Should NBC go? asks Tony Ridley
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• A strong case for hiving off urban bus services run by the NBC to passenger transport authorities is made by Dr Tony M. Ridley, director-general of the Tyneside PTE, in evidence to the Commons committee studying urban transport planning.
MPs asked: "Should the NBC be wound up?"
"If there were no other considerations, it would make life much easier for us if all the bus services were under our control," said Dr Ridley.
"I would not suggest that the present situation is impossible. We have a particularly typical situation in relation to the NBC, in that we run 50 per cent of the toal bus mileage within our area, and our operating areas are two islands without any service connecting them. This obviously does not improve our operational situation."
Dr Ridley called for a change of attitude towards the bus.
"Bus operators and political representatives controlling bus operations have, apparently, felt that the crucial thing is to provide a cheap bus system. This has meant a bus system styled on capital and development. If we start to think of the bus service in the same way as we think of the railway service, then we might be prepared to put very much more into buses than we have in the past.
"But it will be expensive," Dr Ridley warned the committee.