Bus service funding 'cut by hundreds of thousands of pounds' per year

Half of local authorities in England and Wales have cut funding for buses in 2014/15, with the cuts amounting to more than £9 million when compared with 2013/14, the Campaign for Better Transport said.

It added that since 2010 local authority funding for bus services had been slashed by 15 per cent, or £44 million, with more than 2,000 routes being reduced or withdrawn entirely.

A CBT report showed Staffordshire County Council had cut funding by six per cent but this was significantly less of a reduction than other rural West Midlands areas, such as Herefordshire, which has cut it by 39 per cent.

Councillor Mark Winnington, Staffordshire County Council's transport boss, said: "We have seen improvements on many services including the introduction of wi-fi which has made them more attractive and more commercially viable.

"School children are also using the commercial services instead of the council's yellow buses which also makes them more viable.

"We constantly review the services and the subsidy. In some areas we had found just two or three people on a service, meaning it was costing as much as £9 per head. This is taxpayers' money. We always bear in mind people needing to get to work, such as on Sunday services, when we review funding."

CBT did not mention the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, Centro, which oversees transport in the Black Country.

Centro subsidises services that commercial operators would otherwise axe because they cannot cover their costs.

Figures show the organisation has cut £200,000 in funding since 2010 but bosses stressed this was due to re-negotiating with bus operators to get a better deal for taxpayers.

Spokesman Steve Swingler said said: "The metropolitan West Midlands has a comprehensive commercial network which reduces the need and cost for subsidised bus services compared to many other parts of the country.

"We have also been successful in recent years in securing cheaper prices for the running of these services and in getting previously subsided routes absorbed into the commercial network by working closely with the private bus companies.

"As a result we have managed to cut the cost of providing our subsidised bus routes without cutting the standard of service to the customer.

We spent £8.1 million in 2010 and are on course to spend £7.9 million this financial year. We are in the process of determining what these services will cost in the coming year."

Last year Centro unveiled a plan to axe 89 jobs - a quarter of its workforce - to cope with a £7 million cut in the funding it gets from councils.

As part of the cuts, £700,000 has been slashed from the budget of West Midlands Special Needs Transport (WMSNT), which operates the Ring and Ride service across Dudley, Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Walsall, Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull.

About 22,000 people use the service, which offers door-to-door transport for the elderly and disabled unable to use buses, trams and trains.

According to CBT half English local authorities have reduced funding for bus services in 2014/15. North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Herefordshire, Dorset, Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire are making the deepest cuts.

"The Government must wake up to the crisis facing buses," said CBT public transport campaigner Martin Abrams.

"Across the country, bus services are being lost at an alarming rate. Year-on-year cuts to budgets mean entire networks have now disappeared, leaving many communities with little public transport and in some cases none at all."