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'Bus services need subsidy'
Page 22
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PUBLIC support for buses must continue, says the Transport and General Workers' Union.
The call comes in a leaflet titled "Support it or lose it," which argues that viable bus services are an essential prerequisite of life in our towns and cities.
Bus services are the only public service which is expected to make money, it continues. They should not be regarded as a money making business but as a service in the same way as other municipal services, it claims.
Rural transport schemes involving less control over licensing and the use of volunteer drivers also come under Union attack, as does the idea of car pools.
"To argue that people who carry passengers in cars at present on a regular basis, in return for a contribution towards the cost of petrol and parking, should now be legitimised is proposing that the bandit's activities can be justified providing he dons the mantle of a Robin Hood cha racter. Any trade or industry could have its viability undermined if this principle was to be generally accepted," says the union.
Oxfordshire County Council comes under particular attack from the union for failing to provide the required subsidy to the local National Bus Company subsidary and encouraging small private operators to bid for services.
On the other hand, South Yorkshire PTE's low fares policy is praised, although the Union points out the PTE was "rewarded" for supporting bus services by a "penalty of a E5m cut in grant."
The union also points out that, in its opinion, differentials in the scale of provision for public transport from county to county are necessary and desirable, and calls for a Goyernment national policy for public transport under the direction of the Transport Secretary.
The union slams the present system as "a bodged-up structure that will be ineffectual, generally expensive, tho roughly unpopular, and forever a pawn in the local versus central government political game."