Issue - meetings

Forward Plan Ref: 2014/025

Contact: Andrew Pau, Strategic Manager, Waste & Transport Tel: (01865) 815867

Report by Deputy Director of Environment & Economy – Commercial & Delivery (CMDE13E).

The information in this report is exempt in that it falls within the following prescribed category:

Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)

Agreed subject to minor amendments to Service 242 and C1/T1

Agreed

Agreed

The Cabinet Member for Environment considered proposals for subsidised bus services in the Witney, Woodstock and Chipping Norton area and two other services elsewhere in the county.

Item F – Mr Darch undertook to discuss with the operator the possibility of additional evening services.

Councillor Sanders welcomed the savings under Services F G and H as a result of these services being operated commercially but asked for confirmation regarding the viability of the operator and the long term ability to continue the services.

Mr Field confirmed that under deregulation rules operators were able to run a service if they so wished.  Officers monitored operators to ensure services were maintained.  If an operator was unable to continue then each service would need to be reviewed on a case by case basis. In this case the operator was a community interest company operating smaller buses and therefore its operating costs were lower.  They were a reputable operation with a solid structure and the recommendation before the cabinet Member had been based on good data.

Officers were thanked for their work on the review.

Having regard to the arguments and options set out in the documentation before him, the representations made to him and the further considerations set out above the Cabinet Member for Environment confirmed his decision as follows:

a)                 make decisions on subsidy for the services described in this report on the basis of the tender prices (and the periods of time) as set out in Supplementary Exempt Annex 2;

b)                 record that in the opinion of the Cabinet Member the decisions made in (a) above are urgent in that any delay likely to be caused by the call in process would result in service discontinuity and in accordance with the requirements of Scrutiny Procedure Rule 17(b) those decisions should not be subject to the call in process;          

c)                  authorise the production of timetable booklets to publicise subsidised and commercial bus services in the Witney, Chipping Norton and Woodstock area to coincide with the introduction of revised services in June 2014.

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Cabinet Member for Environment

………………………………  2014