Nationalise the buses!

By Alex Perkins, Liberal Democrat Canterbury City Council Leader

 

Here’s a radical idea – why don’t we nationalise the buses?

Recent announcements that new bus timetables would bring better services into the city have proved to be inaccurate. I feel nothing but dismay over the new timetables, which essentially leave great swathes of our urban and rural areas, underserved and disadvantaged. When I first heard that there were new bus timetables and that the bus company believed they would provide a better service I, like everyone else, was fool enough to believe the spin. However, now that the reality has struck home I am back where I was before. Believing that a bus service that is deregulated and run by big business for the benefits of millionaire shareholders is NOT what we require!

It all goes back a few years to when Margaret Thatcher was handing out cash cows to wealthy supporters. Someone in her government came up with the brilliant idea of cutting the close regulation of public transport and leaving it to market forces. Not surprisingly all the essential but non-profit making routes were cut in an instant, as multi-millionaire entrepreneurs bought into the potentially lucrative transport market, reassured by the fact that the removal of many of the government controls on bus services meant that they could scrap the non-profit making bits and merely run buses at peak times.

In some cases, like Canterbury for example, small new bus companies sprung up and tried to meet the demand for off-peak travel by running mini-buses through housing estates and into town. But deregulation meant that the bigger bus companies could quickly kill off the small operators by putting temporary services on the same routes and taking their passengers. Once the small operators had been effectively strangled by the big boys and put out of business these temporary services were pulled. Such is the way in a free market economy where the bigger businesses use the deregulation to kill off competition and keep the profits for themselves.

Of course the first to suffer are, as always, the pensioners. Many of them rely on a regular bus service to get around town and the phone has been ringing non-stop since the new timetables came into operation. People can no longer get into town. Grandparents struggle to pick up the grandchildren form school on time and, anecdotally, other services have been removed in order to make sure there are enough buses available to carry students down the hill from the university. If that bit is true then it seems terribly unfair!

So here we are. In a city choked by cars and crying out for a decent public transport system. And what do they do? They remove vital services from local people. It’s plain nonsense. The County Council, who have some responsibility for transport links have the right to step in and set up or underwrite local buses where there is a need. Indeed I take my hat off to them for some of the services they have managed to fund – but it is never enough.

Although the local City Council does not have the powers to change timetables we will be putting pressure on local bus providers to offer a better service. Your local LibDem councillors are collecting petitions in many of the worst hit areas, so watch out for them and help by signing up to our campaign.

If this government is really serious about providing proper, usable, regular and reasonably priced public transport to try and help people to leave their cars at home more often, then it is time they stopped turning a blind eye to the problem and invested in our local public transport infrastructure. We need your support. Let them know how you feel about this problem!