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IT WAS NO good regarding public transport as something that could be turned on like a tap to cope with whatever needs were not being satisfied by other modes of transport, warned Mr Neil Carmichael, Under Secretary DoE, last week.
Speaking in the Commons, he said that public transport had to be seen as part of a total transport and traffic package, including bus operators, their employees, the local authorities, local employers, schools and the travelling public.
Mr Carmichael drew a picture of the troubles facing bus operators in many parts of the country. There were, he said, questions of the availability of spare parts, of the unpredictable delivery of new vehicles, of the operating conditions in which the buses were expected to run, and questions of what could be done locally to ease the pressures on the operators at peak periods.
Everyone regarded public transport as indispensible, noted Mr Carmichael, yet against the competition of the private car and the pressures of mounting costs, made much worse by inflation, there was a tremendous uphill battle ahead if public transport was to play its full and proper role.
He pointed out that Central Government support for public transport was running at about £6( million a year, but agreed that this was genera support. It was only in the context of the particulat conditions of partieulai places that one could decidc what needed to be done or the ground.
This was where the neu powers and duties of count) authorities concerned it Section 203 of the Loca Government Act were 5( important.
Mr Carmichael wa: speaking during a debate.