Councillors have welcomed the news that a short-term contract is set to be awarded to a new operator to run the number 12 service until the end of March. The route was put under threat after First announced the plans to entirely withdraw the service from 22 January citing low patronage recovery, increased operating costs and a shortage of available drivers.
Details of the decision, made by council officers on 10th January, are available at https://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=6748
The name of the new operator has not yet been disclosed.
Under the short-term contract, the new operator will receive £59k in financial support in the form of a subsidy to keep an hourly service running until the end of March. A tender for a longer-term replacement service will then take place with the objective of having a full contract in place by 1st April.
This follows a campaign launched by local Lib Dem councillors and campaigners to save the number 12 bus, which has seen over a thousand residents sign a petition and more than 40 attend a public meeting on the future of the route.
At the well-attended public meeting organised by councillors on 18th December, it became very clear how important the service is for many residents who use it to get to the shops, to work, to medical appointments, to school and to meet friends and family. Residents’ feedback on what they would like the service to look like in future has already been shared with council officers, and it will be shared with the new operator.
Councillor for Dringhouses & Woodthorpe Stephen Fenton said:
“The reduction in frequency from every half hour to every hour is disappointing, but if it is a more reliable service, then hopefully more people will be attracted to using it. It’s really crucial now that as many people as possible use the service to ensure that once March comes around, the operator can see the benefits and financial case for sustaining the service in the long term.
“This intervention by the Council is, however, no substitute for a sustainable long term approach to running bus services which are facing unprecedented challenges. Increased costs, driver shortages and slow recovery of usage levels, as well as the cliff edge of Government financial support, has created something of a ‘perfect storm.’
“Unless the sector receives urgent long-term support from the Government, both financially as well as through driver recruitment, more services are likely to face cancellation as the real extent of the bus crisis becomes clear. It is unrealistic to expect councils to solve the looming bus crisis just as inflation hits already overstretched budgets – Government really needs to wake up and act now before it’s too late.”
There will now be a separate tender exercise for the period after March, though the ending of Government financial support means that more local services are likely to need subsidies in order to keep going.