SWINDON Council is to establish a bus charter defining the services it expects operators to provide in urban and rural Swindon as it seeks to create a fully commercial bus network across the borough.

Cabinet will be asked tomorrow to approve a revised local bus strategy. This has seen the council and bus operators working together to ensure the network is sustainable in the long term in response to increasing costs and reduced Government support.

The strategy will apply to existing and future public transport contracts.

The council is waiting for operators to provide costings for its proposals, with the final network expected to be announced in July.

But it has now revealed the principles of the proposed strategy, including the bus charter, which the main bus firms, Thamesdown Transport and Stagecoach, will be expected to support.

As part of the charter, the commercial bus network will be expected to provide a frequent daytime service to the town centre, Monday to Saturday, from all the main urban areas of Swindon.

This will include a service from each main area to the town centre, arriving by 8am and another leaving after 5.30pm. There will be regular half-hourly daytime services between 9am and 5pm.

The council wants frequent daytime services into Swindon town centre, Monday to Saturday, from Highworth and Wroughton. This will include a service into the centre arriving by 8am and another leaving after 5.30pm, plus half-hourly daytime services from 9am to 5pm.

The charter will require a frequent daytime service to Swindon town centre Monday to Saturday from nearby towns and cities in adjoining areas.

The commercial bus network will be supplemented by the provision of evening bus services in the urban area at least hourly from 7pm to 11pm, supplemented by half-hourly Sunday bus services in the urban area between 8am and 9pm.

The council says it will work with commercial bus operators to produce cost-effective solutions for socially necessary elements of bus services in non-commercial urban and rural areas.

But rural services will be reduced to peak-time journeys for work and one or two return shopping journeys. They will be existing services initially which will be revised to meet this requirement and the focus will be on maintaining a link with Swindon.

Coun Keith Williams, cabinet member for highways, strategic transport and leisure, said he expected the new routes to be implemented in mid-October.

He said: “What we’re saying is, is it possible to use the existing commercial network and make tweaks to it? And is it possible we can use not just the bus companies but other commercial providers to provide a link-type service? Even if the bus network cannot get to the passengers, can they get to the bus network?”

He said it was not compulsory for the bus firms to agree to the charter and there was no way of enforcing it, but even if they refused to sign it, negotiations could take place around the proposals contained in it.

A route suggestion

Grandfather Bill Gulliver, of Penhill, is part of a group seeking to keep a bus service for the Penhill Valley and is suggesting diverting the No 17 into the area every 30 minutes, as the subsidised No 21 is under threat.

He said: “It just means diverting it down to the valley again, and that’s it. It wouldn’t cost them any more in finance. It just seems a sensible idea to me.

“But they say it’s not possible because of the length of the bus, but that’s not true because skip lorries go down there.”

FULLY COMMERCIAL ROUTE MAY NOT BE VIABLE

Swindon Council’s cabinet has agreed to create a wholly commercial bus network as part of a new bus strategy.

The full council agreed at a budget meeting in February agreed to slash annual subsidies from £400,000 to £200,000 to help close a £15m budget gap in 2013/14.

The network is currently 95 per cent commercial. A wholly commercial bus service is one in which all routes make profit.

A total of 15 routes are currently subsidised and Swindon Council is looking at these services. These are the 7A, 21, 22, 25, 26, 47, 65, 71, 46, 48, 49, 70A/72A, 64 and 65.

The new bus strategy states: “The borough has a high level of commercial bus services and has placed the emphasis on helping operators reach a position where all bus services are commercial.

“However it is appreciated that in meeting the needs of passengers requiring a socially necessary service this will take time to attain.”

Coun Keith Williams, cabinet member for highways, strategic transport and leisure, said fully commercial was something to target but thought it was not achievable, and would personally try to persuade the council to maintain the current level of subsidy for three years to allow the changes to bed in.

He said: “I think you will always find out there are some elements that do require a level of support.
“And I think in the current economic climate, aiming for a completely commercial network might not be achievable.”