(12 Sep 2021, 9:41 pm)Storx wrote I don't want to turn this into a politics debate but you've listed 3 richer council areas and slagged off 3 poorer / rural council areas. There's a lot more funding spend on stuff like poverty and social care in places like Hartlepool that they simply don't have the money to spend on buses. I wouldn't call them disinterested but in comparison to Harrogate and Brighton there's a lot less money needed to be spend on social care and poverty so they have money spare to spend it on buses etc.

Would you rather Hartlepool funded the 1 to Seaton Carew for 3 passengers over housing a homeless person as that's the sort of decision they have to make and sadly in bus terms they've made the right choice imo.

You could use the same argument that someone in Harrogate or Brighton can happily pay £600+ for a yearly pass upfront whereas for someone in Hartlepool that's just not possible hence the skeleton service.

Social needs are entirely subjective to the user. I can get by without an evening bus. Can the elderly resident of Dalton Piercy who hasn’t seen another person for 3 weeks and doesn’t want to go to the doctor about their symptoms as the taxi is too expensive? Are they less needy than the homeless person? It’s not healthy to pit desperate people against each other.

It’s not always a purely financial problem for local authorities, there’s a genuine competency issue too. I recently tried to use a supported service in Stafford. The total absence of bus-stop timetables left me questioning where to wait so I missed the bus. I emailed the council for clarification on stopping places, it took a week of back & forth to finally get them to understand what I was asking. Their response to my suggestion it could have all been avoided by providing timetables at stops was met with this would be a waste of taxpayers money! I had no reply to my suggestion the greater waste was running an anonymous white ex-welfare minibus with no destination equipment on a route no-one has a clue when or where it runs. 

For this reason I think transport authorities should be established where they do not already exist to asses and implement the social and economic necessary services the Bus Strategy mandates local authorities will now be obligated to provide. I’d go further and have tangible metrics like a minimum service per population density.