Decision details

The budget for 2018/19 saw a reduction in funding for supported bus services of £455K.  This reduction in funding would require a reduction in the number of services supported.  KCC committed to delivering any reduction through partnership working with operators, to identify opportunities where existing commercial services could mitigate changes or commercial initiatives could be implemented.

For background, bus services in Kent fall into two categories:

·Commercially (profit-making) operated services.

·Subsidised (KCC funded) services.

Since bus privatisation in 1985, operators in Kent run routes on a commercial basis, where there are enough passengers to fund the service. Around 97% of journeys in Kent run in this way – with around 40 operators covering 600 services – without any funding from Kent County Council (KCC).  But not all of Kent’s bus services are run on a purely commercial basis. For the last 30 years, KCC has funded some routes which, while not commercially viable, have been considered important to the needs of the communities and passengers they serve.

Operators have presented KCC with proposals that will enable KCC to reduce spend, whilst being able to protect school services and ensurethose communities currently served still have access to transport.  These proposals were presented to ETCC on the 20^th March 2018 and approval was granted to go to public consultation. 

As Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport and Waste, I agree to the implementation of changes to selected bus services in Thanet and Sevenoaks effective from April 2019.