Agenda item

The Committee welcomed Mr Balfour to the meeting and invited him to answer questions from Members.

Mr Balfour stated that the Committee was a useful vehicle and he hoped that there would be recommendations on a better way to use the Kent pound to provide transport for the people of Kent.  He was not convinced about the County Council entering into the bus market but, it would be up to the Committee to try to convince him if that is what they concluded.  He would welcome a recommendation relating to Community Bus Services such as the one between Wormshill and Sittingbourne.

Q – What is the situation regarding Members using their Community Grant a support a community bus service.  Surely it is not possible to provide year on year funding from a Members grant?

Mr Balfour reminded the Committee that the Members Grant scheme criteria were determined by KCC Members.

Q – If Members Community Grants continue to be cut year on year we may have to look at another way of funding Community Buses?

Mr Balfour reminded Members that it was in the County Council’s gift to decide how Kent could do this. The Committee could consider how to do this e.g it could recommend putting money into Community Bus schemes, this would be a budget issue rather than a Member Grant issue.  It might be better to for example provide a community with a bus to operate and to subsidise it from the Council.  However, KCC was dealing with increasing pressures on its budget so money spent on community buses would need to be taken from another part of the budget.

Q – In relation to the recent consultation on KCC Funded Bus Services, there were only 454 responses, please comment on this level of response.

Mr Balfour explained that this consultation was aimed at users of specific services and not all Kent residents. 

Q – As the Cabinet Member you know where the complaints about bus services are coming from and the key issues.  At the current level of provision what are we getting right, what needs to be improved and how can this be achieved?

Mr Balfour replied that a lot of the complaints were specific, for example bad provision relation to school buses.  This type of issue about school buses seem to be raised at the start of the school year and the issues often arose due to KCC receiving inaccurate information from schools on required bus capacity, this was usually resolved in the early weeks of the school year.

Mr Balfour also said that changes made to bus routes particularly KCC subsidised bus routes produce letters of concern.  A bus may be taken away but often it was not a KCC bus route.  Mr Lightowler and his team dealt with these matters and he would expect them to involve the local member(s) to consider providing other provision but he would not want this to add to the budget cost.

Mr Balfour suggested that one way that the service could be improved would be for the Select Committee to drill down to the pertinent points and produce a good report.  He expressed the view that KCC should do more in relation to community bus provision and stop buses that were not well used. He gave the example of a bus in a village in his areas which was only used by 2 people once a week, when the service was stopped the 2 users did not complain as they were able to use the Kent Karrier provision instead but there was a complaint received from someone who didn’t use the service.

Q - Some buses go to a village 5 days a week to pick up one or 2 people, it might be possible to reduce this service to 2 days a week and to provide a service to another village(s) on the other 3 days, do you agree?

Mr Lightowler explained that these contracts were historic and there was no practical reason why these couldn’t be re-tendered, with different days per village but this was a matter for Members. If these contracts were re-tendered there would also be the opportunity to change the criteria.  

Q - In relation to smart cards, is there not a risk that there will end up being a number of different smart card schemes in Kent which would make them less attractive to users?

Mr Balfour stated that it had been a great feat to get 7 bus companies to agree to a single scheme.  He applauded the companies that had joined the scheme and hoped that Arriva would get a system that use the Kent smart card.

Q – Designers tell bus companies what style of buses they can have and they are predominately large buses, in town centres we put in bus lanes which cause problems, surely a lot of problems could be solved by bus companies using smaller buses?

Mr Balfour replied that larger buses were needed at the beginning and end of the school/working day, if companies had double decker buses which they did not use during the off peak then this would have a high capital cost, it would be better to have fewer bigger buses than more smaller buses.

Q – Why are buses getting larger, some are too large to go down certain streets?

Mr Lightowler explained that buses had to be DDA compliant and therefore they needed to be wider and lower in order to facilitate wheelchair accessibility.  Seating capacity in the lower deck was therefore lost to provide space for wheelchairs and using double decker’s replaced the lost seating capacity.  Wheelchair users and people who took buggies on buses appreciated these being facilitated.  Buses were required to be DDA compliant by January 2017.  On a positive note being able to get wheelchairs and buggies onto buses enabled people in rural and other areas to use buses who were able to do so before.

Q – Bus and Rail services to not work together to provide a connected travel service for passengers, as the Cabinet Member when rail franchises come up for renewal can you make representations to encourage rail operators to work with bus operators

Mr Balfour agreed that the point made regarding the opportunity provided when rail franchises were up for renewal was very important

 Q – What is the benefit of the smart card scheme for residents?

Mr Lightowler replied that initially the smart card scheme would have no financial benefit to the user, but there were advantages such as occupiers of new developments could be given a smart card when they moved in to encourage them to use the bus service.   Parents could give their children a pre-loaded smart card so that their child would always be able to use a bus if necessary. Once a card was registered it was possible to opt for auto top up which would be more convenient than having to have change to pay for the bus journey. Also the operators could add more products to the card, such as weekly or monthly tickets.

Mr Balfour added that the newly launched smart card was a starting point which could be built upon.  Ultimately it might be possible to persuade operators to provide a discount for using the card. He welcomed suggestions from the Select Committee on the use of the smart card.

The Chairman thanked Mr Balfour for attending the meeting.