Transport - North Devon

Transport briefing

The £2 cap on single fares across England has benefited many bus users, but there is no point offering cheap fares on buses that don’t exist. Cheaper fares must be combined with major investment in buses and bus services to boost bus travel. The Green Party is calling for a range of measures to improve bus travel, funded by redirecting funds allocated for building new roads. The measures include £1 single fares on all local bus routes (A One Pound Fare To Take You There), free bus travel for everyone under 22, protection of existing schemes for discounted and free travel, and greater powers for local authorities to ensure bus services work for local people, not the profits of private bus companies. The Green Party will continue to call for full public control of the railways, and proper investment to achieve an active travel revolution.

3 Green priorities for buses

Affordable fares: Introduce a £1 single fare on all local bus routes, free bus travel for everyone under 22, and maintain existing free and discounted travel schemes.
Invest in improvements: Divert £27bn from road building programme to invest in new buses and bus services to ensure there are no further cuts to existing services and to increase usage.
Buses for local people: Give local authorities powers to determine routes and frequencies so that buses run where they are needed, not only where they are profitable.

Affordable fares

The temporary £2 cap on bus fares has benefited many bus users around the country and the government’s last-minute decision to extend support for the scheme until the end of June is welcome. But it does not go far enough. We need a long-term funding plan to improve bus services and increase usage.
This must start with affordable fares and the Green Party is calling for the introduction of a permanent One Pound Fare To Take You There – a £1 single bus fare on all local services. The plan also includes free bus travel for everyone under 22 and the protection of existing schemes such as free local bus travel for over 60s in many areas.

Invest in improvements

There is no point offering cheap fares on buses that don’t exist. The pandemic had a huge impact on passenger numbers, and even with additional government support, over a thousand bus routes were cut last year.
This is why the Green Party plan goes much further than the current government support. The ‘One Pound Fare To Take You There’ would be coupled with huge investment in new buses and bus services to ensure there are no further cuts to existing services and to increase usage.
The funding for these service improvements would be provided by scrapping the £27bn road building programme – diverting this money to public transport – and allocating a proportion of the Green Party’s proposed carbon tax to fund the £1 fare and free travel for under 22s.

Buses for local people

To ensure that bus services are run for the benefit of local people, this public investment would be combined with re-regulation of bus services so that all regions operate a franchise system, where local authorities determine routes and frequencies, as is currently the case in London and Manchester. This would ensure buses run where they are needed, not just where they are profitable.
Accessibility of bus services is also essential. All new buses must be accessible to all, have low floors and adequate internal space for wheelchair users, pushchairs, and should be designed to have a lesser impact through their noise on the street environment.

Why do buses matter?

Buses are the most popular form of public transport in England, making up around 60% of public transport journeys. They are a lifeline to many, getting them to work, school or leisure activities. Encouraging bus use can also help reduce emissions: a fully loaded double-decker can take 75 cars off the road.

Why England only?

Wales Green Party has its own bus policy.

Can we really have nice things like cheap public transport?

Yes! Low-cost public transport is all about political choices. There are plenty of examples of successful low-cost and free public transport schemes.
In the UK, Herefordshire ran a hugely successful trial of free weekend buses using Covid recovery funds; Germany is following up its massively popular 9 euro ticket with a heavily discounted monthly transportation pass; Luxembourg offers nationwide free public transport and the French city of Dunkirk provides free buses and trains which has led to less traffic and discouraged car use.
And we can afford it too. The Green Party estimates that the ‘One Pound Fare To Take You There’ scheme will cost £2bn. We can pay for this and the improvements to public transport services by scrapping the damaging £27bn road building programme and diverting this money to public transport, and allocating a proportion of our proposed carbon tax policy to fund the ‘One Pound Fare to Take You There’.

Trains run for people

The franchise model for our railways has failed, and the government claims its plans to introduce a new public body to oversee the railways – Great British Railways – will make the system simpler and more accountable.
However, by contracting private companies to run services overseen by a public body, we may be faced by the worst of both worlds: private involvement without proper public accountability. In other words, as the oversight body, Great British Railways may be held responsible for the failings of the private companies actually running the services.
As Greens, we want a rail service that works and that is efficient and affordable.
It is a scandal that we have allowed the railways to be under-invested during a climate emergency.
We will continue to call for full public control of our railways so that they can be run in the interest of the people that use them.

Active travel

The government recently announced £32.9 million to create a national network of walking and cycling experts – but this doesn’t come close to delivering the active travel revolution we need.
Active Travel England wants 50% of trips in England’s urban areas to be walked, cycled or made by other active travel means by 2030. But this goal is being undermined whilst our local councils continue to treat active travel as an afterthought. Retraining staff is a good place to start but the government needs to be much more ambitious.
Training new teams of experts is pointless without the funding to deliver the programme of schemes we need, and £33 million is a drop in the ocean when you consider the billions in the Department of Transport budget – £16 billion alone is allocated to just five road building schemes.
The government needs to follow through and get serious about reducing traffic levels and boosting active travel by switching the billions earmarked for building new roads into investing in healthy walking, cycling and other forms of active travel.