Council had ‘entrenched mismanagement’ of busway safety, court hears

A county council showed an “entrenched mismanagement of safety” for its public transport system which was involved in the deaths of three people, a court has heard.

Jennifer Taylor, 81, Steven Moir, 50, and Kathleen Pitts, 52, all died in separate incidents with Cambridgeshire Guided Busway between 2015 and 2021, and a boy sustained life-changing injuries.

The busway, which involves a modified bus being guided along a track, is a 16-mile route which uses old rail routes to link Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives.

Cambridgeshire County Council, which runs the busway, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) last year in connection with the incidents.

It admitted two charges under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 last September, relating to the public trying to cross the busway at designated crossings and being struck while moving alongside the busway.

Prosecutor Pascal Bates told Cambridge Crown Court on Thursday the busway was involved in “a number of very serious injuries”, including to two children, between the summer of 2011 and spring 2023, but the council “kept going despite numerous warning signs”.

“[There was] an unpreparedness properly to ask itself relevant safety questions,” Mr Bates said.

The council did not tell the HSE of the risks it identified with the system until 2022, six years after it conducted an initial assessment, the court heard.

Cambridgeshire Guided Busway opened in August 2011 and busways are still “relatively new and rare concepts” in the UK, the prosecutor said.

The council proposed the creation of the busway and currently runs it, including organising maintenance and control of its infrastructure.

Mr Bates said the council “never operated the busway fully in compliance with safety law” up to 2023, and that it felt any criticisms of its safety procedures were “illegitimate”.

Until 2021, the buses travelled at a “lane speed” of 56mph, meaning it would cover 25 metres a second.

Drivers cannot steer the buses but only accelerate of break as the bus effectively drives itself.

Their routes pass through a variety of rural and urban areas and can often become extremely cramped and in very high demand, the court heard.

The buses are also silent, “far more quiet” than a bus on tarmac, Mr Bates said.

The court heard a female passenger fractured her skull aboard one of the buses in October 2011, after the driver performed an emergency stop to avoid a cyclist.

Mr Bates said the incident was not reported to the HSE at the time, and HSE was not told about it until 2023.

“We say this should have been a wake-up call,” the prosecutor added.

The council then “appeared to write off” three other incidents, in which cyclists were admitted to hospital, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, by suggesting the cyclists were to blame, Mr Bates said.

On the evening of November 17 2015, Ms Taylor got off a bus on the busway to return to an earlier stop she had missed, the court heard.

She was then struck by another bus while still crossing the lane and was killed instantly.

Windscreen footage from the bus involved in the incident was played in court.

In a victim impact statement from October 2016, Ms Taylor’s husband said: “This accident should never have been allowed to happen. I am haunted by it every day.”

A “poorly laid out” crossing then contributed to a 16-year-old cyclist suffering “devastating injuries which may be described as life-changing” on November 16 2021, Mr Bates said.

The prosecutor said the crossing was “confusing” for pedestrians and cyclists using it and that foliage around it had not been cut back.

The boy was left in an induced coma for several days and spent his 17th birthday in hospital as he tore his liver, broke his collar bone and was left unable to hear from his left ear, the court heard.

Focusing on the second charge, Mr Bates said the busway routes were not the same as an ordinary road and, in some areas reviewed by the HSE, had a kerb that measured just one foot wide.

The lack of a “physical, vertical segregator” like a fence meant there needed to be “really meaningful” safety management by the council, but no solutions or alternatives were proposed, the prosecutor said.

A number of road safety audits were conducted by the council but the quality of these was “very bad”, Mr Bates told the court.

In a statement last September, after the council pleaded guilty to the charges, Cambridgeshire County Council’s chief executive Dr Stephen Moir said it was “truly sorry” for having fallen “far short” of the appropriate health and safety standards on the busway.

Family members of the three people who died attended the hearing, sitting in the public gallery.

The sentencing hearing will continue on Friday.