Norfolk Bus Forum - Minutes Held on: 24 January 2019 Venue: Norwich Bus Station

Present: Mary Dorrell (Chair) – Niki Park – County Norfolk Women’s Institute Council Jeff Anderson – Bus Users Steve Royal – Chris Limbach - First UK Ben Colson – West Norfolk Councillor Judith Lubbock Erica Betts – Norfolk Older Community Transport People’s Strategic (WNCT) Partnership Gina Clapson - Norfolk Richard Dixon - CAMRA Women’s Institute Apologies: Martin Stringfellow – Norfolk Michael Rayner - CPRE Edward Bates - NNAB County Council Paul Pacey – Norwich Julian Patterson – Bus Liz Withington - Access Group Sheringham Town Council N Halsall - City College Charles Sanders – Sanders Jeremy Wiggin – Norfolk Norwich Coaches County Council

1 Welcome, introductions, apologies and minutes

Chair welcomed all to the meeting. Apologies announced and recorded.

The minutes of the last meeting , held on 24 November 2018, were agreed, except Jeff asked that his report on Your Bus Matters event in 1.1 King’s Lynn was added. NP

These minutes will be published on the NCC website, linked to WI website Bus Forum page and Bus Users UK web site (Norfolk section)

1.2 Outstanding action points

a) The bus stop for Morrison’s in Wymondham is not close enough to the shop – Martin has assessed this and there is a bus stop very nearby and therefore no justification to add another. Erica questioned re older people carrying shopping, but it can’t be placed any closer due to the location of the store and the road network.

Do organisations such as supermarkets make enough provision for access to bus services and bus stops when they are built?

Ben - do Developer Services do enough re bus services for new developments? Judith – surely it’s the role of district councils as the

\\Norfolk.gov.uk\nccdfs1\TEAMS-PTCH\PTUPUBLI\PublicTransport\Norfolk Bus Forum\2019\Minutes 24 January 2019.doc Page 1 of 4 04/04/2019 planning authority? Are the policies correct? NP Niki to invite Matt Tracey to the next meeting to explain their role etc.

b) First were asked about an evening service from Norwich to Attleborough – Chris reported that they already run one at 1925, 2025, 2310. It is understood that these times may not meet everyone’s needs, but it is not sustainable to run them all through the evening.

Mary – could evening buses not be provided flexibly in the evening? Ben – too expensive to do commercially and no subsidy available, and when do you run them? People want to go home at different times.

Steve – later Park and Ride buses are being considered as part of a wider review of evening bus timetables.

Chris – NCC have tried many things to see if evening services will work, but the numbers are too low to sustain them.

2 Your Bus Matters, Yarmouth - Jeff

This was an opportunity for passengers to meet operators. Held in December – in the morning in Lowestoft then in Gt Yarmouth in the afternoon – good turnout. People generally very happy with services provided. Some people wanted a direct service from Caister to Norwich – Steve reported that Konect had tried this but not well used so didn’t work.

What instructions are given to drivers to deal with dangerous/abusive passengers? Steve – stay calm, only get involved if able to with no risk to your own safety. Best practice not to leave cab, call police is necessary. Knife crime is a growing risk in conflict situations. Konectbus has included conflict management in its latest in house CPC training course.

3 Information Exchange

3.1 Norfolk County Council 8 bids had been submitted for the first tranche of money for the Transforming Cities Fund, for about £10m total. One was revamp of bus station to make it more modern and including new technology trials e.g.

voice activated real time info. Will find out if successful in February/March.

Now starting work on bids for Tranche 2, which are for the larger schemes. 3.2 Operators

First – concerns over congestion. Fares review in January; contactless and phone app use means buses spending less time to load; rewarding loyalty by offering cheaper tickets/not putting fares up for season ticket/app users.

Otherwise operations generally going well.

Konect – operational delivery has improved over last 6 weeks. Xmas went well - little congestion compared to previous years; Boxing Day very

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improve operational delivery. Steve moving away from being operations manager to become network manager in Dereham – more development work. New operations

manager is Andy Cook (previous role in Buses).

WNCT – community buses suffering from adult day centre closures and reduced attendance. Section 19 legislation clarification – changing to PSV puts more cost on community transport but is disproportionate to the services they offer compared to big bus operators like First. Therefore community transport will suffer. WNCT now also operate conventional buses – 10 vehicles running some

King’s Lynn town routes – 2013 to 2018 patronage had dropped considerably – now building patronage back up again. Mystery shopper – feedback good. Just signed a £30k advert deal.

Mary asked if the Forum could help re CT legislation. Ben – not at this stage, as government is still debating the issue.

Ben recently attended a rural roundtable – no ministers able to attend but good meeting to start a discussion about the difficulties of providing rural transport.

4 Remit for Bus Forum in 2019

The stakeholders present were asked what priorities and key issues they wanted to see considered by the forum this year.

Also, do we need the 3 closed meetings as well as the open meeting? Not many attendees today. Should we ask those not here why they didn’t come? Are we catering for the stakeholders and what they want to hear/discuss? What should we have as the remit for the forum going forward? (see below)

Erica – came to represent older people and can also feed back to the Board.

Richard – asking Camra members for feedback – do pub trips and try to use public transport.

Jeff – need at least 4 meetings a year. But Niki queried what the focus

was; what had today’s meeting achieved?

Steve – public meetings much more worthwhile. Suggests 2 per year. But closed meetings good to make connections and for networking – bringing all sectors together.

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Erica – health transport Gina – communication between bus providers and stakeholders Judith – values input of all stakeholders; need to look at strategy for public transport and how it links with others’ policies Chris – need constructive and professional feedback from different stakeholders; influencing key decisions Richard – get infrastructure in at the right time Steve – engage more locally with people, easier to solve things, e.g.

parish council involvement (could help with tree cutting and putting up publicity) Ben – influencing decision makers/opinion formers; talk more about social inclusion, economic consequence of congestion and air quality rather than buses per se Jeff – need increased stakeholders e.g. small business community. Ben offered contacts to those in King’s Lynn, but would it be worth them coming to Norwich? Probably not.

Agreed that Jeff would circulate a note to stakeholders asking why they JA didn’t attend today’s meeting (was the venue an issue for example) and what they would like to see the forum focus on for them to attend.

Mary mentioned the forthcoming WI resolution – 6 campaigns being debated to whittle down to 1 or 2 – one being debated is rural transport and key to wellbeing – “A call against the decline of bus services” – calling on government to increase subsidies. But urban transport also an issue –

some people/areas still socially isolated.

Judith – why spend money on road schemes rather than public transport? Capital vs revenue money. How to make people switch from car to bus? – need to make it quicker and more attractive – cheap car parking and high availability doesn’t help.

NNUH – not present but Mary made comment re lack of advice on hospital letters re public transport and how easy it would be to use (and how difficult it is to park there). Erica will raise with the hospital (also a EB governor of NNUH).

Date and venue of next m eeting:

Thursday 4 th April 10am Norwich Bus Station

Signed: M Dorrell Dated: 4 April 2019

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