Serpell man pushesTUCCs
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TRANSPORT Users' Consultative Committees must have a strengthened role in any system of replacing rail services with buses, a member of the Serpell Committee has told MPs.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons transport committee, Leslie Bond of the Rank Organisation, said it thought that the closing down of bus services should be subject to the same procedure as shutting rail lines.
"That would give a sufficient guarantee of service. Throughout the report [on railway finances] wd did seek to , strengthen the role of the TUCCs."
The whole point of bus substitution was that it would service communities by-passed by the rail system, said Mr Bond.
The MPs failed to quiz him or Sir David Serpell about their failure to cost the principle of bus substitution.
The cost of providing the substitute bus services would be met by British Rail out of its subsidy.
The purpose of strengthening the TUCC procedure was to avoid a repetition of what happened in the early Sixties when bus services substituted for the Beeching cuts folded quickly.
• Most of the Serpell proposals for bus substitution came from British Rail, BR chairman Sir Peter Parker told the committee on Tuesday. He said the board was always looking for more economical ways of running its fringe services.