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  • Petition
  • ePetition details

    Save Pembury's Buses

    We the undersigned petition the council to In signing this petition, I request that Kent County Council reconsider their proposed reduction of grants for Pembury bus routes. The schedule of savings will remove up to 8 critical travel options for our community. These are essential for residents who do not have a vehicle access to any other transport alternative. Pembury needs to maintain its bus connections for our resident. Please fight the proposed cuts in support grants.

    The identified savings remove support for the Go Coach 208. Although the support grant is substantial at £182,767 this is an essential service for our schoolchildren who are already experiencing overcrowding and cancellation of daily buses.

    A vital Sunday service, the Arriva 6, leaving residents with no Sunday service to Tunbridge Wells. This is for a saving of £11,700 and will be terrible for a community of nearly 7,000 residents.

    The Kent Karrier is also a much-needed service for residents of advanced age or who have disabilities all whom will suffer the consequences of a saving of £28,818 and having their life options sadly diminished.

    We are also under threat of losing the early morning commuter run of the 277 from Pembury to Tunbridge Wells with few alternatives.

    The above are just some examples of the losses the village will incur and goes against the local plans ethos to encourage better public transport links from Pembury.

    Pembury is a growing and dynamic community that deserves good transport links. If the proposals go through our residents will be disadvantaged with many being unable to travel, others resorting to cars and adding to the severe congestion and pollution already experienced on our roads. I am signing this petition and strongly object to these proposed cuts for Pembury. I request that Kent County Council reconsider their options.

    This ePetition ran from 15/03/2022 to 13/06/2022 and has now finished.

    90 people signed this ePetition.

    Council response

    Dear Paul
    Thank you for your petition received on 14 June 2022, regarding your request that Kent County Council (KCC) reconsiders our proposed reduction of grants for Pembury bus routes. I apologise for the delay in responding to you.
    In accordance with our 'Petition Service' as your petition contains less than 1,000 signatures I have investigated and reviewed your concerns in my role as the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport.
    As I'm sure you are aware, financial pressures on our budget means that we face an intensely challenging period ahead when tough decisions will need to be taken to guarantee services for our most vulnerable residents. The impact of this does unfortunately mean that, as a Council, we are having to consider savings measures across a whole range of services.
    The financial support of public bus services is an entirely discretionary activity and several authorities have already reduced or stopped completely their funding in this area. We have managed to protect this funding and the buses that it provides until now but, unfortunately, the rising costs of providing our statutory duties and the legal responsibility to set a balanced budget means that the Bus Support budget in 2022/23 has had to be set at a lower level.
    The only way that we can save the money that we need to, is to provide fewer services. The contracts for withdrawal have been identified using KCC's established criteria for prioritising our support, which considers when services run and value for money calculated, taking account of the costs of contracts and the use that is made of them. In this context, we also need to consider that less use is being made of services since the pandemic, meaning that these contracts offer a reducing value for taxpayers' money.
    Having identified the services, their withdrawal was then subject to a full public consultation and an equality impact assessment, the full results of which have been considered by KCC's Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee to inform a decision made by myself as Cabinet Member for this area.
    I note your comments around the Kent Karrier and I am pleased to confirm that a decision was made to protect these services. In part, this is in order to react to findings of the Equality Impact Assessment for this group of users but it is also in the interests of ensuring that some level of service remains for all parts of the County in the absence of a regular bus service. We do accept that the service offered by Kent Karrier is much more limited than some of the services that have needed to be withdrawn but the retention of these services does seek to strike a balance between the financial necessity and retaining some basic service for users.
    The absence of funding and the challenging commercial conditions in the form of reduced revenue and increased costs that operators are having to contend with does mean that there is little by means of further mitigation that we are able to offer. Our Public Transport officers will however work with communities or parents groups to support them in the event that there is an appetite to find local solutions and we are going to be increasing the funding that we make available through our Community Transport Grant if there are groups of residents who wish to provide their own transport.
    With regard to the KCC supported service 208, I understand that you have already been in correspondence with Phil Lightowler and that he has confirmed that this service will no longer be withdrawn due to the withdrawal of the commercial 208A, operated by Autocar.
    Thank you for taking the time to raise a petition and bringing your concerns to my attention. I am sorry that we are no longer able to commit to supporting the number 6 and 277 bus services, however I trust that my review has clarified our position on this matter.
    Yours sincerely
    David Brazier
    Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport