Grant scheme damned
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THE PROPOSED rural bus grant scheme lacks funds and will be too thinly spread around for it to prove effective after deregulation next year, according to public transport pressure group Transport 2000.
It has told the Department of Transport this in response to its consultation on plans to pay around 5p per mile extra fuel duty rebate to operators running registered local bus services through areas with populations up to 25,000. Transport 2000 deputy director Jonathan Roberts said that the withdrawal of crosssubsidy in a competitive environment would make the 5p inadequate when around 21p per mile support for shire county services today comes front internal cross-subsidy.
He said additional funds should be made available to avert a "rural bus crisis'' which might emerge in 1987/88, but has proposed an alternative scheme which limits the grant aid to areas with a lower population ceiling.
By limiting the grant to areas with a population of up to 20,000, Mr Roberts argues that places like Ormskirk, Hertford, Potters Bar, Cynon Valley, and the Glasgow commuter towns of Renfrew and Bishopbriggs would be excluded from rural grant.
There is a clear implication in Transport 2000's response that the 25,000 population ceiling favours marginal Parliamentary constituencies.