"Connecting Communities" - a better service at a lower cost, says our Conservative County Councillor...

At last month's meeting of Creeting St Peter Parish Council, I raised an issue under 'Any Other Business', having been newly co-opted (and I'm really pleased to be back), i.e. the new demand responsive transport service for Mid Suffolk, which comes into effect on Monday week.

The new contract is a worry, for a range of reasons. Funding for the service is to be cut each year for the next five years, and one of the side effects of the change to smaller vehicles is that bus passes will not be valid - a real blow for the rural elderly who face potential isolation. Fares have also gone up due to the withdrawal of return fares - my daily return journey will rise in cost from £2.60 to £4.00. We are also yet to see what effect the combination of three free-standing services into one combined one will have on vehicle availability.

I merely noted that the impact of the new contract would need to be monitored, when our County Councillor, Gary Green came up with the line that is the title of this post. It was a familiar line, in that it was the line spoken by the County Council's Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport when the new package was announced. He is, as ever, on message.

I did wonder at the time of that announcement how you could cut the costs of the contract so dramatically without there being some impact on passengers, and now we know. The service providers now provide their own vehicles - they previously used vehicles supplied by the County Council - so the risks are now placed solely upon the contractor. The existing staff have had their contractual hours reduced, which implies that there will be less cover for sickness and holidays. And, as noted above, the elderly will use the right to use their bus passes.

My fear is that, if the elderly abandon the service, or use it less, it will become less and less viable, to the point where the County Council can walk away from providing such a service all together, a fierce blow to the small villages dotted across Mid Suffolk.

For me, the increase in the fare will be a hit to the pocket, but one that I, at least, can afford. I'm not sure that most of my fellow passengers will be able to be quite so sanguine...