Road repairs could be cut to pay for Buckinghamshire buses (From Bucks Free Press)

Road repairs could be cut to pay for Buckinghamshire buses

4:47pm Tuesday 10th November 2009 in

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ROAD maintenance could be cut to save bus services, a council boss said.

Councillor Valerie Letheren vowed not to cut cash for under-used bus routes next year – and funds might need to come out of repairs.

This year, £400,000 of Buckinghamshire County Council cash was taken out of bus services, about 10 per cent of the total budget, hitting timetables.

Cllr Letheren told the Bucks Free Press: “We have just said ‘enough is enough’ at the moment.

“I have told them to look at other areas. It might be road maintenance.”

Any cuts in road maintenance will concern drivers fed up with potholes, which the council is responsible for repairing.

Changes to BCC-supported routes were announced last week, including the withdrawal of the 15 from Princes Risborough to Aylesbury (see link, bottom of story for full details).

It comes after changes in Amersham and Chesham (see link, bottom of story).

The authority pumps cash into routes which private bus firms will not operate because they do not make enough. Buses were deregulated in 1985.

Cllr Letheren told a watchdog committee today: “We would like to reassure members that next year’s bus contracts are kept out of it. They are not having a further decrease.”

But she said bus users had been hit as “there were cuts when there have never been cuts before”.

And she said a hugely popular Government concessionary fares scheme to extend free travel for the over 60s was also “less viable”.

District councils are told to reimburse operators for residents using buses anywhere in England – but below the regular fare.

Districts say they do not get enough cash from the Government to pay for it.

Cllr Letheren warned: “We are finding that commercial contractors are saying ‘we don’t want to run that service any more’ which is creating difficulties for us.”

It was vital the scheme is not hit, she said, as it is “very much valued” by passengers and had cut congestion.

She also said: “We are going to have to look hard at our rural bus network and how it is run.”

Members of the overview and scrutiny commissioning committee said bus routes must be preserved.

Councillor Peter Cartwright said: “Local facilities have gone in recent years. There is no Post Office, the shops that are left are now few and far between.

“They have to travel to the nearest place.”

And Councillor Peter Hardy said: “Perhaps we should be looking at where our real priorities are.

“The residents who take these buses are the under-represented and deserve better.”

Cllr Letheren said the county council should take over the management of concessionary fares from district councils to save cash.

And she suggested parish councils could contribute money to local bus services.

This could raise the council tax dramatically as parish councils are the only authority which take a cut of the final bill that are not limited to a maximum five per cent annual increase.