Hampshire County Council is asking residents what their priorities are for public subsidies for public transport.
In a review of bus and community transport services that receive financial support from the County Council, a consultation is underway to collect the views and preferences of both passengers and the wider community as it looks to reduce by between £1.25million and £1.5million from public and community transport spending.
A number of options are being considered to achieve these savings, which include:
- Reducing or ceasing support for Sunday services
- Reducing or ceasing support for evening services after 7pm
- Ceasing the 9am early start for the older persons bus pass
- Reducing the frequency and/or days of service
- Replacing bus services with taxishares or community transport services
- Reducing the amount of printed timetables and other public transport information with a greater use of electronic information.
Councillor Seán Woodward, Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment at Hampshire County Council, said: “We are asking Hampshire’s residents about public transport support funded by the County Council, including support for community transport such as Dial a Ride, Call and Go and Taxishare, all of which may give scope for innovative and flexible alternatives to buses, to help us decide how we can shape services to reflect community priorities while living within our means.”
The consultation is open until 31st May 2014 – to take part go to the HCC Consultation page.
I think it’s time Andover (or the entire TVC borough) had a complete review of bus services rather than just telling HCC what routes we want subsidised. The first two suggestions are ludicrous for us! Sunday service? After 7pm service?
As a town (or borough) we should have enough clout to put what we want and need out to tender. Within that tender there should be an insistence on less used routes being supported by some of the profit from well used routes. Obviously subsidies may still be needed within that tender.
I’m expecting many of our local politicians to say “It’s not done that way”. Idealogical by me? Yes.
Impossible to do? Not if there’s a radical rethink.
It’s our town. Lets see if we can get a bus service that suits us, not a bus company.