Still time to express your views on updated bus support criteria

There’s still time to express your views on the criteria Cheshire East Council applies for giving financial support to bus operators in the borough.

The public consultation on the council’s additional bus support criteria runs until 6 August. You can complete the consultation online at: 

https://surveys.cheshireeast.gov.uk/s/BusSupportCriteria23/

Buses in Cheshire East play a key role in providing access to jobs and services and connecting people and places.

This consultation is not a review of the current buses operating in Cheshire East. It’s about the criteria we use to decide which bus services in the borough we give financial support to, and which we do not.

The council has a budget of £2.4m to spend on bus routes that are not seen as commercially viable by bus operators but are still deemed as important to run.

This financial support for bus services is prioritised using a set of 10 criteria adopted in August 2011, which help to deliver the following key objectives:

● Supporting the economy and environmental sustainability

● Improving access and social inclusion

● Bus service performance

The council’s highways and transport committee has agreed there is a need to update the criteria to reflect the council’s current corporate priorities, policy objectives in the council’s local transport plan (LTP), the needs of local communities and the challenges facing the bus industry following the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are now asking the public for their view on three new criteria, which are proposed to be added to the existing ten. They are:

● Contribution to carbon reduction: To consider bus service carbon emissions, in line with the council’s environment strategy and the authority’s commitment to be carbon neutral by 2025 and its further pledge to make Cheshire East a carbon neutral borough by 2045;

● Areas of deprivation covered by the bus route; and

● Passenger numbers since the Covid pandemic

The decision-making framework relates to the council’s provision of fixed route, scheduled bus services, to supplement the network that can be provided commercially. Any consideration of the role of flexible, demand responsive transport, such as FlexiLink and Go-Too is the subject of further reports to the council’s highways and transport committee.

People can request alternative formats of the consultation by contacting the council’s customer contact centre on 0300 123 5500. Printed copies are available in local libraries.