BEECHING ON THE BUSES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2018 :: RMTnews 8 A toxic combination of private profiteering, localised cuts and the uncontrolled growth of services like Uber is killing off bus services RMT has warned. The country has already lost 134 million miles of bus routes over the past decade as campaigners warn of "Beeching- style" cuts to services. A passenger watchdog Transport Focus report has revealed that the proportion of bus passengers satisfied with the value for money that bus tickets represent, has – in some areas – fallen to as low as 51 per cent in Essex. RMT said that greedy bus companies had been ratcheting up prices, exploiting the fall in the cost of their subsidised fuel and cherry picking profitable routes at the expense of access to services for communities and vulnerable groups for whom bus services are a transport lifeline. Bus routes are now so severely reduced that hundreds of thousands of people have become reliant on volunteer-run bus services to drive them to hospital appointments and go shopping, it has emerged. A series of cuts to local spending on buses has led to Britain's network shrinking to levels last seen in the late 1980s leading to fears that bus provision could be reduced to the same degree as railways were in the Sixties, when thousands of miles of track were scrapped and hundreds of stations closed following a report by British Railways Board chairman Dr Richard Beeching. Transport Focus has said that it is concerned that bus services were heading in a "similar" direction. A spokesman for the group said that there was a growing danger of elderly and vulnerable people becoming isolated as a result of a shortage of buses, which he said play a "vital role" in connecting communities. "The removal of services will certainly have a large impact on vulnerable people. Local authorities are facing difficult decisions as cuts are unavoidable. “Passengers should be the priority and local authorities should aim to make passengers involved, and have a good communication with them when making changes,” he said. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that it was long overdue that profiteering by the private bus companies was ended and local authorities are again allowed to own their own bus fleets and run their own bus services. “RMT welcomes the commitment of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party to the municipal control of buses. “The toxic combination of private profiteering, localised cuts and the uncontrolled growth of services like Uber is undermining bus services and condemning thousands to the misery of transport poverty. “We need a wholesale change in policy that once again puts publicly owned and controlled bus services centre stage as part of a wider transport policy for Britain,” he said. BEECHING ON THE BUSES private profiteering and cuts decimating local bus services