The Corporate Director – Communities submitted a report, in order to update Cabinet on the impact of the subsidised bus reductions as identified in the Cabinet report of 15 May 2018, and to propose that Cabinet agree to a further consultation on a proposal to remove the remainder of bus subsidy as provided by the Council for the financial year 2019/20, as part of the proposed savings within the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) for 2019-20 to 2022-23.

Bridgend County Borough Council and Welsh Government support the provision of regional and local bus services by subsidising routes that are potentially not commercially viable. These services serve routes that enable residents who live along them to access employment, education, health care and social activities.

He explained that for the current financial year, BCBC’s core budget for supported bus services for 2018/19 was now £180,000. This is supplemented by a Welsh Government allocation provided to BCBC through the Bus Services Support Grant (BSSG) of £386,825 in 2018/19, of which a target amount of £85,224 should be spent on funding community transport operations in the county borough.

A grant application was submitted by Bridgend Community Transport to Bridgend County Borough Council on 9 July 2018 for the sum of £84,934.32, leaving a balance of £301,890.68 to be spent on core strategic bus network in Bridgend, as per the Welsh Government BSSG guidance notes.

He referred Members to a Table in paragraph 3.6 of the report, which identified the bus routes which formed part of the agreed budget reduction for 2018/19. It was agreed to use £50,000 of the additional funding raised through increasing the Council Tax by 4.5% (instead of the original 4.2% proposed) to continue subsidizing three of the bus services shown at the top of the table (Service No’s 51, 803 and 61) for the current financial year.

The Corporate Director – Communities added that in summary, the result of the subsidy removal had been very positive with five out of the six subsidized routes being commercially retained and provided albeit with modifications or reductions in frequencies as detailed in the sub-paragraphs of paragraph 4.2 of the report.

The next section of the report outlined future implications (for the service), with it  additionally being noted that consideration would also need to be given to the content and implications of a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure dated 02 May 2018 indicating that “from April 2019, each local authority’s allocation from BSSG will have to be at least match-funded by a commitment to expenditure from an authority’s own budget in support of bus and community transport networks in its area”. This position is still being properly assessed and clarification sought from Welsh Government on the exact implications. He added that the proposed consultation exercise in respect of the future of Supported Bus Services would be carried out as soon as possible.

He finalised this item by outlining the report’s financial implications.

The Cabinet Member – Communities advised that continuing to fund the above was continuing to be a struggle under the MTFS and they extra funding had been found in 2017/18 this was only for one year. It had been hoped that the Welsh Government would have assisted with funding in this service provision, though this had not subsequently proved to be the case. 

He further added that subsidised bus services could not continue to be financially supported, and he encouraged the public to continue to use these services or they would be lost.

The Leader added that he encouraged those people who qualified for this, to purchase a discretionary bus ticket hence giving more support to the use of this form of transport, and that the Welsh Government through the South Wales Metro, needed to invest in bus transport as well as just concentrating on the provision of extra train links, to include more localised and rapid bus services.

RESOLVED:                    (1)         Considered the content of the report and agreed that a public consultation is undertaken on the proposals following which a Full Equality Impact Assessment will be undertaken.

                                              (2) Agreed to a further report outlining the results of the consultation, to be accompanied by a Full Equality Impact Assessment, to be presented at a future meeting of Cabinet in order that the proposals outlined in this report may be considered.