(25 Jan 2022, 11:51 pm)Adrian wrote Good but interesting update. The funding situation is a mess at the moment, so big changes are going to sadly be inevitable unless the Government stick their hand in their pocket.

The £7.5m reduction in ENCTS budget by Nexus; this was discussed at the JTC in November, and as I understood, it's due to the calculation moving from estimates at pre-Covid levels rather than actuals. That was retained by Nexus throughout 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years, in-line with Government policy. Nexus estimated in November that ENCTS use was around 60% of pre-pandemic levels (across the county - not just GNE). They claimed at the JTC that this resulted in an estimated £40 million over-payment to operators during the two financial years.

The knock on impact if that hadn't happened would have likely been a complete decimation of services I'd imagine, but its good to consider these things with the context.

Even with reducing this though, Nexus are still very much in the shit financially and it won't be long before they move to the last resort of increasing the levy in Tyne and Wear and asking for more cash from Durham and Northumberland. Very much like Nexus, cash none of the Councils have, after 12 years of austerity. They're using around £5.5m of reserves to balance the budget this year, which never a good place to be in.

There'll be the usual finger-wagging that Nexus are cutting bus support to bail out the Metro, but we shouldn't forget that the support for Light Rail is facing the same April cliff-edge as the Bus Recovery Grant.

There's an enormous funding gap right across public transport at the minute. There's an estimated £5bn funding gap in what's required to deliver the National Bus Strategy. After the Govt told everyone to go away and draw up ambitious Bus Service Improvement Plans and form Enhanced Partnerships, they've gradually cut the £3bn on offer to £2bn, then again to £1.4bn.

I've said before and I'll say again, but I really think the idea of a BSIP or Enhanced Partnership up here is all but abandoned, and really to no fault of the operators or local authorities. That's evident in the changes suggested in Martijn's video and what we've already seen elsewhere in the GNE network, before we even get on to other operators making cuts.

Unless the Govt make the funding available, we'll be lucky to get a fleet of model buses out of a BSIP, never mind a Superbus network.

The whole thing is a mess and has been from the start, as soon as it became clear that Covid wasn’t a short term issue, transport funding and routes should have been slashed to bare essentials (and protected in reserve) during the initial lockdown and the following period. Instead we paid companies to carry around fresh air. Now, as we get to a potential recovery, we cut the funding and stunt any potential natural re growth of passenger numbers. 

we keep being told ECNTS are the slowest to return, backed up by data from Wetherspoons (of all places) and springboard so in theory the cuts in funding shouldn’t have an immediate impact…in practice they obviously do.

It’s difficult for GNE because nothing they do really works or seems committed to past a short term vision and with an absolute basket case of a parent company, you can see why the pressure is on. 

all that money on paint as they say   Damned either way. Now…where’s my Uber/car keys/electric bike/cab?