(09 Sep 2016, 10:18 pm)Adrian wrote Obviously this is only one side of the story, but I fear it's yet another example of why the deregulated market isn't working. Whatever your opinion on the market we have to day, it is not right that people should be risking losing vital transport links.

Can we be absolutely clear here?

This is an example of what happens in a fully regulated, controlled by the local authority market. The local authority has, for whatever reason, decided to reduce the frequency of the X14. The local authority also supports the Spirit Buses operation. By reducing the X14, they will need to support changes to the Spirit operation either to maintain connections or to make some new arrangements.

This has nothing to do with Arriva's commercially operated services, which make no call upon the council tax payers of Northumberland.

If anything, deregulation means that Steve Hurst was free to 'give it a go', and all credit to him for having the guts to do so. In a fully regulated market, Steve simply wouldn't have had this opportunity and the people of the isolated communities west of Rothbury would have had a much poorer quality of life, as the local authority was completely unable to provide services like Steve's.

Sadly, Steve's services do appear to not have been viable, but the social need for them did attract some local authority (and community) support. The deregulated market allows LAs to do exactly this, and I can appreciate how much more difficult it is when budgets are tight (or reducing).

None of this, though, could possibly be taken to suggest that a fully regulated market would produce better outcomes. This case amply demonstrates that a local authority will always face difficult decisions in transport provision, and will not be able to indefinitely support lightly used bus services.