There's just a few days remaining for you to make your inputs to Wiltshire Council's consultation on the future of supported buses. They're looking to reduce the amount of money paid for support by a half from next year.
A straight cut of a half of the funding would almost inevitable lead to significant service loss, and you're being asked what you think of cutting out evening and Sunday services, slashing town services, halving supported inter-town services, and paring back rural routes. I've described it as a "Beeching Axe of the buses" before now.
But Beeching's cuts of the railway network in the 1960s, where branch lines were closed wholesale, did great harm to the mainlines too as people's total journeys were no longer possible. And there's a similar danger in Wiltshire if cuts are made on the subsidised network elements without an overview of the whole. Therein lies a problem - or has lain a problem - in that buses which are not run with council support are not currently subject to any council specification.
Legislation already exists to allow for bus contracts to be let to cover an area, allowing network-wide planning and financing. This has been impractical to implement to date, but the "bus bill" going forward now takes steps to make it more practical, and because Wiltshire still has a large number of uncut supported buses (unlike Dorset and Oxfordshire, for example) we're afforded a window of opportunity to both make the saving required and come up with a network for the future.
Yesterday, I attended a meeting with 3 other members of the "Option 247" team - which is encouraging Wiltshire Council to take advantage of this opportunity window. A very positive meeting - and we have follow up activities together working very much towards the sae goal of coming up with a future-looking public transport system, at a cost that's in budget and remain so for the next 5 years or more.
Please take a look at the Option 247 web site at
http://option247.uk . If you've seen that site already, please take a look at our presentation from yesterday at
http://option247.uk/o247_2.pdf. And if you want to be kept in the picture, comment, contribute - please look at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/option247/ . Thank you.
(written 2016-03-30, updated 2016-03-31)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
Z407 - Option 24/7 - the way forward for Wiltshire buses [4619] Buses - not about the buses, but about the people who use the buses - (2016-01-10)
[4621] The power of scripting - (2016-01-12)
[4624] Campaigning for a sensible bus solution and not against anyone! - (2016-01-17)
[4625] Where does Wiltshire bus subsidy money come from? - (2016-01-19)
[4630] The story behind the bus cuts, and what they could mean - (2016-01-24)
[4631] What would the Wiltshire Council bus cuts mean for Melksham? - (2016-01-25)
[4636] Rail user groups worried about what is happening on the buses - (2016-01-31)
[4648] Why is bus funding a much hotter topic than a new set of traffic lights? - (2016-02-16)
[4654] Getting to the Royal United Hospital - the Hopper and the alternatives - (2016-02-24)
[4657] Rumours of bus changes by First in Wiltshire - what we know and suspect - (2016-03-01)
[4658] The end of competition on a bus route - the effects from then end of the 234 - (2016-03-02)
[4660] What is happening on the 231 bus? What are you going to do about it? - (2016-03-04)
[4669] Buses - how did we get into the situation we are in? - (2016-04-02)
[4690] Buses in Wiltshire - potential changes and where we stand at the moment - (2016-05-30)
[4691] Real life PHP application using our course training MVC example - (2016-06-05)
[4692] How are bus support payments currently calculated? - (2016-06-07)
[4693] Wiltshire supported bus service consultation, early 2016 - interim results published - (2016-06-09)
[4694] Supported Bus Services in Wiltshire - analysis of written-in comments - (2016-06-11)
[4703] What do people use the bus for in Wiltshire - survey interim results. - (2016-07-11)
Z511 - Public Transport - Road [119] PHP course. Come by train. - (2004-11-15)
[187] a popular bus number - (2005-01-23)
[459] Kiss and Ride - (2005-10-09)
[474] Vintage Bus Day - (2005-10-23)
[764] Journey planning - Xephos v Transport Direct - (2006-06-16)
[818] Heard, yes. Considered, no. The case for the train. - (2006-07-30)
[1085] Lawrence Webb's Melksham Taxi service - (2007-02-18)
[1125] Train service - petititon reply - (2007-03-31)
[1254] Comparing bus stops - (2007-07-01)
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[1428] Travel Across Wiltshire - the game - (2007-11-11)
[1511] Buses from Well House Manor, Melksham, to Bath - (2008-01-18)
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[1777] The Rise and Rise of First Bus Fares - (2008-08-29)
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[2083] Do you support a decent train service? Please sign up! - (2009-03-15)
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[3580] Melksham Area - buses, trains, cycles, and roads. Meeting, 17.1.2012 - (2012-01-15)
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[4257] Over a pound a kilometre - my bus in Weston-super-mare - (2014-04-06)
[4263] Chippenham - Melksham - Trowbridge, public transport over Easter (2014) - (2014-04-12)
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[4546] Is the RUH hopper a limited, duplicate service running unnecessarily and at high cost? - (2015-10-18)
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[4592] A comparison of the public transport alternatives to the Royal United Hospital, Bath - from Melksham. - (2015-12-06)
[4615] Questions for First (West of England) - (2016-01-05)
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[4639] Working out the costs of running a bus service through the day - (2016-02-06)
[4664] Mallory Place bus stop - services to Bath - (2016-03-25)
[4670] The end, or the start? - (2016-04-05)
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