Time To Get On The Bus For Rural Communities

 

Green Party members in North Staffordshire and candidates representing the party at the county council elections have joined the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) to call for better bus services for rural communities.

 

Green Party candidates at the 2021 local elections across Staffordshire are standing on a manifesto pledging to improve bus services and to give councils and communities a greater role in how they are run.

 

These include improving the connection between bus travel, the rail network and opportunities for people to walk or cycle.

 

The party will also be campaigning for public transport providers and the County Council to move their fleets to using electric vehicles.

 

A party spokesperson said, ‘we are committed to working to create a public transport system that is fit for the twenty first century and busses in rural areas are a major part of that’.

 

Adding that this is particularly important in Staffordshire where ‘many of our rural communities have languished in bus deserts for too long. It is time they had access to decent, affordable public transport and we are committed to making that a reality’.

 

The charity published their Every Village, Every Hour: A Comprehensive Bus Network for Rural England report earlier this month.

 

The report highlights the poor condition the bus network was in before the pandemic following a decade of austerity and the even bigger hit it has taken since March last year.

 

Drawing on examples from Germany, Austria and other European countries the report shows how an integrated rural bus service could be run every day of the week for a cost of £2.7 billion.

 

The report also calls for access to public transport to be a universal basic right for every citizen and for stronger regulation of bus services under regional transport authorities.

 

Launching the report Crispin Truman, chief executive of CPRE said that rural communities ‘know from painful first-hand experience the impact of underfunding bus services’

 

He went on to talk about how individuals and communities suffer when they are trapped in ‘transport deserts’ where anyone without a car is in effect stranded.

 

Investing in better bus services was, he said, a ‘no brainer’ since good transport links can help to cut pollution, improve social mobility and bring trade to struggling local high streets.

 

It is cost effective too, bus services could be transformed redirecting just a portion of the funding planned for the government’s £27 billion road-building schemes.'

 

The party’s spokesperson said ‘CPRE make a compelling case for building the sort of interconnected transport system our European neighbours have enjoyed for decades, it is time people in England did so too’.