Emergency meeting over bus subsidies

Adam Hewitt • Published 6 Dec 2009 10:00 0 Comments

AT least seven bus firms have been invited to bid to run bus services in Woodley and Earley.

Council bosses are meeting in an emergency session on Thursday to decide which if any of them should be paid to serve routes that Reading Buses is abandoning from January, including Woodley Airfield and half-hourly daytime buses on route 22 linking Lower Earley to Reading town centre via the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Borough transport leader Cllr Keith Baker told a public meeting at Maiden Erlegh School called to discuss the changes: "If the tenders come to two or three or four hundred thousand pounds we understandably can't afford that sort of money. It would have to come from somewhere else in the council's budget and what service would you like to see cut? But if it's ten or twenty or fifty thousand pounds, that's going to be very reasonable."

Hundreds of people have packed out meetings about bus cuts in recent weeks in Woodley and Earley and Cllr Baker pledged to "push heaven and earth" to keep vital their bus services.

The deadline for the bus firms to submit bids was on Friday, November 27 and Reading Buses itself is understood to be among those who have bid - meaning Wokingham Borough Council paying it to run unprofitable but socially vital bus routes.

Reading Buses has an advantage over commercial bus firms, since it runs on such tight profit margins that it should be able to afford to undercut their bids.

But Cllr Baker said: "There may be an operator desperate to make an entry into this market, currently dominated by Reading Buses.

"We're just talking about funding the gaps in service that Reading Buses has announced from January - Reading Buses will continue to run the buses on its other services."

Reading Buses chief executive James Freeman told the meeting: "We're trying to make these services collect revenue to pay their costs. There aren't a great deal of passengers but those who do use the buses want to use them very much."

The day after the Wokingham Borough Council meeting, Reading East MP Rob Wilson is chairing another public meeting in Woodley to discuss the changes. It as at Bulmershe Youth Centre from 7-8pm on Friday December 11.

**The changes Reading Buses originally proposed to come in from January, which Wokingham Borough Council is planning to pay to reverse:

- 63 and 64 to be scrapped and replaced with a 65, 66, and 67 service

- 65a night service to run hourly after 7.15pm

- No off-peak weekday service to Woodley Airfield

- Number 62 to be scrapped and replaced by number 19 linking Woodley to Reading via the Royal Berks.

- No service via hospital for residents in the Drovers Way area.

- Number 22 to go hourly during the daytime and from every 30 to 40 minutes during the rush hours

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