Parwich Bus Service
Contact has been made with both District and County Councils and the Parish Council is pleased to summarise the response from the Senior Project Officer Local Bus Network at Derbyshire County Council as follows:
1. As the tendering authority for supported bus services, Derbyshire County Council (County) determines which contracts it supports and this is not a decision that would be made by either the bus operator or its drivers.
2. Any rumours made by any driver would be complete speculation and are wholly without foundation.
3. The current expiry dates for the two buses are as follows:
i. Services 101-104 Ashbourne – Thorpe/Parwich/Kirk Ireton/Hulland Ward School Expires 25/10/2014
ii. Service 449 Ilam – Bakewell (Alternate Mondays) Expires 23/03/2015
4. As it is not permitted for County to enter into open ended agreements with operators to provide bus services, all of the contracts have end dates. When the end date for any contract is reached it may be possible to extend the contract for a further period, or alternatively a new contract could be tendered. The end date of a contract therefore certainly does not signify the end date of a service and, equally, the presence of a contract end date does not secure the continuation of any service until that time is reached, as the provision of any contract is dependent upon passenger use and the availability of funding.
5. County can confirm that there are no imminent or any current plans to change the services for Parwich. The Authority does face significant funding cuts over the next few years and this may have an impact on the funds available to support bus services across the county, however, as budgets for future years have still to be determined this is currently an unknown. Regardless, the Authority can assure the village that maintaining accessibility across the county will remain a high priority. Should it subsequently prove necessary to withdraw supported local bus services in the county as a result of funding cuts then this would not be done without undertaking a consultation process beforehand.
6. Whilst the bus service providing home to school transport has become a separate school days only contract, it is still a registered bus service open to the general public.
7. Any journey requiring a connection (Swift Services) will have a limited appeal to travellers, particularly when these involve infrequent services and given the many conflicting potential opportunities for connections and other constraints to timetables, it is not always possible to provide ideal connection opportunities. Whilst the Authority acknowledge that the current timetable does not provide ideal outbound connections with the Swift service towards Derby, the return afternoon connections are now good. Conversely, the previous timetable provided for good outbound connectivity but was very poor for the return journeys. We will have a look at the outbound journeys for the current timetable to see if these can be changed to provide for better connectivity onto the Swift.
County Councillor Simon Spencer attended Parwich Parish Council meeting on Wednesday, along with nine parishioners and he was able to hear the strength of feeling in support of the bus service and the need for improvements, particularly to the connection times. He will take these views back to the appropriate Cabinet Member. He explained that smart ticketing gives the Authority full details about the number of journeys made on each bus route and stressed how important it was to use this subsidised bus service, to show the Authority that it is an vital provision for the community.
Parwich Parish Council will be setting up a public meeting to discuss all the issues around Public Transport. Members of the Parish Council are aiming for a meeting in April, but the exact timing is dependent on the availability of the appropriate representatives from both County and District Councils.
Parwich Parish Council
Thursday 16th January 2014
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