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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.
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