PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
2ND MAY 2002
PETITION - BUS SERVICE BETWEEN KIBWORTH AND FLECKNEY
REPORT OF THE ACTING DIRECTOR OF PLANNING AND TRANSPORTATION
Purpose of Report
1. To respond to petitions presented by Dr R.K.A. Feltham C.C. and Mr P.D. Boult TD C.C.
Background
2. In February this year Arriva Fox County altered their bus service 49, which previously operated every hour from Kibworth via Fleckney and Wigston to Leicester. The new service terminates at Fleckney. This means there is now no link between Fleckney and Kibworth except for two journeys each way per day on a County Council contract service. Kibworth has a separate service direct to Leicester.
3. Subsequently, Dr Feltham and Mr Boult forwarded petitions of 492 and 249 signatures respectively, protesting at the cut and calling for reinstatement of the service. I replied, explaining why I believed it would not be possible to take any action in the short term to restore the link. Dr Feltham, on behalf of both himself and Mr Boult, asked for the matter to be considered by this Committee.
Analysis
4. Service 49 was operated commercially and therefore outside the Council's control. The changes were made as part of service revisions in the Wigston area. For the withdrawn section of route, the average previous daily totals of single trips are shown in the table below.
Kibworth to Leicester 2.3 Kibworth to Wigston 1.7 Kibworth to Fleckney 5.3 Leicester to Kibworth 4 Wigston to Kibworth 3.3 Fleckney to Kibworth 7.4
5. This totals 24 single trips between the two villages over an 11 hour period. Any replacement shuttle service between the two places would lose most of the trips to Wigston and Leicester, for which passengers have alternative albeit less convenient 1 D:\moderngov\data\Published\Intranet\C00000141\M00000701\AI00004039\PaperCBusServicebetweenKibworthandFleckn ey0.doc services. This leaves around 13 trips as the potential demand for a replacement service.
A direct replacement service
6. The three main options for a replacement service were assessed, with results as follows:
• Arriva Fox would not be prepared to go back to the old service, with financial support from the Council. Even if they had been, the cost would have been above the allowable limits for negotiated subsidies.
• A full replacement, shuttling between Kibworth and Fleckney, could have been bought in but would have run empty for most of its trips. The cheapest way to provide such a service would be to hire in a taxi. Even so, the likely net cost would be over £2 per passenger mile in subsidy, compared to a limit with the Council's former policy of 48 pence per passenger mile. Under the new policy recently adopted, with its emphasis on a network of hourly services, subsidy for replacing this link would not be justified.
• A more limited service would have cost less, but would have carried even fewer passengers in total since many of the typical 13 trips will have been time-specific. Again it would have been a long way outside any reasonable value for money limits
7. A fourth possibility would be to see if other contract services in the area could have their routes and timetables adjusted to provide a small number of links between the two villages, pending larger changes to these services under the best value review. However:
• This would require changed and possibly less convenient timetables for a number of other bus users.
• Planning and consultation for this short-life change would be lengthy, at a time when officers' efforts should be entirely focussed on delivering the large-scale service improvements planned through the best value review.
• The outcome would likely be only a marginal improvement in the service at appreciable extra cost.
Incorporation into Best Value Review implementation
8. Over the next two years there is to be a major re-structuring of the whole county subsidised bus services network following completion of the best value review. This is a complex exercise involving co-ordinated work on an area by area basis on both the top-level network of hourly bus services and the in-fill services in the more rural areas. The work of the East Leicestershire Rural Transport Partnership, with extra funding from the Countryside Agency, is fully integrated with this programme and intended particularly to secure effective and innovative service provision in the most rural areas. Overall, it will deliver important improvements, including linking 95% of the county's population with an hourly or better bus service. In doing so it will produce improved
2 D:\moderngov\data\Published\Intranet\C00000141\M00000701\AI00004039\PaperCBusServicebetweenKibworthandFleckn ey0.doc patronage of rural public transport and contribute strongly to the Council's Medium Term Strategy.
9. This work gives the best opportunity for seeing if any replacement for the Fleckney to Kibworth link can be provided, integrated into the comprehensive service review. The overall review timescale has a number of constraints on it and the review of the Kibworth area was originally planned for about a year's time. Following the receipt of the petitions, officers have now reassessed the programme and believe the Kibworth area work could be brought forward without significant detriment to the programme overall.
10. We therefore now propose to start work on this area, which includes the whole rural area to the north and west of Market Harborough, in June. Extensive consultation will be necessary and, following that, we would expect to have new services planned and introduced towards the end of this year. It is important to stress, however, that the review may conclude that there is little that can be done to improve the Kibworth to Fleckney link.
Conclusions
11. Conclusions are:
a. The main damage has been done by the withdrawal of the Arriva Fox commercial service. There was nothing the Council could do to prevent this and there is now little chance of the link between the two villages being as frequent as it was previously.
b. Under the Council's previous policy it would not have been possible to provide a replacement for this link.
c. A limited replacement might be possible as part of the work to be carried out in introducing the improved rural bus services network.
d. This work is to be brought forward by nearly a year so as to produce results as quickly as possible.
Equal Opportunities Implications
12. Rural bus services provide access to facilities for many people on low incomes and some with mobility impairments.
Background Papers
Correspondence and petitions, file 5354.
Circulation under Sensitive Issues Procedure
Dr R.K.A. Feltham – 26th April 2002 Mr P D. Boult TD – 26th April 2002
Officer to Contact
James Holden, 0116 265 7244 3 D:\moderngov\data\Published\Intranet\C00000141\M00000701\AI00004039\PaperCBusServicebetweenKibworthandFleckn ey0.doc