Written evidence from Prudhoe Transport Working Group (TIC 084)
Introduction
Prudhoe Transport (now the East Tynedale) Working group was established by Prudhoe Community Partnership in 2008. Prudhoe is a town of about 12,000 residents and is the largest town in the Tyne Valley. The town lies about twelve miles to the west of Newcastle upon Tyne and 12 miles east of Hexham. The county’s main administrative centre is in Morpeth, about 15 miles to the north as the crow flies.
The town lies to the south of the River Tyne, in a steep sided valley. The town has a station on the Newcastle – Carlisle railway line, but the station, being in the valley, is situated at the foot of a steep climb from every part of the town. Most residential properties lie between one and two miles from the station.
The River Tyne provides a natural barrier to movement to and from the north. Consequently the town’s main road runs east-west. Connection to the main arterial routes of the A1 and A68 lie about six miles east and west respectively.
It can be seen, therefore, that, for a growing town of an appreciable size with surrounding villages so close to a major conurbation, connectivity (by all forms of transport) is somewhat limited. The nearest accident and emergency centre is in Hexham, with major hospitals in Newcastle, Ashington and Durham. Jobcentres are in Hexham and Blaydon. The town has only one supermarket of note, with the nearest low-cost supermarkets being in Blaydon and Hexham. Mainstream education is well provided in the town, but children from Ovingham and Low Prudhoe face a steep uphill walk of up to one and a half miles to reach the town’s High School. Further education is in Newcastle, Hexham, Kirkley near Ponteland, and Ashington, all 12 miles or more away. The nearest cinemas and theatres are in Hexham, Gateshead and Newcastle.
If “isolation” were to be defined as “the state of being isolated or separated”, (Concise Oxford Dictionary), then Prudhoe and surrounding villages might well be considered to be isolated, being cut off from hospitals, higher and further education and employment opportunities. Within the town, many areas are more than 400m walking distance from the nearest bus stop. Large parts of the town have no appreciable bus service before 0900 and after 1500. In addition, Prudhoe’s immediate environs consist of a number of villages and hamlets of varying size, many with no or very limited public transport provision.
The town is also growing, with a proportion of new housing being affordable housing, where car ownership is often low; without access to transport, such residents will find access to employment particularly difficult.
Northumberland County Council has a passenger subsidy cut-off, after which it considers the cost to be too high and not represent value for money. As a consequence, large parts of Prudhoe have no bus services after 1500hrs Mondays to Saturdays and none at all on Sundays. Whilst we appreciate that public funding is limited, it does mean that public transport provision in our town and in the surrounding villages is very limited, especially when compared to the provision in Gateshead, our neighbouring authority, where provision in their more rural areas continues up to midnight, seven days a week, using conventional buses.
The lack of bus services on the largest housing estate in our town, and the lack of service after 1500 to most of the town, has serious implications across all elements of society in the town. For example, Drawback, a post-second world war mixed housing development, is between 0.4 and 0.7 miles from the town’s main bus stop and comprises about one fifth of the town’s population. After 1500hrs it has no bus service of its own, which means that people in work, elderly returning with shopping, or indeed anyone limited to public transport has no option other than a long uphill walk. Parts of Drawback are more than 1.3 miles from the town’s railway station, making rail use impractical for many people.
By the same token, there are significant demographic changes taking place. Parts of the neighbouring village of Stocksfield are now inhabited by retired people, or individuals who have lost a partner. Despite improved health and longer life, such people will reach a point where driving is no longer an option, and many will find themselves more than 1.1 miles from a regular bus service.
The main challenge to reducing isolation in Prudhoe and its environs is to provide a basic bus service between about 0645 and 2300, seven days a week, rather than the 0930 – 1500 service, six days a week, that much of the town has at present. Where possible, a local bus service should offer through ticketing to the ‘trunk’ bus services that run east-west through the town, as well as through tickets to trains, together with practical connections.
A second challenge is to provide services to the even more isolated rural hamlets, consistent with the needs of their local (albeit smaller) populations. Places such as Hedley on the Hill and High Mickley have no daily bus service at all and have ageing populations who would benefit from suitable connecting bus services three or four times a day. In particular, while our local churches are thriving, many elderly people are unable to attend because there are no services on Sunday mornings. People in these communities are also unable to participate in sporting or shopping opportunities on Sundays.
A third challenge is to open up employment opportunities for jobseekers in Prudhoe and villages. For example, there are no easy public transport links to main centres of employment such as Team Valley in Gateshead, or Hexham’s industrial estate to the north of that town. Northumberland is concentrating its job creation efforts into the south east of the county (Ashington, Blyth and Cramlington), which cannot be accessed by public transport easily from Prudhoe – it would be impossible for someone to consider shift work in a factory there without access to a car.
Prudhoe has one community transport service that enables elderly people to travel into Hexham twice a week, using a bus that collects people from their homes. While this is appreciated, it is of very limited benefit to the vast majority of people in the town
It is unacceptable in an area the size of Prudhoe that such a large part of the population should be more than half a mile from a regular bus or train service. This could be easily addressed by providing funding for an effective town service to extend the existing town bus service that operates for just five hours a day, six days a week. While we accept that such a service is unlikely to be provided on a commercial basis, the County Council must consider that the lack of such a service leads to large parts of the population to suffer acute isolation, particularly in the evenings when cultural and leisure activities in nearby towns simply can’t be accessed without a car.
We have touched on this earlier. Northumberland County Council claims to be unable to afford to provide an extended town bus service. We estimate that a good town bus service would cost the county about an additional £60,000 a year – about £5 per resident. If the service was properly integrated with our trunk bus and train services, additional bus revenue might offset the cost by between one third and one half of the total, if the service was properly marketed. Opening up large parts of the town and villages with a substantially improved town bus service would be of great benefit to the wellbeing of the population, opening up access to sport, recreation, health services, shopping and cultural activities, but this is difficult to estimate beforehand and only possible to evaluate afterwards. We would suggest that Prudhoe might be an ideal town in which to trial a ‘demonstration project’ over a two year period to properly evaluate the economic, social and wellbeing benefits of improved public transport in an area suffering increasingly from isolation.
September 2013