Hampshire charity praises protected bus funding for vulnerable residents
The County Council's reversed plans to cut all of its transport funding to Community First
Last updated 17th Sep 2024
A charity operating community transport has hailed the county council’s decision not to cut all of its funding so it can preserve local transport for the county’s most vulnerable residents.
Community First’s chief executive Tim Houghton, said the news was "good news" and a "real positive", with the charity operating in seven of the 11 Hampshire districts on its community transport service of ‘Connect’ Dial A Ride and Call and Go services.
It also has semi-scheduled routes serving rural and isolated communities, and Mr Houghton said that the reconsideration of Hampshire County Council to maintain part of the funding for these services would mean it can carry on helping vulnerable residents.
Initially, the county council proposed withdrawing all the £800k funding for these services and non-statutory local buses to save £1.7m, which could help the administration fill the budget gap of the increased £175m deficit by 2025/26.
However, after the second round of public consultation, the county council has considered a reduction of £587,000 instead.
Mr Houghton said: "It’s good news. We see it as a real positive step. We’re very grateful that Hampshire County Council has taken the time to listen to the consultation and reflect on some of the views that have been expressed through consultation. It has also taken the time to consider alternative ways in which they can protect some funding for community transport.
"There are still some cuts, so naturally, we’re disappointed but understand the difficulty that’s facing in Hampshire. There are some cuts around the funding for some of the other services we deliver, like ‘Wheels to Work, which is the moped high scheme for people to get to work, and around some of the scheduled bus services we run.
"But the real win is that they’re going to protect the funding for community transport, which is the ‘Dial-and-ride’, the ‘Call-to-go’ and the ‘Group Hire’ services, which are the services that a lot of vulnerable people and people with disabilities rely on and what we were lobbying to try and keep."
Mr Houghton explained that under the new proposal, some of the routes will now do school runs in the mornings and afternoons during term time, which will be "cost-effective" for the council and, at the same time, allow the protection of the service, a "win-win" for both sides.
"The caveat for that is that they want us to try and include within that some school contracts, so we’re developing a new model. The big issue for Hampshire, and one of the reasons why they’re facing such a big deficit in their budget and an increasing deficit, is because of the rising costs of school transport for Special Educational Needs pupils.
"We think we can do an offer where we can run some school transport in the morning and the afternoon during term time, and then in the middle of the day and outside of those school run hours, we can offer some community transport.
"I think that’s a really cost-effective way of helping Hampshire County Council meet statutory objectives and a good way of bus protecting some of the community transport for more older and vulnerable residents that would otherwise lose it.
"So it’s a bit win-win. It does mean Hampshire has to put some money into community transport and protect some of those budgets, but they can see the added value in doing that, and yeah, we’re just very grateful that they’ve taken the time to consider it."
When asked about the impact on users due to the change, Mr Houghton said that people would "much rather have some transport than none at all or very scant transport".
"What it will mean for some of our users is that they may not be able to get transport quite as early in the morning as they used to, if we used to start services at 9am or 9.30am, it might be 10am or 10.30am.
He added: "I think they’ll be relieved that a large chunk of the service has been protected. Hampshire only looks at maybe up to 10 school contracts across the county, so it’s not like every single bus used for ‘Dial-and-Ride’ or ‘Call-and-go’.
"It’s a reasonable compromise, and I hope that most residents and most beneficiaries of our services will be thankful that there’s still some service that they can get and get them to their social clubs, their social activities and their teams and the health appointments that they need to attend."
Despite the reduction of funding and the new model they will implement, Mr Houghton said that "everybody that wants to travel will still be able to travel" with "slightly less choice on the times" but that they will be able to travel.
On October 14, Hampshire residents will learn the final decision on the 13 proposals, which are being scrutinised at the moment, to determine whether they will be rolled out.