A number of local bus services which are currently supported by Cheshire East Council could be cut in an effort to achieve maximum value for money.
The Cabinet recommended at a recent meeting to cut subsidies from a number of 'low priority' services to save approximately £500,000.
These 'low priority' services are mainly school services that operate during term time only, for children who live too close to school to be entitled to transport at the taxpayers expense or are attending a school that is not the nearest to them.
Other services in this category include Sunday services and weekday services operating in rural areas with low passenger numbers and a high cost per passenger relative to other services.
If approved the cuts will be implemented on Friday 21st October and one of the identified routes is the 110 Wilmslow/Lacey Green to St Benedict's Catholic Primary School. This operates on school days at a cost of £22,950 a year, carrying a total of 3608 passengers per year at a cost of £6.36 each.
All bus services under consideration will not necessarily cease as the bus operators may choose to continue to operate a service commercially without the council's support. In other cases though it may not be possible to mitigate the impacts of subsidy withdrawal and the operator may decide not to operate the route in future.
Referring to the school routes potentially affected, the report prepared for Cabinet states "It is considered that the most appropriate mitigation for these routes would be to identify suitable alternative routes for the children potentially affected, and if none exist, the council commits to working with the affected schools, parents and local transport operators to seek to ensure that accessible and sustainable travel continues to be available for pupils attending affected schools, subject to parents and / or schools bearing the full costs of the transport."
The council are currently consulting with bus operators and will be communicating with the public via roadside publicity and on board notices before a final decision is made at a meeting of the full council.
The report concluded "Even with the proposed subsidy withdrawals, the council will still be supporting more than 2 million passenger journeys a year, and committing to budget support of £2.3m a year. This is substantially more than other local authorities have been able to commit to, as many have either already or are in the process of withdrawing a substantially greater proportion of their existing support.
"The estimated net cost per passenger journey of the contracts proposed for subsidy withdrawal average £2.35 per passenger journey; the routes proposed for continued support average £1.05 per passenger journey. It is clear that this represents better value for the taxpayer since the routes with highest levels of passenger subsidy are in the lowest priority category."
Attached is the full list of 'low priority' routes where it is recommended that council support wil be withdrawn.
