Hampshire County Council has thanked thousands of residents and local organisations for putting forward their views on how the public purse is used to subsidise public transport.
The consultation aimed to find out from passengers and the wider community their views on how the Council could best support public and community transport, and shape services within the available budget.
Between £1.25million and £1.5million needs to be saved from public and community transport spending as part of the overall 12% savings the Council needs to make in response to reduced financial support from Government. The consultation began in March to find out people’s views on bus subsidies, community transport, bus information and older people’s bus passes.
Councillor Seán Woodward, Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment at Hampshire County Council, said: “Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond to us and to all those who helped us promote the consultation so as many people as possible had the chance to have their say. We’ve received over 3,000 responses online, through libraries or in the post from individual residents and organisations across Hampshire.“
“As well as telling us how they use the services we support, how particular changes might affect them and which options they would favour, a large proportion of residents responding have taken the opportunity to add comments or suggest alternative proposals, which is very helpful.“
“The next step is to carefully analyse the results, consider the suggestions and evaluate the options, looking carefully at how we allocate funding fairly on behalf of all Hampshire’s Council Taxpayers. A report is due to come to me for decision in the Autumn with a view to any changes made based on the evidence presented, taking effect early in 2015.“