Lauren Slawson, Liverpool North Socialist Party
Bus services have fallen into deep decline as a result of privatisation and a lack of council funding. 46% of local authorities rated their own ability to deliver bus services as poor or very poor, according to a recent National Audit Office report. Infrequent timetables and cuts to routes inconvenience more and more people.
Buses are a vital service to so many people, getting them to work, school, and enabling them to live their daily lives. Yet vicious cuts to services have seen bus routes in certain areas close, with people left stranded with no means of public transport. This is particularly apparent in rural areas – over the last five years more than a fifth of rural bus services in England have disappeared.
In the area I’m from, a part of the bus route was cut to no longer go through a residential part of the village where many elderly people live. The nearest bus stop is a 25-minute walk away and so many older people can no longer use the bus.
Attempts to prop up failing bus services with extra funding have also neglected rural areas, as rural areas received only half as much extra funding per person compared to city areas. As well as route closures, infrequent services make travel harder for those living in rural communities. Longer waits make it harder for people in rural areas to reliably use buses.
Whilst working-class people are burdened by the worsening bus services, the private companies operating them (or failing to operate them) continue to rake in massive profits. The first step to improve bus services and get more value for money would be to stop subsidies and ticket fares being siphoned off as profit by private companies. We need to end privatisation and bring bus services under democratic public ownership, We could cut fares and run them not in the interest of profit but make them a reliable, high-quality and environmentally option for travel.
