had been made since the report was published and therefore, he was pleased to report that number had now been reduced to 160 and officers would continue to work at reducing this further. He considered that this had been achieved by listening to residents and their representatives, and after the second consultation, talking to suppliers and being imaginative with solutions.  He confirmed that these changes would not impact on the proposed savings of £840,000.

 

He publically thanked the excellent work led by the Travel and Transport Group Manager and his team and said that they have done a remarkable job in reducing the cost of the bus service to Surrey’s council taxpayers, whilst protecting the integrity of the net work. He also thanked the Economic Prosperity, Environment & Highways Board, the Members’ reference group and the Local Committees and Members who have made valuable contributions.

 
He said that the Local Transport Review had been established to deliver savings via three streams: (1) financial support to local buses, (ii) concessionary fares, (iii) community transport, and before any services were considered officers worked with the suppliers and managed to deliver annual savings in excess of £300,000 by renegotiating contracts and working with the operators to work smarter.

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He also said that, twelve “School Special” public bus services had been commercialised and enhanced involving, in some cases, integration with certain Home-to-School “closed door” services provided by Children, Schools & Families, which had also lead to future savings for the Education Transport budget. However, he acknowledged that there was more work necessary in this area to establish how further savings can be realised. Officers were continuing to look at other ways of working with operators in seeking to grow the commercial value of buses and were positive about the work with Surrey University.

 

Moving onto the second element of the review - concessionary fares, namely disabled people being allowed to use their bus pass before 9:30 and after 23:00 and the companion passes allowing these holders to have a companion to travel with them free of charge should continue.

The cost of this provision was £400,000, however these two important services were valued by the holders and during the consultation the County Council was advised that if these concessions were withdrawn, it would cause real hardship to those holders so he recommended that this valuable service continued.

 

On the third element of the review, he said that the community transport review would start in July and would be a wide ranging review with a number of organisations and Borough, District and Parish colleagues. 

 

He then explained the consultation process to Cabinet, saying that the recommendations had been drawn up following a wide reaching public consultation, which ran from October 2014 to February 2015 and during the consultation, the County Council had wanted to understand the following:

·                How important bus and community transport services were to residents and how this would impact them if it was reduced or no longer there?

·                What could be done to encourage more people to travel by bus/increase their bus travel?

·                How important and valued the two extra SCC funded local concessions were to Surrey’s qualifying English National Concessionary Travel Scheme pass holders?

He said that over forty meetings were held with stakeholders from October 2014 to January 2015, including: community transport meetings, deaf forum, bus user groups, disability forums, youth forum,  all Looked After Children and a number of parish councils. Overall, more than 6,800 residents and stakeholders had their say on the services that matter most to them, which had been a fantastic response.

 

The key findings were:

·                More than 4 in 5 (85%) of respondents to the consultation considered the bus service that they used to either be important or very important to them. They said that they used buses to take them to/from shops/ schools/ colleges / university and work, to attend medical appointments, to visit friends and relatives and for leisure and recreational activities.

·                That withdrawal of the locally funded free disabled travel before 09:30 or after 23:00 (Monday to Friday) and free companion passes could cause isolation, frustration, depression and greatly reduce independence in an already vulnerable and disadvantaged community.

·                More than 4 in 5 (83%) respondents to the consultation said that better information, improved infrastructure or if a better journey experience could be offered that they would increase their current bus travel or start to travel by bus.

From the findings, officers used the data to consider possible changes to routes and this information formed the basis of the second public consultation which ran from May to 16 June 2015 and gave residents and stakeholders an opportunity to feedback on the detailed proposals for changes to local bus services.

 

Over 1500 residents and stakeholders had their say during the second consultation. Since the consultation closed, four petitions objecting to the changes, as proposed in the report, have been received by the service and details of further refinements to bus service proposals were attached as Appendix 4.

 

A selection of these comments included:

·                The proposal to change the route of the 557 (Woking-Chertsey-Sunbury-Heathrow Airport) and the 446 (Woking-Addlestone-Staines) could make it difficult for a number of people to access St Peter’s Hospital direct.

·                Reducing the route and frequency of the 564 (Whitley Village-Hersham-Walton-Xcel) could make less choice for some people to access medical appointments.

·                A small number of respondents said the proposals to withdraw sections of the 526/527 (Crawley-Charlwood-Horley-Crawley) could limit their access to shopping and reduce options to travel by bus, although they would still have a service.

·                In addition, many respondents agreed with some proposals, such as to:

o  increase the frequency of the 458 (Kingston-Walton-Staines)

o  change the route of 515 (Kingston-Cobham-Guildford) Sunday service

o  extend the route of 437 to Brooklands and the route of 555 to Hersham  daily

Officers were continuing to review the comments from the second consultation and there may still be minor adjustments to those published.

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Finally, he drew attention to the annexes attached to the report, namely:

 

Annex A - Community Transport Delivery Strategy

Annex B - First Consultation Summary Report

Annex C - Record of consultation events held in association with Bus Users UK

Annex D - Second Consultation Summary Report

Annex E - Table of proposed changes to local services from 29 August 2015

Annex F - Equality Impact assessment

 

Finally, he said that he believed that this consultation clearly demonstrated how Surrey County Council had engaged with residents and listened to their concerns, made changes to deliver value for money for residents and achieved the savings required.

 

Mr Harmer, Chairman of the Economic Prosperity, Environment & Highways Board was also invited to speak on this item and said that the Local Transport Review had been extensively considered by this Board. He praised the two stage consultation process and said that overall this was a good report and set of recommendations, which he considered would be acceptable to Surrey residents.

 

Other Members, including the Leader, made the following points:

 

• That, due to low passenger numbers, it was proposed to withdraw Bus No. 540 in the Leader’s division
• The importance of providing rural bus services wherever possible
• The proposed termination of Bus No. 22 to villages south of Dorking on Saturdays would mean that some residents would no longer be able to travel to Dorking over the weekend
• Also, proposed changes to Buses 526/527 would mean that bus travel would no longer be possible between Gatwick Airport and Charlwood

 

[Addressing the previous two points, the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning said that further consideration had led to a proposal for the Mole Valley Demand Responsive Service (Buses4U DRT) to be extended to operate on Saturdays.

 

For the 526/527, the local Bus team were continuing to discuss opportunities with operators to provide a peak hour service to connect Charlwood with Gatwick Airport, following the unexpected withdrawal of commercial service 40/50, and initial discussions had concluded this could be achieved but at a cost because these journeys would not be commercially viable and additional subsidy support would be required.

 

He said that officers would continue reviewing the comments from the second consultation and discuss with key stakeholders, including Gatwick Airport to explore any opportunities that may arise which may result in minor adjustments being made that are affordable and value for money.]

 

·      That there was a thorough Equalities Impact Assessment attached to the report, which had addressed the concerns arising from both consultations – this indicated that work was on-going to mitigate the effect, particularly for those residents with protected characteristics

·      Confirmation that the respondents were ‘different’ for each consultation

·      Pleased that following further discussions with Abellio and the Hospital Trust that the bus link to St Peter’s Hospital on route 446 would be modified and extended to Ashford Hospital and therefore, the link between the two hospitals would be preserved

·      All Members needed to be informed of the cost of the bus subsidies in their divisions

·      Consider ways of trying to encourage residents to use the buses in their areas

·      Finally, the Leader was pleased that the Council had been able to retain the valued Concessionary Fare Scheme.

 

 

RESOLVED:

 

Following the Local Transport Review report to Cabinet on 23 September 2014, it is recommended that Cabinet:

 

1.         That the proposed changes to local bus services in Surrey, as detailed in Annex E of the submitted report be approved, and authority be delegated to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning and the Strategic Director for Environment & Infrastructure, to agree any minor adjustments before these changes take effect from 29 August 2015.

2.         That Surrey County Council retains its policy in relation to concessionary fares as described in paragraph 3 of the submitted report.

3.       That the Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning and the Strategic Director for Environment and Infrastructure  report back to Cabinet on the consideration of further proposals for change to local bus services in Surrey in the financial years 2016/17 and 2017/18.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

These recommendations will enable SCC to achieve the required savings needed from the Local Transport Review, as outlined in the MTFP. It will also ensure that Cabinet is kept fully informed throughout, and can take decisions on changes based on best practice and best value in subsequent years of the review.

 

Recommendations for change are based on:

 

·         Responses to two public consultations.

·         Full understanding of the impact on the changes to the public (including those with protected characteristics) and the environment.

·         Maintaining services that residents rely on the most such as services that get people to employment, healthcare, school and essential shopping.

·         A funding arrangement with partners that is financially sustainable in the long term.