Buses may face Beeching-style axe as fears grow of grant cuts

Some bus fares could rise by 10 per cent, many routes could be cut and many jobs lost if a Government grant system falls victim to cuts, it was warned today.

Local authorities, bus operators, transport campaigners and unions have written to Transport Secretary Philip Hammond.

They fear that a decision to scrap the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) which gives bus operators a rebate for the fuel duty they pay in running local registered bus services could be made in weeks.

The grant also covers many rural, school and socially important services.

The pro-public transport organisations say that doing away with the grant will make bus services open to the kind of reductions inflicted on the railways in the infamous Beeching rail cuts of the early 1960s.

Letters have been sent to all 533 MPs in England, while an Early Day Motion supporting retention of BSOG for the most-widely used form of public transport has also been laid down in Parliament.

Campaign for Better Transport executive director Stephen Joseph, a co-signatory to the letter, said: "Scrapping BSOG could do for Britain's buses today what Beeching did for the UK rail network in the 1960s.

"In many areas, it could tip buses into a spiral of decline with fares rises, falling patronage and service cuts, all with impacts on some of the poorest in society.

"It would trap people into dependence on cars and add to local traffic problems. Pensioners could find themselves with free bus passes but no buses on which to use them."

The chief executive of transport giant Stagecoach, Brian Souter, said: "We have attracted 15 per cent more passengers to greener bus travel in the past five years.

''We have done it by offering the best value fares in Britain, investing hundreds of millions of pounds in new buses and passenger improvements, and working in partnership with local authorities.

"Independent research shows that every pound spent on BSOG delivers up to 5 in wider benefits to our communities. Scrapping it would mean a huge, regressive tax hike for bus passengers, would cost jobs and be bad for business."

The leader of Calderdale Council, Janet Battye, (Liberal Democrat, Calder), said: "Calderdale is in parts a very rural community and bus services are very important to us particularly for vulnerable and disabled people.

"We are doing our best locally to promote a better integrated transport system and of course buses and trains have to be at the heart of that approach.''

However, the chairman of Metro, the publicly funded body that oversees bus and train travel in West Yorkshire, Coun Chris Greaves, said: "I have no great attraction for BSOG – whether that is the right way to subsidise bus travel is questionable.''

Transport Minister Norman Baker said: "Preserving everything in aspic isn't the right solution to ensure a fair deal for either the taxpayer or the fare payer.

"Bus subsidy, along with all other areas of transport expenditure, will be considered as part of the spending review but any change will be to help the bus industry to grow."