The Parish Clerk would like to draw your attention to the following item minuted at the last Parish Council Meeting.
In response to the Comprehensive Spending Review and associated Local Government Financial Settlement Derbyshire County Council is consulting on proposals to remove subsidies for local bus services from October 2017 and replace them with a ‘demand responsive transport’ alternative.
This proposal would result in the discontinuation of all subsidised routes including the 102 which serves Parwich.
The consultation is taking the form of a questionnaire which individuals can complete on-line or by a paper copy. This consultation ends on the 24th of April. It was noted that publicity for this consultation has already been provided by the Parwich Blog.
A Councillor had been advised that the average usage per journey on this route has only been around two seats. The Council considered it highly unlikely that a commercially viable, unsubsidised, service could be sustained based on this level of demand.
It was considered that the prospects for successfully opposing the removal of the subsidies (and hence the services they support) were poor given the unlikely availability of funds to re-instate them. As funding is proposed for the ‘demand responsive transport’ alternative, and as this is a new proposal, more realistic opportunities to influence its implementation may exist.
A member of the public had communicated to the Council a number of ideas that they hoped might enable a service to be preserved or even enhanced.
The Council would want a public transport to exist for the village. It did not consider that it had powers materially different from those of the general public to campaign to challenge or modify the proposals.
Should any one wish to lead and manage a campaign to influence the outcome of these proposals, to ensure the best possible public transport provision for Parwich the Parish Council would consider requests for support favourably.
If you would like to be involved with this please contact the Parish Clerk. Andrew Martin by e-mail at clerk@parwichparishcouncil.org.uk
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