Nottinghamshire Bus Services

Paddy Tipping recently received a
Written Answer regarding Nottinghamshire bus services from Tony McNulty, which revealed that government funding had been 5.43 million. To put this in perspective that works out as about £1.80 per year for each of the 750,000 people in Nottinghamshire. Given that a typical car or bus user is likely to be spending hundreds of pounds annually on transport, this is totally insignificant. Whether you are in favour or not of public transport, you have to question the purpose of funding at such a trivial level.

I live outside Nottingham, so I have the problem that the buses are very infrequent and relatively expensive. Consequently I don't really use them. This Department rural bus subsidy study found that the median cost of continued (those that weren't axed) rural bus services in 2000-2001 was £2.83 per mile. On that reckoning the cost of running a bus from my village to the Nottingham City centre would be at least £30. With generally a handful of passengers on each, they are obviously not very economic. It is possible that if the service was better, passengers would increase, and it would become economic, but it would require every bus to be almost full. Sadly I can't see that happening outside the city, even if the service was free to users.

He also received a Written Answer from Charlotte Atkins, Transport, regarding the potential extension of the Nottingham Express Transit system, a new tram system. The Department is currently evaluating the proposals.