Councillor calls for legal powers to run bus services

The council says it feels that if it was granted power to provide bus services in the borough it could then ‘identify gaps’ to improve the provision.

The council’s fully funded 99 bus service will be introduced next month in response to Arriva withdrawing five routes in the borough and reducing the evening hours of five others.

This comes a year after the council launched their ‘Work Express’ route incorporating Wellington, Hortonwood, Stafford Park, Brookside, Halesfield, Madeley and Sutton Hill.

Councillor Lee Carter, cabinet member for the economy, says that the ‘Work Express’ is a ‘classic example’ of the council funding a service which was not previously provided.

“Give us the legal powers to run a bus service,” he said.

“Some of our routes like the Work Express has been a huge success. In the short period that it’s been around it’s accounted for around a third of the passenger journeys in Telford & Wrekin.

“We’ve proven that we’ve got the expertise to make bus routes work. We identified and saw that there was an issue for people working in local industrial estates and factories were having a real difficulty getting to those places of work at the times they needed to, particularly shift workers.

“We put in place this service and quickly its grown to carrying thousands of passengers in a very short space of time.

“If we had those powers we could then identify gaps and make sure we’ve got a service that is reliable and works on time.”

Cllr Carter said the government’s underfunding of local bus services has resulted in a ‘constant changing’ of the provision provided in the borough by commercial operators.

He is also urging the government to increase their current contribution of 45 pence for every pound that bus services cost.

“Our ambition is totally aligned with the public, they want access to a good public transport network,” said Cllr Carter.

“What I would say to everyone is, we’re doing our best and trying to get the Government to give us more money and fund the buses properly.

“We’re trying to get the government to give us total power over our local bus services so we can run them ourselves.

“Whilst we can’t do that we will do whatever we can to keep in place a bus services that is accessible to most people.

“There’s a dedicated schools service that we already operate for four or five local schools and colleges. There is the Work Express and five rural routes that have got more stops and a better service that they’ve had over recent years.

“In the services that we run in their entirety we’ve capped fares at £2. We decided to do that before the government announced their £2 cap and we’re committed to it long after the government decide that they don’t want to do it any more.”