The Chief Executive submitted a report, that advised Cabinet of the outcome of a public consultation exercise with regard to a proposal to reduce the amount of Council subsidy for bus services by a sum of £148,000 as agreed in the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).

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

He advised that BCBC’s core budget for supported bus services was £202,600 in 2018/19.  This included a one-off subsidy agreed as part of the 2018/19 public consultation on subsidised buses where it was agreed three popular local bus routes would be supported throughout 2018/19.

The allocation provided to BCBC by the Welsh Government, through the Bus Services Support Grant (BSSG) was £386,825 in 2018/19, out of which £84,394 was awarded to Bridgend Community Transport with the remainder, £302,431, to be spent on the region’s core strategic bus network and associated services.

Reduction in base funding and continued financial austerity has meant the Council has had to review the services it delivers against its declared priorities. The Council’s subsidy for bus services makes a significant contribution to ensuring some bus services that are not commercially viable can run. Nevertheless, this area of expenditure has been identified as one that is not a statutory function to deliver and a savings target of £148,000 was identified in the MTFS for the 2019/20 financial year.  This would leave no Council budget for subsidising local bus services in 2019/20.

A report was submitted to Cabinet on 18^th September 2018 setting out proposals for the rationalisation for supporting bus services across the county borough to meet the proposed removal of the budget. Cabinet approved that a public consultation should be carried out together with a full Equality Impact Assessment before a further report be made to Cabinet outlining the results of the consultation and before the proposals outlined in the report were considered and a final decision made on the proposals..

In the past, when subsidy cuts had been implemented, some operators had used it as an opportunity to revise the financial profile of the routes and operated previously subsidised services on a commercial basis. For example, as a result of the 2018/19 MTFS saving, five of the six previously subsidised routes were commercially retained with modifications or reductions in frequencies. As in the past, until the proposed subsidy withdrawal has been implemented, it is unclear whether operators will respond in a similar manner this year.

Paragraph 3.8 of the report, identified the bus routes which formed part of the   consultation.

The Chief Executive proceeded, by advising that a consultation on the proposed service removal was implemented to gather views and opinions on the potential impact of the reductions in order to meet a proposed budget removal of £148,000 in 2019/20, as part of the Council's Medium Term Financial Strategy.

The full details of the consultation was appended to the report, with some of the key points of the feedback contained in paragraph 4.3 of the covering report.

He stressed that Community transport services offer an alternative form of transport for the elderly and disabled residents in areas where bus services have been withdrawn. The local community transport operator (Bridgend Community Transport) provides a range of services to suit varied circumstances but it is currently operating at capacity and therefore its ability to respond in the short term to the subsidy withdrawal has to be recognised.

The Cabinet Member – Communities explained that no Councillor wished to have to make this kind of decision, though this was the reality after 10 years of national austerity and huge cuts affecting Council’s funding.

Far from removing buses or bus routes, he wished to make it clear that this was about ceasing funding that the Council has been paying to private, profit-making companies, so they will run services that might otherwise not be possible due to low passenger numbers using such services.

He added that of the six services that have already had their subsidy removed, five are continuing to be operated entirely by the bus company providers, so there was strong evidence to suggest that not all services would cease to operate as soon as the Council stopped subsidising these.

The Cabinet Member – Communities confirmed that this was something that will be discussed with bus operators further, as part of a monitoring exercise going forward.

He encouraged residents of the County Borough to continue using bus services, as the income generated from this would greatly assist in services remaining in place, as opposed to them being cut.

The Deputy Leader advised that the rationalising of bus services was part of budget reduction proposals aligned to the Council’s MTFS. He added that only 10 paying passengers were required on a service to keep this viable.

The Leader concluded debate on this item by stating that a considerable amount of savings required by the Council for the next financial year were as yet unaccounted for. He hoped that whilst the Metro proposals aligned to a project of the Cardiff Capital Region City Deal that was presently concentrating in its current phase on train links, would be expanded in  future phases to include increased bus link operations.

The Interim Head of Finance confirmed that the savings referred to above, were in the region of £10m for 2020/21 and £8m for 2021/22, which was a considerable sum and which would inevitably have some effect on services presently provided to the public.

RESOLVED:            That Cabinet:-

(1)    Considered the content of the consultation report and Equality Impact Assessment.

      (2) Determined that the budget for supported local bus services is removed to the routes identified in the table in paragraph 3.8 of the report.

      (3)  That Supported Bus Services be monitored going forward.