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'Beware of non-stop bus subsidies'

5th February 1971
Page 58
Page 58, 5th February 1971 — 'Beware of non-stop bus subsidies'
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Law lecturer warns ratepayers' union

from a special correspondent • Unless the utmost care and vigilance is exercised by local authorities, bus subsidies, paid on the basis that "we've got to pay sometime, we might as well pay now", could become a perpetual millstone round ratepayers' necks, Councillor Bill Shepherd, of Tunbridge Wells, told a full meeting of ratepayers' representatiEres in London on January 23.

Cllr Shepherd was leading a debate on the problems facing ratepayers throughout the country, now that applications for rural bus grants were becoming a flood with many councils, bewildered by the turn of events, or their own lack of foresight, or merely influenced by the "transport on the rates" lobby, bowing down to NBC demands. Other councils, taking the view that bus services should pay their way, were standing firm, but there was a danger that lower tier authorities would have their Section 34 permissive powers taken away from them by the county Councils taking the decision whether to subvent or not. County councils, by their precepting powers, could ignore refusals by lower authorities.

The speaker reminded his listeners, members of the Central Council of the National Union of Ratepayers' Associations, that the problems facing the bus companies were extremely complex, that they would get worse, and that there was no single cut-and-dried answer, for any community with a sense of responsibility had to consider many present-day problems from a social welfare aspect. The alternatives, he suggested, were either for the bus operators to obtain a surplus of revenue over expenditure (a basic fact which even some ratepayers' representatives failed to grasp) with the obvious corollary that passengers would have to pay the economic fares or that some other means of running the services would have to be found. Passengers were voting with their feet against continually rising fares. Those other means were either tha running costs would have to be supporte( out of the public purse—and preferably b: the taxpayer rather than by th ratepayer—or that local councils took °vet or that small operators did the runninE Only a council of idiots, said Cllr Shepherc would consider the second possibility uncle present-day conditions, which left the onl acceptable alternative that of privat operators, and so far few of these ha shown much interest.

The reason for this lack of interest, sal Cllr Shepherd was that relatively few privat operators realized that S.30 of the Act gas "bus permit" holders considerably mot freedom to run unconventional vehicles, an in his view it was industry's insistence o the use of conventional buses which was large cause of the present rot. Brought u for generations on a diet of psv and licences, the "big boys" were finding difficult to get those things out of the systems. Local authorities had als accelerated the rot, to which he had ju referred, by continually opposing the ol companies' applications to the Commissiot ers for fare increases, thereby fallir guilelessly into the trap which the 196 legislators had laid for them.

After the lively debate and numerot questions which followed the speech, ti meeting endorsed the speaker's recommei dation that a resolution be sent to tl Minister for Transport Industries calling c Mr Peyton to give much wider publicity 1 the chances available to small, priva operators to take up the threatened service or at the very least to try them out. T1 meeting also accepted the recommendatic that they press local authorities to ado much more critical measures wilt examining bus grant applications, and look very closely indeed at the applicanl alleged costings before taking any decisior In some quarters it was clear that far Mo expertise and knowledge of the bus indust were needed by council officials delving in the pros and cons of subsidization, and I was not confident, said the speaker, that . of them were as smart as the Node County Council people who had recent uncovered an Eastern Counties' ovc estimating error of £14,000.

Quoting extensively from trade pre reports and articles, Cllr Shepherd, a mot trade and transport law lecturer, spoke ai

answered questions off the cuff for neat three hours. The section chairman, Cllr 11,1

Henry Haydon, in paying tribute to t speaker's , thorough preparation of I subject, felt sure that he had dispersed mu of the fog that surrounded the complicat Transport Act.


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