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ITEM TIC20

TRANSPORT IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE -
4 MARCH 2004

REVIEW OF GRANTS FOR PROVISION OF COMMUNITY TRANSPORT

Report by Head of Transport

Introduction

  1. This report invites the Committee to consider future funding for various community transport services currently funded by the County Council. These include services specifically provided for people with mobility impairments. In all of these cases, current County Council funding arrangements come to an end on 31 March 2004. The report also deals with two related community transport issues on which decisions are requested.

    2. Review of ReadiBus Dial-a-Ride Shoppers' Services

  2. Readibus operates Dial-a Ride (DAR) services (including timetabled shoppers' services) in much of Central and West Berkshire. These services provide pre-booked door-to-door transport using fully accessible vehicles for people with mobility impairments who would not easily be able to use conventional public transport. The Readibus operation is funded by a number of Councils, most notably Reading Borough Council, and in the last financial year has received local authority subsidy payments totalling over £500,000.

  3. For a number of years Readibus has operated three shoppers' bus services from South Oxfordshire into Reading on behalf of Oxfordshire County Council and our overall contribution towards this currently amounts to £2,882. Current County Council funding arrangements for two of these three DAR services ends on 31 March 2004. The services under review are those operating between Henley and Reading (and from communities en route) and between Tokers Green and Reading.

  4. Consultation has been carried out with the appropriate Parish Councils and Parish Transport Representatives, Henley Town Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and relevant County Councillors, as well as the Committee on Inclusive Transport (formerly the Consultative Committee on Transport for Mobility-Impaired People). Copies of all consultation responses have been deposited in the Members' Resource Centre and are also summarised below.

  5. The service from Henley operates one day per week and was last reviewed in January 2002 by the Executive. Readibus has informed us that, although there are fewer passengers registered for this service than three years ago (pre-registration is a legal requirement for such services), use of the service which dropped substantially two years ago has started to increase this year. There are currently 32 passengers registered (54 in 2001/2), but, in contrast to the total number of passenger journeys in 2001/2 (100), the number for the first nine months of 2003/4 has already reached 108. This equates to a cost per passenger journey of £12.87. It should be remembered that Dial-a-Ride services are expensive to operate and generally result in a much higher cost per passenger journey than conventional bus services. Nevertheless, in most cases, these services offer users their only opportunity to travel.

  6. Letters of support for the continuation of this service have been received from Eye & Dunsden Parish Council (which also calls for more advertising of the service) and from Councillor Jonathan Barter, the Public Transport Representative from Henley. The Committee for Inclusive Transport has also expressed a wish that this service should continue.

  7. Readibus has offered to continue to operate this service at the same cost as at present, adjusted for inflation. I would recommend that the Committee continue to fund this service for a period of two years, at which time the Readibus service to Goring will also be due for review. This would give the opportunity for a full review of Dial-a-Ride services in this area of the County and, by that time, the situation with regard to Dial-a-Ride services in the whole of South Oxfordshire District may be clearer.

  8. The former Director of Environmental Services reported to the Committee in January 2003 that the Readibus Dial-a-Ride shoppers' service operating one day per week between Tokers Green, Chazey Heath and Reading had seen a substantial reduction in use, with only two passengers having used the service in the first six months of the 2002/3 year. Rather than proposing a withdrawal of the service, Readibus had however, suggested that the service could be made available on demand on the basis of a reduced level of grant on a retainer basis - in this case £50 - and the Committee accepted this suggestion with gratitude.

  9. I am pleased to report that this approach has proved successful, and Readibus has recently reported that there has been some subsequent increased take-up of this service. Although the number of registered residents has reduced from seven to four, the actual number of journeys made in the last 12 months has increased to 28. Letters of support for the continuation of this service have been received from both Kidmore End and Mapledurham Parish Councils. The Committee for Inclusive Transport has also expressed a wish that this service should continue.

  10. Readibus has proposed that a similar but slightly enhanced arrangement be put in place for the next 12 months at a cost of £100, in order to retain this limited facility and further evaluate its future. I would recommend that the Committee again accept this proposal and record its gratitude to Readibus for its help concerning the retention of this service.

    11. Review of Grants for Locally Organised Transport Schemes

  11. Oxfordshire County Council has continued to give grants for a number of locally-organised transport schemes, some of which date back to the 1980s. In all these cases, the local community is either providing funds or volunteer effort (or both) and therefore the absolute cost of these schemes is low.

    12. Standlake and Northmoor Community Bus

  12. This service was set up in 2000 with funding for one year from the Oxfordshire Rural Transport Partnership to initiate a trial fortnightly shoppers' community bus service. This proved worthwhile and therefore in 2001 funding was requested from Oxfordshire County Council in order that this project continue on a weekly basis. This service was last reviewed in September 2002 by the Executive and a grant of up to £700 p.a. was awarded in order to continue until 31 March 2004, but subject to review should the potential Abingdon-Witney bus service be introduced. A request has recently been received from the organisers for funding to be renewed for a further year at a reduced level of £685.00.

  13. The project functions as a pre-booked door-to-door shopping service from Standlake, Northmoor, Bablockhythe and Hardwick into Witney under a Section 19 licence. It operates every Saturday and the organisers hire community minibuses from both Aston and Buckland, using a rota of seven volunteer drivers. Fares charged are in line with commercial levels.

  14. The service continues to be successful, with the average number of passengers per trip increasing from 6.6 in 2002 to 7.4 in 2003, with a total annual expenditure to the organisers of £1761. The County Council's grant represents a subsidy cost per passenger journey of £1.81 (as compared with £2.12 in 2002). This is a reasonable level of support for such a project and represents good value for money.

  15. Officers have attended meetings with the organisers and discussed the level of duplication between this community bus service and the no. 45 Standlake - Witney bus service (Thursday shoppers' service), which is referred to later in this report (paragraph 24). There is in fact little duplication and the loss of this Saturday service would be seen by the community as a severe hardship, now that it has been provided with this facility. In discussion with the organisers, officers have however drawn attention to the ramifications of the introduction of an Abingdon-Witney bus service.

  16. Very recently news has been received that the County Council's bid to the Department for Transport for Rural Bus Challenge funding for an Abingdon-Witney bus service has been successful and the full bid of £410,218 has been awarded. The introduction of this service on an hourly basis Monday-Saturday is planned for 5 July 2004 and it will indeed duplicate some of the route of this community bus scheme. Nevertheless there will be some current passengers who will not be directly served by this new service and officers have already begun discussions with the organisers about the possibility of amending the current route to serve other communities for whom this Saturday service would be a benefit, in particular South Leigh.

  17. I therefore recommend that support for this project should continue for a further year, but that officers continue to have discussions with the organisers as to the best way in which this service can serve the various local communities following the introduction of the new Abingdon-Witney bus service on 5 July 2004.

    18. Yarnton Care Committee Shopping Minibus Service

  18. This service functions as a door-to-door shopping service from Yarnton to Kidlington for elderly residents who find it very difficult or impossible to use other forms of transport and operates on a fortnightly basis. The village already operates a community car scheme. Although a Dial-a-Ride service is available, BCTA, the local operator, cannot guarantee that the regular users of the Yarnton Minibus would all be able to have a seat on the same bus. The minibus, which is hired from Glebe House at a cost of £12 per session, operates with volunteer drivers. Support for this service has come from the Committee on Inclusive Transport.

  19. When this service was last reviewed a year ago, the then Director of Environmental Services highlighted to the Executive the differential between fares charged on this service and the standard bus service from Yarnton to Kidlington, which is subsidised by the County Council and suggested that officers discuss with the scheme administrator the question of fare levels and future financing of this service, which could, as a result, enable it to become more self-financing. He further suggested that a concessionary fare could be offered to entitled passengers by arrangement with Cherwell District Council in line with that Council's appropriate scheme. The Committee therefore agreed a reduced grant to the Yarnton Care Committee of up to £100 for the financial year 2003/4 to cover any shortfall in operation of its minibus service on condition that the fares charged were equivalent to those payable on the standard Yarnton-Kidington bus service.

  20. The Yarnton Care Committee duly claimed the grant and we have subsequently received no information which would intimate that the Committee was experiencing any funding problems as a result of the County Council's decision.

  21. My officers have written to the Yarnton Care Committee, inviting it to submit an application for grant for future funding, but, at the time of writing this report, no reply had been received. Should an application be received, I will report orally to this Committee and make an appropriate recommendation. In the event of no application being made, we will assume that further funding is no longer required and will therefore end our subsidy of this service.

    22. Aston Parish Minibus

  22. A request has been received from the organisers of the Aston Parish Minibus for financial support to enable this organisation to buy out the lease of its minibus, the cost of which would amount to £5,205.

  23. Officers have met with representatives of the organisation to discuss details of its application and explore the possibilities whereby help might be given.

  24. The main use of the minibus is for the operation of a Thursday shoppers' bus from Aston into Witney. Unfortunately this almost totally duplicates the operation of Stagecoach service 19 on its journey from Aston into Witney, which is a service which has operated with County Council subsidy since February 2002. Although the minibus service does cater specifically for the needs of elderly passengers, those who are unable to access the village bus stop for service 19 can be helped via the Ring-a-Ride service, which the County Council also supports financially. In these circumstances therefore, it is difficult to justify further financial subsidy to public transport in this village over and above what we already provide.

  25. With the aim of finding some means of assistance to this community organisation, officers have suggested that the organisation might take on the operation of the Thursday shoppers' bus service into Witney from South Leigh, Stanton Harcourt and Standlake (service 45), the contract for which (contract no PT/W 1) has just been prematurely surrendered by the existing operator. Officers had considered that the Aston organisation could incorporate this service into its own Thursday schedule without too much difficulty. It has however, not been possible to obtain the organisation's agreement to this. In the meantime officers are negotiating with other operators to enable service 45 to continue operation.

    26. Rural Transport Partnership Funding

  26. Consideration of general Rural Transport Partnership (RTP) issues was last the subject of a committee report in August 2001. The former Public Transport Sub-Committee agreed inter alia to 'authorise the Director of Environmental Services to approve up to £10,000 revenue support per annum for individual RTP initiative applications in Oxfordshire subject to the project being entirely public transport orientated and subject to the project covering the entire county (or at least two RTP areas) or that the 'local contribution' comes from a funding partnership between the County Council and the appropriate District Council.'

  27. This decision has contributed to the steady stream of new RTP projects which have been initiated in Oxfordshire. More recently however, since the appointment of the new Rural Transport Partnership Officer (RTPO), the working relationship between the County Council, the four rural District Councils and the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council in developing these projects has become extremely close. In particular the joint working between my officers and the RTPO and their achievement in involving a number of new funding partners has led to the eventually successful Rural Bus Challenge bid for the Abingdon-Witney bus service.

  28. It has recently been the subject of comment that the four District Council partners all fund a proportion of the RTPO's salary whereas the County Council does not. (The major share of the salary is still funded by the Countryside Agency and this will continue so long as the Countryside Agency has the overall responsibility for funding RTP projects). It is now felt that, in the interests of maintaining the excellent working relationship between the local authority partners, there should be a resolution of this anomaly. The partners have suggested an equitable division of expenditure towards the RTPO's salary which would entail a County Council contribution of £1052.05 in the current financial year and £2104.10 in 2004/5.

  29. Expenditure from the delegated revenue fund for RTP projects mentioned above has never achieved the £10,000 limit since the fund was established. I am therefore proposing that the Committee agree that the Council should fund the proportion of RTPO's salary as agreed by the RTP funding partners (currently at the above levels), subject to the four existing District Council partners maintaining their funding proportion overall, and that this contribution should be funded from the delegated revenue fund at no extra cost to the County Council.

    Financial Implications

  30. Subject to inflation increases, the recommendations proposed will not result in any budgetary increase.

    31. Implications for People Living in Poverty

  31. Community Transport services are more likely to be used by elderly residents of the County, many of whom have no other means of transport. Furthermore the Dial-a-Ride services aim to enable extra transport opportunities for people with mobility impairments. The people who benefit from them are more likely than other sections of the population to have low incomes. These extra transport opportunities improve access to community facilities and therefore contribute to improving the quality of life for some people living in poverty.

    32. RECOMMENDATIONS

  32. The Committee is RECOMMENDED:

          1. to pay ReadiBus £100 as a retainer to enable the Dial-a-Ride service between Dyson's Wood, Tokers Green, Chazey Heath and Reading to be provided on request on a maximum of one day per week, to thank ReadiBus for this offer, and to review the situation again in a year's time;

          2. to pay ReadiBus up to £1910 per annum but with continuing annual adjustments for inflation to secure the continuation of the Dial-a-Ride service between Henley and Reading for a period of two years commencing 1 April 2004;

          3. to secure the continuation of the weekly Standlake and Northmoor Community Bus Service by a payment of up to £685 for the period 1 April 2004 until 31 March 2005, subject to the organisation agreeing to vary the route in accordance with County Council proposals following the introduction of the new Abingdon to Witney bus service;

          4. not to offer any financial support to the Aston Parish Minibus organisation towards the buying-out of its minibus lease, for the reasons set out in paragraph 23 of this report; and

          5. to agree to contribute towards the local authority partners' share of the Rural Transport Partnership Officer's salary on the basis of the formula agreed by the Rural Transport Partnership Steering Group, subject to the four existing District Council partners maintaining their funding proportion overall, and that this contribution should be funded annually as from the 2003/4 financial year out of the delegated revenue fund for individual Rural Transport Partnership initiative applications.

DAVID McKIBBIN
Head of Transport

Background papers: Correspondence with service providers and user representatives (refer to contact officer)

Contact Officer: Alan Pope Tel: Oxford 815585

13 February 2004

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