By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
Nottinghamshire County Council’s transport and environment chairman has asked to meet with the Transport Secretary about potentially improving the county’s bus services.
Councillor Neil Clarke (Con), who represents Bingham West, says he has requested a meeting with Grant Shapps about getting “actual support” for more bus services in Nottinghamshire.
It follows the release of council figures showing passenger numbers on countywide services are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, with buses seeing about 70-80 per cent of their pre-Covid activity.
For concessionary fare holders, usage is stalled at 55 to 60 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The authority has confirmed it will use Government funding to help increase passenger numbers while also trailing an ‘on-demand’ bus service scheme involving services being booked by phone or by an app.
This will be piloted during the summer, with the £1.5 million pot seeing buses operated on a “fully-flexible, on-demand basis”.
But now Cllr Clarke has confirmed he has requested the meeting with Mr Shapps to see how the authority can further improve existing services across Nottinghamshire.
The council’s £4.1 million budget for buses supports more than 100 services across the county, while various funding schemes are being announced by the Government to target public transport.
However, Cllr Clarke says many Government funding pots target the “equipment that goes along with bus services” rather than funding for the bus services directly.
Speaking at the transport and environment committee meeting on Wednesday (May 4), he says he wants this to change.
He said: “I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport [Grant Shapps] and his colleagues to request a meeting to talk about bus services and the funding of bus services.
“[This is] in relation to the supportive funding for the equipment that goes along with bus services, because we’re missing the actual support for the bus services themselves.
“I’m sure every divisional member can quote instances with timings of bus services not always being very good for people who actually work.
“It is an opportunity for me to say we are doing something proactive to speak with the Secretary of State, in order to forward our ambitions for increased bus services.”
Upper-tier councils across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are currently negotiating a potential devolution deal for the region, which could see a combined authority created to control extra funding and powers for transport.
And when asked whether this could see improved services locally, Cllr Clarke added: “We will be considering events and proposals as they come forward”.
However, in response to the “slow recovery”, the Government has extended bus funding for a further six months until October 2022 through the Local Transport Fund (LTF).
Whitehall had already given financial support through the Bus Recovery Grant (BRG), which ended in March 2022.
And Nottinghamshire County Council has been successful in its bid for the National Bus Strategy Rural Mobility Fund, which is helping to trial the on-demand service this year.
The trial, named Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), will run in the summer across Ollerton and Mansfield and across Rushcliffe in the autumn.
