Cheshire East response to ADCA

We received this form Roger Milns:


Dear Editors – please see below the email reply from Cheshire East to ADCA's letter of complaint to their CEO.

ADCA will be monitoring the reliability of the GOTO bus and will be feeding this information back to Cheshire East.
thanks
Roger

Date: 11 October 2024

Our Reference: 27414141

Your reference:ADCA Letter regarding Audlem Bus Service

Dear Mr Millns

Thank you for your email of 26 September 2024 regarding D&G's decision to withdraw bus services 70, 71, 72 and 73. The Council recognises that local buses can offer a valuable lifeline to rural residents and that withdrawal of these services will have an impact on the way people live their lives. You have raised a number of points in your email which I will address. I am also aware that you have received a reply in relation to comments on our recent parking consultation, which was sent separately.

As you are aware, Council officers are in ongoing discussions with Cllr Rachel Bailey regarding this issue and are also in correspondence with Aphra Brandreth MP.

By way of background, D&G contacted the Council on 31st May 2024 raising concerns about the viability of the Nantwich rural services from their perspective. During June and July 2024, discussions were held with D&G and negotiations were underway. However, before the negotiations had concluded, D&G made the decision to withdraw the Nantwich rural services on 6th August 2024. The Council received the deregistration notice on 7th August.

The Council recognises the significant impact of the withdrawal of the D&G services. However, residents have not been left without public transport services. Whilst the Go-Too bus service is unconventional, flexible transport services are operated by a considerable number of Councils across the UK and offer several advantages over fixed-route services. It operates from 7am to 9pm Monday to Saturday, so starts earlier and finishes later than the fixed-route services which have been withdrawn.

The Council does not agree with your interpretation of reports, considered at Highways Committee in January 2024, that links decisions on car parking charges solely with the availability of bus services. Parking charges are not dependent on local bus services being available; they make a meaningful contribution to a range of transport alternatives including flexible transport options such as Go-Too.

Whilst Go-Too does require to be booked in advance, this can be as little as a couple of minutes in advance for passengers using the smartphone 'app'. A telephone booking line is also available for travellers who do not have access to digital technology. Telephone bookings need to be made a couple of hours or so in advance (or booked before 5pm on Friday for travel on Saturday). It should also be acknowledged that passengers using the previous fixed route services would also have had to plan their journey in advance, as the buses ran fairly infrequently.

As the service is available on-demand, it provides much greater flexibility to attend medical and other appointments and for a much longer time day than fixed-route bus services. Go-Too can be used by elderly residents to socialise and access community groups, just as they would have done using a fixed-route bus service.

Go-Too uses minibuses with a maximum of 16 seats and all vehicles are configured for wheelchair users. A wheelchair assessment is required before the first booking can be made, to ensure compatibility with the equipment on the vehicles. Wheelchair users can either stay in their wheelchair on the vehicle (with the wheelchair securely attached) or transfer to a seat, as is their preference. Go-Too vehicles are therefore accessible for disabled passengers. Whilst the fixed-route services used larger vehicles the average passenger loadings were very low, which suggests that the Go-Too vehicle size should not provide any limitations in practice.

The Council has introduced measures to support affected passengers, including changes to how concessionary bus passes can be used on Go-Too.

Effective from 1st September 2024, the following applies to concessionary bus pass holders:

Monday to Friday (before 9:30am): Passengers can travel at half the full adult fare.

Monday to Friday (after 9:30am): Passengers can travel free of charge.

Saturdays: Passengers can travel free of charge

We hope these changes will make travel more convenient and affordable for those concessionary pass-holders who are affected by the service changes.

This was an early response to mitigate the withdrawal of service by D&G, we are working to develop further the Go-Too offer to provide as much mitigation as possible. Please be aware that the Council has committed resources to retain Go-Too operations in the interim thereby ensuring that some level of public transport is maintained locally.

May I assure you that maintaining and improving rural accessibility is a priority for the Council. We are reviewing performance data on a weekly basis to understand how the Go-Too service is operating. If you have not done so already, you would be very welcome to travel on the service and see for yourself how it operates and how it can be of benefit to your members.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Hibbert
Head of Strategic Transport and Parking
Cheshire East Council