Future of Teesside undertaking in doubt
Page 13
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by CM reporter
• A real danger of fragmentation is this week facing the Teesside municipal undertaking. The undertaking's future is thrown into the melting pot by local government re-organization. Opposing factions in the form of a group of councillors in one of the new districts and all 214 employees at one of the transport department's depots are leading the battle over who should run the buses after April 1 next year.
The Teesside undertaking, which operates about 260 buses, came into being when five local authorities straddling the river Tees were merged into Teesside County Borough in 1965. Since then the benefits a large undertaking can bring have been felt with the introduction of new vehicles, radio control and recently a series of express bus links between towns in the Teesside conurbation.
Under local government reform, which takes effect next spring, Teesside County Borough would be split up again, a strongly contested decision. The new set-up would undoubtedly cause problems for efficient bus operation.
From next April the new Cleveland County Council will be made up of four districts. One of them, Langbaugh, consists of Redcar and Eston combined with towns and communities currently in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The new Stockton-onTees district includes a few rural areas currently in County Durham. Only Middlesbrough district is made up solely from the Teesside County Borough area. The fourth district is Hartlepool, at present a county borough in its own right and operating its own fleet of 80 buses.
Rural bus services, together with some in-town routes, are currently in the hands of United Automobile Services, part of the National Bus Company.
Middlesbrough and Langbaugh shadow councils — elected in June — recently met and decided that it would be wrong to split the present bus undertaking between the new districts. Both decided to propose the formation of a joint authority with representatives from all districts, except Hartlepool, to control the public transport system.
But problems started when the shadow authority at Stockton met to decide what their policy towards bus operation should be. There was a strong move by a group . of Labour councillors to return to pre-1968 days and have a separate Stockton undertaking. The movement in this direction was reinforced when the councillors were presented with a petition from the 214 members of the Transport and General Workers' Union working at the Teesside undertaking's north depot, which is in the Stockton area. This called for the formation of a separate bus undertaking in the area.
Following a closely fought battle within the shadow authority a compromise was reached. As a result Stockton will agree to the formation of a joint authority. However, the formation of a Passenger Transport Authority for the area, including both Hartlepool and Teesside buses, would be preferable. A resolution expressing both these viewpoints was agreed this week, What happens now is anybody's guess. There is considerable confusion in the area about the feelings of TGWU members in other Teesside depots. Press statements supporting and opposing fragmentation or the setting up of a PTA are coming from all sides.
Hartlepool council has instructed its transport manager to consider the implications of a PTA in the Cleveland area. In the meantime, Teesside and Hartlepool have just launched their first joint bus service. All the signs are that in any event there will be increasing co-operation between the two undertakings.
It seems certain that some time will elapse before the future of the Teesside undertakings is finally made clear. But what does emerge this week is that all parties who take power next April are agreed — albeit reluctantly in some cases — that the undertaking should not be fragmented. However, two of them are seriously considering the merits of forming a PTA for the area.