Written evidence submitted by Telford & Wrekin Council (BHC0079)

1              WRITTEN EVIDENCE SUBMITTED BY TELFORD & WREKIN COUNCIL

1.1              Telford & Wrekin Council is a unitary authority in the West Midlands region. The Council would like to see a strong, vibrant market for bus travel in which the bus operators play an active role in supporting the economy of the borough and the new Local Industrial Strategy under development for the area.

1.2              Telford & Wrekin Council has chosen to submit this evidence as it considers that the current bus services in the borough and surrounding areas are in decline due to a number of national and local factors. We are also of the view that for the time being there is no foreseeable change to this trend whilst for a number of communities’ bus services no longer appear to be relevant. The Council shares the concern of a number of organisations that in future bus services could disappear completely.

2              EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2.1              Telford & Wrekin Council is of the view that the existing legislation and regulations covering the provision of bus services are sufficient but that the Council does not have the resources to put into developing bus services, for example through a Quality Partnership for the borough.

2.2              As we explain in this response to the Transport Committee, Telford & Wrekin Council could bring forward investment, innovation and best practice into the bus network to make it relevant to the needs of the borough but the Council does not have the capital or revenue funding resources available, primarily due to restrictions in the funding available to local authorities.

3              EXISTING BUS SERVICE PROVISION IN TELFORD & WREKIN (SEPTEMBER 2018)

3.1              In Telford & Wrekin the provision of bus services has not changed dramatically since the implementation of the Transport Act 1985 and the deregulation of bus services in England. Bus service provision is financed either from the commercial revenues generated by the bus operators, from Telford & Wrekin Council for support of bus services where income generated is insufficient for the bus operators to do this or from third parties. Examples of third party involvement include a service in the borough paid for by Tesco and there have been several developer contributions from large developments towards the bus network.

3.2              As of September 2018 there are 37 public bus services registered to operate in Telford & Wrekin, a reduction from 42 services in October 2016. The services are operated by Arriva Midlands, Banga Buses, M&J Travel, and Telford & Wrekin Council itself. The network has a number of core services that operate at reasonable frequencies and include early and late services - see appendix A for the complete list of services.

3.3              Today’s bus network comprises a small number of reasonably frequent routes within the built up areas of the borough supported by a number of low frequency routes into the rural parts of the borough. There are a number of low frequency routes surrounding Newport in the north of the borough whilst there are also services to the surrounding towns of Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury, Stafford and Wolverhampton.

3.4              Telford is a planned new town and as a result the residential areas are physically separated from the large employment areas. The bus services typically run in the residential areas and only one of the three large employment areas (Stafford Park) has an all-day bus service.

3.5              Arriva Midlands made changes to its bus services in July 2018. Typically the operator makes changes to its network in the borough once per year although is able to change its bus route network at any time. Arriva Midlands made some changes to bus services in the borough during July 2016.

3.6              Historically the planned growth of Telford over the fifty year life of the town has led to new bus services coming on stream and growth in the bus network. In particular a strong partnership around the turn of the century led to investment in services and infrastructure followed by passenger growth. This pattern appears to have now ended and the bus network is being trimmed with certain areas (e.g. the employment areas and rural areas) now losing their bus services. The number of suburban links have also reduced with most services now operating to/from Telford town centre with passengers then required to change. For example bus services previously operated directly between Ironbridge and Wellington but currently there is no direct bus link.

3.7              Arriva Midlands has a depot in Telford. The last new buses bought by Arriva Midlands for its Telford operation arrived in the early part of 2015. At October 2016 the average age of the fleet was 4 years 2 months. The average age of the fleet has since risen as no further new buses have arrived and ten of the buses new during 2015 have been moved away from services in our borough to other Arriva services in Milton Keynes and replaced by older buses. As of August 2018 the average age of the 66 buses based at Telford garage is 7 years and 10 months.

3.8              The newest bus owned by Banga Buses is 14 years old. Telford & Wrekin Council operates a fleet of minibuses, dating from 2005 to 2018 under the Wrekin Rider brand on a number of low frequency links in some of the more isolated areas of the borough.

4              INFRASTRUCTURE

4.1              There are four bus stations in the borough (at Newport, Oakengates, Telford and Wellington). The bus station in Wellington was opened during 2010 and was funded using Local Transport Plan capital grant funds. Currently Telford & Wrekin Council is working in partnership with the owners of The Telford Shopping Centre on a new bus station in Telford, having secured £1.3million from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership in addition to private funding.

4.2              During the autumn of 2016 Telford & Wrekin Council undertook an audit of all the bus stops in the Borough. There are 840 bus stops in the borough.

• 79 bus stops are not in use (over 9%) and 34 of those 79 have bus shelters. In most cases this is where bus services have been withdrawn.
• There are 78 (9%) bus stops where no infrastructure exists.
• There are 374 bus shelters in the borough. (This includes the 34 bus shelters with no bus service referred to above). The bus shelters in the borough are widely varied ranging from brick built designs to more functional metal or Perspex built shelters. This is equivalent to 45% of bus stops with bus shelters.
• Only 243 (29%) bus stops appear to meet Equality Act requirements.
• There are 312 bus stops with no timetable case.
• There are 165 bus stops with no bus stop flag.

4.3              Bus stop flags and timetable cases in Telford & Wrekin are typically provided by the Council and maintained by Arriva on routes where they operate.

4.4              Overall whilst many bus stops are in a fair condition, many suffer from a lack of maintenance and upkeep and the audit identified many broken or damaged bus stop flags and timetable cases with evidence of graffiti and other vandalism, leading to a general feeling of neglect of the bus stop assets.

4.5              Telford & Wrekin Council could bring forward investment, innovation and best practice in infrastructure provision but does not have the capital or revenue funding available.

5              TELFORD & WREKIN COUNCIL SUPPORT FOR BUS SERVICES

5.1              Recent reductions to the overall funding that the Council has available has led the Council to reduce the amount of funding spent on supporting the bus network. The table below indicates the annual amount spent on supported by bus services by Telford & Wrekin Council over the last four years.

5.2              During August 2018 Telford & Wrekin Council committed an additional £500,000 to retain the existing supported bus routes. However, with the level of savings that the Council needs to make, bus subsidy is likely to be scrutinised which could lead to further cuts being considered.

5.3              The Council receives limited capital and revenue funding from Government in respect of bus services. Outside of the Council’s revenue services grant, the Council directly receives the Bus Services Operators Grant (BSOG). For tendered services the Council receives approximately £40,000 a year. When considering that typically one bus costs approximately £100,000 per year to operate this demonstrates how insufficient the current revenue funding for bus services is.

5.4              Capital funding for bus infrastructure is received through the Council’s Integrated Transport Block received from the Department for Transport. This funding equates to £939,000 per year but has to cover road safety and traffic calming schemes, Intelligent Transport Systems, Public Rights of Way, accessibility improvements along with bus infrastructure. This funding is therefore spread incredibly thinly. To upgrade all current bus shelters in the Borough would alone cost just under £1.5m, meaning any investment has to be rolled out on a much slower basis. This is before even considering investment in real time information, bus stations and bus priority infrastructure.

6              BUS SERVICE PATRONAGE

6.1              As elsewhere in the United Kingdom bus patronage in Telford & Wrekin has been reducing during recent years. The table below sets out patronage on the borough’s bus network during the past twelve years.  This data does not include closed school bus services. Reasons for this decline are discussed in section seven of our response.

6.2              The headlines are set out in the three boxes beneath the table above. One other point to note is that the decline in patronage in each of the last four years has been above the average percentage fall per year of 4.10%. The fall in bus use from 2016/2017 to 2017/2018 was 9.10% - far greater than the average of the twelve years.

6.3              By comparing the table above with the table in part 5.1 of this report a causal link between bus subsidy reductions and bus patronage reductions can be identified. From 2015/2016 to 2017/2018 bus subsidy in Telford & Wrekin was reduced by 22%. Over the same period bus patronage fell by 13.67%.

6.4              Emerging data for 2018/2019 suggests that the trend of falling bus use will continue for the year ahead. Telford & Wrekin’s data shows that bus patronage in the borough for the first four months of 2018/2019 is 5.8% lower than the first four months of 2017/2018.

7              REASONS FOR DECLINE IN BUS USE

7.1              As elsewhere in the United Kingdom, bus patronage in Telford & Wrekin has been affected by national developments and local factors. We consider that the following national factors will have influenced travel patterns in our borough:

• People are travelling less. People work remotely and work from home.
• People no longer follow regular routes to shops or to work.
• High Street decline. There has been a reduction of employment in town centres as retailers announce store closures, which means that less people travel to work in centres and there is also less reason for people to travel there. In early July 2018 the Press Association reported that up to 50,000 jobs were either lost or put in serious jeopardy within Britain’s retail sector over the course of the first half of 2018.
• The cost of fuel has been falling in real terms. The United Kingdom still has a fuel duty escalator designed to encourage people to transfer from car travel to alternative modes of travel such as the bus and the duty on fuel should rise each year. However the 2018 planned rise in fuel duty has been cancelled by Chancellor Philip Hammond - the seventh successive year that this has happened. Fuel duty has been held at 57.95p per litre since the March 2011 Budget.
• New car engines use less fuel especially with the move to hybrid cars. Whilst miles per gallon rates vary from car to car and official rates can be difficult to replicate, the 2018 Mini Countryman Hybrid is being advertised as being able to achieve 113 miles per gallon. This makes driving cheaper. RAC Foundation research shows that the driving cost inflation rate (which includes insurance and other costs) is lower than bus ticket inflation.
• Changes to car finance have made cars cheaper to run with many leasing and personal contract purchase arrangements now available.
• Severe weather events have a short term impact.

7.2              Local factors affecting bus patronage include:

• Prolonged underinvestment in bus infrastructure, bus priorities and the development of the bus network.
• Reductions in support for tendered bus services from Telford & Wrekin Council and a lack of ability to fund improvements to the bus network.
• Impact of construction works and roadworks leading to short term alterations to bus services and timetables. This generates uncertainty in the network and disrupts people’s travel plans.
• In Telford significant works have been taking place throughout 2017 and 2018 at the Telford Centre. This is being done to attract more visitors in the long term but with a short term negative impact on the number of visitors due to the construction works taking place and disruption involved.
• Deterioration of the bus network in terms of coverage of the borough, times of day that services operate and general overall quality.
• No changes have taken place to the bus network to reflect the new retail units and employment sites that have opened around the borough in recent years.
• Suburban areas are growing faster than central areas. Suburban areas have lower levels of bus service connectivity and plenty of car parking spaces – Telford & Wrekin has car parking standards for new residential areas but considers each application on its merits. Sites with over-generous amounts of car parking will be refused planning consent but even in central areas the parking standards allow for a greater number of parking spaces than dwellings.
• Housing growth in towns such as Newport (population: 23,000) is popular due to high quality schools and stores, low levels of crime and easy access to the countryside. The bus service is limited so residents drive.
• Impact of taxi operators strategies on the bus network.

7.3              The Transport Committee has asked for information on the reliability of the bus service, congestion and the ways bus companies are dealing with congestion, and the effectiveness of bus priority measures.

7.4              As Telford is a new town these are not generally an issue in our locality. The road network is designed to carry substantially more traffic than it currently does and subsequently delays are due to genuine infrastructure failures or road traffic collisions. There is not a problem of demand to travel exceeding capacity causing congestion. As a result buses flow freely throughout the day. The main issue facing bus operators in the borough will be inconsiderate and illegal parking causing obstructions.

7.5              There are three sections of bus priority within the borough. These create priority access to destinations and allow for reductions in journey times for bus passengers. The Council feels that these are currently effective but keeps their operation under review to aid the growth of the bus network to suit the future growth of the borough.

8              ISOLATED COMMUNITIES

8.1              Telford & Wrekin Council shares concerns that as the bus network recedes communities in both the rural and urban areas are losing bus services and are at risk of becoming isolated. This can impact on the elderly and the disabled but is also likely to affect younger people who similarly are unable to access education, goods and services.

8.2              In our borough many communities do not have bus services during the evening and many communities do not have bus services on Saturdays.

8.3              During September 2018 Arriva Midlands ceased operating route 519 from Newport to Shrewsbury on Saturdays. This has left several communities in the rural northern half of the borough without a bus service on Saturdays. At the same time the Shropshire & Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups are carrying out a consultation into the future provision of medical services in Shropshire. Complete withdrawal of the 519 route could lead to many communities unable to access Shrewsbury, which is where in future many of their medical services could be based.

8.4              A demand responsive bus service may be the way forward for many areas of our borough. The Council is interested in the success or otherwise of the services that have recently been introduced in Liverpool (Arriva Click) and Oxford (Pick me up) to establish any lessons these services may have for future transport strategy in the borough. Alternative solutions will also be considered.

9              RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION BY THE GOVERNMENT

9.1              Telford & Wrekin Council holds the view that the existing Department for Transport policies are adequate but that this Council does not have sufficient funding available to fully implement these policies and to fully invest in bus service provision in the borough. The Council could change the perception of the bus network in the borough by adopting an ambitious, high profile approach to the network but does not have the required capital funding for infrastructure or revenue funding to underpin bus services in the long run. If this changes then we can unlock travel needs in the borough.

9.2              Increases in funding could see Telford & Wrekin Council:

• Develop a joint brand for the bus network potentially using the same brand as the devolved rail network that Telford & Wrekin Council is already involved in.
• Improve the profile and quality of long distance bus services to the borough in partnership with bus operating companies and neighbouring authorities.
• Improve information provision for bus services in the borough.
• Increase funding for concessionary travel for the disabled and elderly.
• Invest in new bus shelter and bus station infrastructure.
• Invest in bus priorities to serve new housing developments in the borough.
• Provide seed funding for new bus services.
• Partner with operators to fund new vehicles.
• Reduce the cost of travel for young people (as advocated in Wales).
• Support the implementation of national and local policies across areas such as the economy, education, health, inclusivity, regeneration and tourism.

9.3              The above strategy could be delivered within the existing legislation and would increase bus patronage in the borough and the contribution of the bus network to the economy and the community of the borough. However Telford & Wrekin Council does not have access to the funding required for this.

9.4              The Council is following the debate regarding franchising and extension of public ownership and control of bus services. At this time the Council holds no formal view regarding these proposals. However, we would wish to avoid a situation where the Council experienced significant financial losses through operation of bus services, or became involved in protracted issues surrounding the workforce or service delivery that had reputational impacts for the Council.

9.5              Telford & Wrekin Council would like to see greater resources added to the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency to investigate concerns on behalf of the Traffic Commissioners so that greater monitoring of service compliance can be carried out and heavier penalties served on bus operators that fail to operate their bus services as registered.

9.6              Telford & Wrekin Council has concerns about the proposed government’s policies regarding the introduction of accessible bus information as laid out in the consultation undertaken during the summer of 2018. These have been set out in our response to the consultation, which has been written jointly with Transport for West Midlands and Traveline West Midlands.

September 2018

APPENDIX A: LIST OF PUBLIC BUS SERVICES IN TELFORD & WREKIN (SEPTEMBER 2018)