Cumbria County Council’s South Lakes local committee is to consider stepping in to provide bus services in Kendal after Stagecoach North West decided to cease commercial services on several routes in the town.
Members of the committee will take an emergency item at their meeting at County Hall in Kendal at 10.30am on Wednesday, October 26th, to look at possible ways in which the committee might fund stop-gap measures to retain eight bus routes in and around the town.
Stagecoach informed the county council on Thursday last week that it plans to formally de-register some of its commercial services on November 20th. This would mean that services would cease, after a 56-day statutory notice period, on January 22nd 2006.
The services are:
The 41 town centre to Oxenholme Station via and Westmorland General Hospital
The 42 town centre to Heron Hill via Castle Estate
The 43 town centre to Sandylands via Morrisons
The 44 town centre to Hallgarth Estate
The 45 town centre to Burneside
The 445 town centre to Bowston
Stagecoach has also said it plans to terminate contracts for two services already paid for by the county council. These are the 541 Kendal to Winster and the 106 Kendal to Penrith.
It is hoped that if the South Lakes local committee can find stop-gap funding for Stagecoach’s commercial routes, the company will continue to operate the county council contracts for the 541 and 106 services.
The report to the committee offers an option to release funds to pay for tendering short-term contracts to retain services. It also recommends that work begins immediately on investigating and developing alternative bus service options and on widespread public consultation to find out what alternative arrangements would serve the community well.
Alan Bobbett, chairman of the South Lakes local committee, said: "We are disappointed that Stagecoach feels at this point that it has no option but to withdraw from these services. We understand how difficult the current climate is for bus operators but believe that Kendal deserves more. We will work with people in the town to identify how local bus services can be made more popular and support discussions with alternative providers. We understand how dependent many people are on local buses and will do whatever we can to support this essential local service which is important for the Kendal Traffic Plan.
"The Plan is designed to improve the environment by dealing with the escalating congestion that affected the town. It has been controversial and there is still work to do to get it right, but pollution levels have dropped dramatically at key places since we started. Journey times are generally quicker and most people think Kendal is now a better place to walk around and shop."
"Sorting out Kendal’s congestion problems was never going to be easy but there is no alternative. Think back to the dreadful congestion in Kendal town centre before the scheme began - we simply cannot go back to that.
"It was never going to be easy to change people’s habits and attitudes to travel and having an effective bus network is a key part of giving people a viable alternative to the car. We will have to use this as an opportunity to do some fresh thinking about how bus services in and around Kendal serve the community."
Tim Heslop, county council portfolio holder for economic well-being and regeneration, said: "We have some tough challenges to overcome in Cumbria to deal with the difficulties of funding bus services in a rural county. It seems to be getting harder and harder for private companies to make bus service pay in all but the most heavily populated areas, rising fuel bills are making matters worse and local authorities like us struggle to find the money to subsidise the number of services we would choose to support. But we do have a good track record at finding ways to beat tricky public transport problems