Table of Contents
Recent newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/b81f7841eed8/hinton-blewett-pc-buses
The Parish Council have recently received feedback from residents about the concern of bus services in Hinton Blewett. In particular, the school bus service remains to be confirmed if it will be available for next term. The Parish Council support these concerns and have contacted the B&NES transport team to express how important this service is to villagers.
May we highlight that as a community we have an important but short window of opportunity to have our say on local bus services. There are two events this month where you can feedback your ideas and concerns. Full details are below, along with a copy of the email we have sent to B&NES transport team which highlights the importance of bus services to rural communities.
Chew Valley Big Choices on Buses Event
The Chew Valley Area Forum Climate & Nature Emergency Working Group’s Sustainable Transport Subgroup are working with the WECA Mayor’s office to organise an event on Wednesday 31 August 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Bishop Sutton Village Hall BS39 5XJ. Join them to have your say and hear about the innovative ideas being considered to enable the Chew Valley to be properly connected by bus. All are welcome.
Update: relevant news you may wish to discuss at this event: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bus-services-still-face-axe-7496378
Big Choices on Buses
Whether you are a bus user now, or would like to be in the future, please join Dan Norris, WECA mayor, at this Chew Valley consultation, to get your voice heard.
Hear about innovative ideas that are being considered to enable the Chew Valley to be properly connected by bus.
Speak out for rural bus needs and help with the challenging decisions WECA needs to make on buses.
Wednesday 31st August 6.30-8.30pm
Bishop Sutton Village Hall, BS39 5XJ.
Please walk, cycle, come by bus, or lift share if possible
B&NES Webinar – The Future of B&NES Bus Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council is hosting an online webinar on Wednesday 24 August from 2pm to 4pm.
Register here by midnight on 23 August if you would like to attend.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar and a link to our short online survey.
The results from our webinar will be collated and given to the West of England Combined Authority, to ensure the views of those in Bath and North East Somerset are heard.
If you are unable to attend, the webinar will be available to watch on the council’s YouTube channel shortly afterwards.
Webinar Panellists:
- Cllr Sarah Warren – Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate and Sustainable Travel
- Cllr Matt McCabe – Cabinet Assistant for Climate and Sustainable Travel
- Pam Turton – Head of Transport Strategy
- Nick Simons – Principal Engineer, Transport Policy
- Mark Goodman (Facilitator)
WECA Online Survey:
Emails to B&NES and WECA:
Email sent by Parish Council to B&NES transport team regarding school bus service 22/8/2022:
Please may I check what are the plans for the school bus service for Hinton Blewett to Chew Valley School.
Previously the 144 Chew Valley School route was relied upon by residents and families in Hinton Blewett and the surrounding area for transport to and from Chew Valley school. The parents have been alarmed to find out from the previous supplier that the previous supplier is no longer going to operate and that there are no details or updates from B&NES regarding a replacement service.
Please can we highlight that this is a crucial service for local residents and the village as a whole. It is reported that 16 children regularly use this service from Hinton Blewett, and more children are going to be needing the service from younger families in the village.
The alternative of children getting to Temple Cloud or Cameley for a bus by foot or bicycle is not a safe or suitable option. The roads are unsafe to walk along or cycle along due to the narrow nature, long distance, hills with poor visibility, no street lighting or pavements. There are no safe places to keep bicycles. Replacing one bus with the requirement for multiple car journeys each day would have a devastating effect to local residents who are unable to transport individual children by car twice a day. This would also create unnecessary environmental impact with increased traffic and
pollution at a time when B&NES has declared a climate emergency. This also goes against local transport policy. The long term effect would bring into question the sustainability of the village with new or young families not being able to reach school from this rural area.
Please can you do all that is possible to arrange a replacement school bus service and notify parents as soon as possible of updates and any details of an interim or long term plan for school transport.
Hinton Blewett Parish Council
B&NES response 22/8/22:
Hi Philip,
I manage the team that looks after those pupils who are ‘Entitled’ to Home-to-School transport. The 144 was a commercial bus service, and as such comes under the jurisdiction of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), so I regret I am not the person best placed to answer your entire query.
As a bit of background, I can tell you that Bath and North East Council has for many years bought spaces on this bus service for the carriage of ‘Entitled’ pupils, and so the withdrawing of the service has caused my team some problems too.
What I can assure you though is that those ‘Entitled’ pupils who previously used Citistar’s 144 bus have all been accommodated onto one of our ‘closed-door’ school coaches that serves Chew Valley school. I regret that there is no additional space on that vehicle for carrying ‘non-Entitled’ pupils, and indeed it would be contrary to the 1985 Transport Act for me to be able to do so.
I would suggest that, in relation to those pupils who are ‘non-Entitled’, you contact the Public Transport team at WECA
Best wishes
Steve
HB PC response, 23/8/22
Dear Steve,
Please may I check the plans for entitled children. Since our conversation, I have been told by parents that the arrangements for entitled parents are for children to catch a bus 2.5 miles away in Temple Cloud / Cameley.
If this really is the solution, this is not a safe or reasonable solution and does not seem to follow your own requirements detailed on your website for providing safe options. All my points in the original email remain, the walking route to Temple Cloud is along a narrow hilly road that is unlit, unswept and slippery and dirty on the hills with no pavements, high hedges that mean poor visibility and debris from leaves and mud. The vans, farm traffic and cars rush along this road and it is used as a short cut from the A37 to West Harptree and the Chew Valley Lakes for commercial vehicles. It is single track in places without room for a car and bicylce to both pass in the same place and it is dangerous for both children and adults to be walking along, especially at school hours when it is dark in the winter.
From my own experience as an adult cycling along this road, I have nearly been killed or severely injured twice while on my bicycle – once when a car tried to pass me in a narrow section near Hinton Blewett and there was not enough room, and once when a farm vehicle almost ploughed straight into me not seeing me until the last minute while it was driving along this section. There was no room either side of the farm vehicle for me to escape being struck due to the narrowness of the road bordered by high hedges.
If the solution is for children to walk along this road you really are introducing a high risk and likelihood of death and injury for school children and parents.
Please could you assure me that this is not the solution and that children will be collected from a safe place in Hinton Blewett.
Please could you advise me what risk assessments have been taken for any proposed walking routes and share these with the Parish Council so that they can be checked against local knowledge and awareness of the situation. Can you advise what is considered a safe route, for example provision of a pavement, lighting, visbility for traffic, road condition, minimum width for pedestrians.
Kind regards,
Philip
B&NES response 23/8/2022
Hi Philip,
Further to our conversation this afternoon I can confirm the ‘Entitled’ students on this route will be picked up in Hinton Blewett on one of our closed-door school buses.
Someone from my team will be in touch with parents before term starts. You asked me for the team email: passenger_transport@bathnes.gov.uk
Very best wishes
Steve
Email sent to WECA 22/8/22:
Please may I check what are the plans for the bus service for Hinton Blewett to Chew Valley School. Previously the 144 Chew Valley School route was relied upon by residents and families in Hinton Blewett and the surrounding area as a social necessity for transport to and from Chew Valley school.
Local residents have been alarmed to find out from the previous operator that the service is no longer going to operate and that there are no details or updates regarding a replacement service.
Please can we highlight that this is a crucial service for local residents and the village as a whole. It is a social necessity for access to education as defined in the 1985 Transport Act. It is reported that at least 16 children regularly use this service from Hinton Blewett, and more children are going to be needing the service from younger families in the village. Older residents of the village also have a social necessity for healthcare, work and shopping with no alternative transport options.
The alternative of children getting to Temple Cloud or Cameley for a bus by foot or bicycle is not a safe or suitable option. The roads are unsafe to walk along or cycle along due to the narrow nature, long distance, hills with poor visibility, no street lighting or pavements. There are no safe places to keep bicycles. Replacing one bus with the requirement for multiple car journeys each day would have a devastating effect to local residents who are unable to transport individual children by car twice a day. This would also create unnecessary environmental impact with increased traffic and pollution at a time when local authorities have declared a climate emergency. This also goes against local transport policy. The long term effect would bring into question the sustainability of the village with new or young families not being able to reach school from this rural area.
Please can you do all that is possible to arrange a replacement bus service and notify the community as soon as possible of updates and any details of an long term plan for school transport.
In the longer term, please may I ask, in order to carry out your clause 63 responsibilities of the 1985 Transport Act, how do you gather information regards changes in demand for rural bus services? Do you engage with Parish Councils and if so is this on a routine basis or an ad hoc basis? If routine, how frequently? Do you have any other ways of ensuring you understand how demand is changing at a local level?
Kind regards,
Philip Edwards, Clerk, Hinton Blewett Parish Council
Response from WECA 23/8/22:
Dear Philip,
Thanks for your letter.
Bus service 144 was a commercial service (i.e. not in receipt of any subsidy) and Bath & North East Somerset Council bought a number of places on it for young people entitled to free home-to-school transport. The bus operator decided not to continue the service after the end of the summer school term.
I understand that Bath & North East Somerset Council has already made alternative arrangements for the young people who qualify for free home-to-school transport.
I’ve asked my colleagues who deal with bus services to reply to the other points you have raised.
Yours sincerely,
Andy
Response from WECA 24/8/22
Dear Philip Edwards,
Thank you for your email regarding service 144.
As Andy has already mentioned, this was a commercial school service with just 1 outbound and 1 inbound journey a day to tie in with the school timetable. As an authority, we receive a copy of an operators intention to register or cancel a commercial service for consultation purposes, but we have no power to compel the operator to change their proposals. My understanding is that the service was used predominantly by children in the Hinton Blewit area in accordance with local authority policy as detailed on their website which is their nearest school.As you may be aware, the local authority does not provide free school transport for those that have accepted a school place at a school which is not the nearest appropriate school, which may be the case for some families in Temple Cloud and Cameley. If you feel that the only available route to school is a dangerous one in terms of road safety, B&NES council may offer children free transport to their nearest appropriate school even if their home is within the statutory walking distance. More details can be found on their website.
As I am sure you are aware, the majority of bus services in the West of England area are operated on a commercial basis. The authority does have a limited budget to support bus services, which complement the commercial bus network that would not otherwise be provided. We refer to these services as supported or subsidised services. These services are regularly reviewed and periodically retendered. As part of this process we conduct mass surveys and consultations of both passengers and communities including parish councils. The last survey we undertook closed in November last year. Our mayor Dan Norris has also recently been conduction community meetings to understand the demand and opinions on public transport across the region.
Kind regards,
Frankie Cooke
Senior Transport Operations Officer
Response from WECA 5/9/2022 re social necessity for a bus service
Dear Philip Edwards,
In answer to your question regarding legal duties.
Section 63 of the Transport Act 1985 said …..
In each non-metropolitan county of England and Wales it shall be the duty of the county council—
- to secure the provision of such public passenger transport services as the council consider it appropriate to secure to meet any public transport requirements within the county which would not in their view be met apart from any action taken by them for that purpose;
This duty passed to our Unitary Authorities (UAs) when they were created in 1996 (in the case of Hinton Blewett that was B&NES) and then to the Combined Authorities (CA) in 2018. Note that it is the council (or CA in our case) that determines whether there is a need to secure a service or not. We do that by reference to our adopted policies in JLTP4 and the WoE Bus Strategy.
Service 144 operated on school days only and was solely for the benefit of pupils of Chew Valley School. It did not provide transport to work, healthcare or shopping.
Hinton Blewett has bus services 754 (Mondays) and 752 (Weds) that provide travel for village residents to go shopping. They have operated for many years with financial support from B&NES initially, and now the CA.
I trust this information is useful to you.
Kind regards, Frances
Frankie Cooke
Senior Transport Operations Officer
Usefull Links
Sample FOI request from Devon Council – this is a example that references the Transport Act 1985:
Part of the Transport Act 1985, there are requirements for the local authority in relation to ‘social necessity’ for work, healthcare, education, shopping:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/67/part/IV
Update: relevant news you may wish to discuss at the above event with Dan Norris:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bus-services-still-face-axe-7496378
Specifically Schools:
B&NES details and policy on school transport:
https://beta.bathnes.gov.uk/get-school-transport
Government information
- Posted: 22nd August 2022