Archived decisions

Contact: John Mariner, ext 6922 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report sets out the East Hampshire area review process, reports the outcome of tenders for local bus services in the Alton tendering area (Alton, Bordon, Liphook and Liss areas), proposes a plan of action to ensure value for money, and seeks to enable transport services which give access to employment, education, health, retail and leisure facilities for the widest section of the community, so enhancing well-being.

2. Background

2.1 Bus industry costs are currently rising ahead of inflation (at around 9% per annum in contrast to a local authority funding increase of 2.5%). This situation is forecast to continue in the next few years and there is uncertainty over Government revenue funding for bus support. It is important, therefore, that Hampshire County Council reviews its current service provision in a comprehensive manner and demonstrates that:

(i) value for money is being achieved;

(ii) subsidy payments are open and transparent;

(iii) spending is undertaken within the context of Local Transport Plan 2 (LTP2) and bus strategy objectives;

(iv) the optimum balance is achieved between conventional and unconventional services; and

(v) the relationship between secured and commercial services achieves the best possible efficiency.

2.2 This should help to ensure that the County Council is in a position to enable a transport network in Hampshire which best matches the needs of its residents, whilst at the same time ensuring that this is affordable within the current and future financial environments.

3. Approach

3.1 The approach has been to undertake an area passenger transport review - one of a series throughout the county, based on district council boundaries - in advance of area tendering. These reviews represent a new approach to reviewing and planning passenger transport services in Hampshire.

3.2 The approach being adopted for these reviews embraces a combination of a practical desk-top exercise which uses Accession and census data as a basis, overlaying this with local technical knowledge and expertise together with survey information.

3.3 Options developed using this approach are scored on how well they enable people to access retail, health, leisure, work and education locations in the area being reviewed. This scoring assesses the options on how well they provide people with the opportunity to travel to these destinations, their frequency and flexibility, together with their ability to offer a friendly and easy-to-use option for people with a range of disabilities, including wheelchair users.

3.4 A critical aspect of the review is the engagement of stakeholders in the process. In East Hampshire this has included bus operators, the District Council, Parish/Town Councils, the Community Transport sector and other key players. The cooperation of the major bus operators is critical to ensure that, where possible, the review considers both those services that are financially supported by the County Council and those that are operated on a wholly commercial basis. Stakeholder engagement has a key role to play both in developing the options and validating the final choice of options.

3.5 This approach is central to the Bus Strategy (an appendix to LTP2) which advocates the importance of identifying those services most likely to achieve greater bus use, as well as areas where social inclusion objectives may best be achieved.

3.6 These elements will form the foundation for any options coming out of the area reviews. They demonstrate a more visionary and flexible approach to providing passenger transport services in Hampshire in the future by:

(i) working in partnership with commercial bus operators to try and maintain the viability and attractiveness of bus services through improving journey times, simpler timetabling, targeted marketing and promotional activities, improved access and better coordination between operators, in order to reverse long term passenger loss; and

(ii) greater and more effective use of `unconventional' transport, such as taxis, community transport, shared cars and demand-responsive services, where conventional services are no longer appropriate.

4. East Hampshire Review - Context

4.1 The Alton area group of contracts has been extended to 1 January 2007. The Alton tendering area has to date covered all of East Hampshire except Petersfield town area services 94 and 95 which are now included in the current tender exercise. Stagecoach is the predominant operator with both commercial and contracted routes. Other operators to be found on contracted routes are AMK Mini Coaches and Minerva Accord.

4.2 East Hampshire is a lightly populated district with concentrations around towns, such as Alton, Bordon/Whitehill, Liphook and Petersfield and, to a lesser extent, around larger villages, such as Four Marks, Liss and Medstead.

4.3 The district includes Alton Sixth Form College which attracts students from a wide area. Bus movements involving students at the college enable most local bus services in and around Alton to be commercially viable in term time. Conversely, in school/college holiday periods passenger numbers are considerably lower and all services except Stagecoach X64 require financial support.

4.4 A number of contracted services in and around Alton are able to operate in the off-peak period by using buses which are needed for school/ college journeys in peak periods.

4.5 Outside of the towns and larger villages referred to above, East Hampshire is very rural in nature. Bus service frequencies reflect this and are at best hourly. Low-floor vehicles are not used.

4.6 Department for Transport accessibility software (Accession) shows that accessibility to employment, education, health, shopping and leisure is generally reasonable, with unconventional transport - including Cango routes - catering for some small areas which would otherwise be isolated.

4.7 As the district is largely rural, most bus services are poorly patronised. The only strong route through the district is Stagecoach X64 Guildford-Farnham-Alton-Winchester. This remains commercial throughout the year but does not operate on Sundays.

4.8 Services for Bordon/Whitehill and Liphook are expensive to provide as much dead mileage cost is incurred as buses need to travel long distances from their depot to take up service.

4.9 Community transport provision in the area consists principally of Dial-a-Ride and Call and Go services. The County Council works in partnership with East Hampshire District Council for funding and delivery. In addition, the County Council funds and delivers Alton Cango which serves the north-west of the district. The 205 Car Share Scheme operates in the East and West Tisted, Farringdon, Newton Valence and Monkwood area. It is funded by East Hampshire District Council and the delegated fund through the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). The Petersfield Shopper provides transport opportunities from Horndean and this too is funded through SEEDA.

5. Consultation

5.1 Details of the area review and invitations for suggestions were sent to 130 individuals and organisations throughout East Hampshire (see Appendix 1). On 27 April 2006 a meeting of the East Hampshire Transport Forum was held in Petersfield to introduce the area review and was well attended. The objectives were set out, ideas invited and suggestions discussed from which a series of options were developed. These options were reported back to a meeting for Members of the Environment Policy Review Committee and local County Councillors (5 July) and District Council Members and other stakeholders (18 July - East Hampshire Transport Forum) and further comment invited.

6. Assessing the Options

6.1 Each option was assessed against its ability to provide access to the following facilities (LTP priorities):

(i) employment;

(ii) education - primary, secondary and further;

(iii) health - GP surgeries, health centres and acute hospitals;

(iv) retail - food shopping and one higher level retail; and

(v) leisure.

6.2 Each option is scored against each set of access locations, showing:

(i) opportunity to travel to those destinations;

(ii) frequency and flexibility of service; and

(iii) ease of use for those with disabilities.

6.3 For the purpose of this analysis the three divisions of education are assessed separately and their scores combined. Each element has a possible score of 30, so that combined each option has a maximum score of 90. This is factored up to give a score out of 100.

6.4 Opportunity to Travel - the following are assessed:

(i) network coverage of home and destination;

(ii) home within 800 metres of stop, maximum one change; and

(iii) stop within 800 metres of destination.

6.5 Using the approach outlined in Section 3, a number of incremental options were considered.

(i) Base Position: the existing bus service and community transport provision. This would maintain the existing opportunities to travel and provides a cost comparator.

(ii) Option 1: rationalise conventional bus, existing Community Transport (CT) provision.

(iii) Option 2: rationalise conventional bus, increase Community Transport resource.

(iv) Option 3: rationalise conventional bus, increase community transport resource, Rail Link bus option.

6.6 Unconventional transport can include Dial-a-Ride, taxi share, demand-responsive mini-bus, semi-scheduled mini-bus and voluntary car schemes.

6.7 The following table estimates the costs of providing each of the options mentioned above and sets this against the access score achieved. The costs shown are existing costs as at June 2006 on a `like-for-like' basis.

6.8 Note that the above figures cover the review area, which differs from the tendering area.

6.9 The above table shows that none of the options offers a better access score than the existing network and produces varying levels of budget savings.

6.10 Option 3 offers improvements on one corridor but is the highest cost option.

6.11 Option 1 offers the most budget saving but scores lowest on accessibility.

6.12 Option 2 was placed before Members and key stakeholders as the preferred option at the meetings on 5 and 18 July and this option and other alternatives have been included in the subsequent tender exercise to produce actual out-turn costs based on market prices.

7. Outcome

7.1 The East Hampshire Area Review covered the area of the District Council to facilitate clearer consultation and incorporated both conventional bus services and unconventional (community transport), whilst the tender boundaries cover a wider area and are only for conventional bus services.

7.2 The preferred option showed possible savings of £100,000 to off-set budget pressures but this was based on current estimated prices as at April 2006 and the actual market prices are determined in the tendering exercise, detailed in Section 8 below.

8. The Tendering Process and Outcome

8.1 The current contracts for supported services in the Alton tendering area expire on 1 January 2007. A total of 43 bus or coach operators had previously expressed interest in tendering for supported services in this area but only 11 of these requested details of the contracts when contacted. Of these 11, only 4 operators actually submitted tenders. These are the incumbent contract holders (Stagecoach and AMK Mini Coaches), Alder Valley South and Altonian Coaches. Tenders were received on 23 October 2006. The Petersfield town services 94 and 95 will form part of the Alton tendering area from January 2007 but have been tendered separately on this occasion.

8.2 Tenders were issued for the existing pattern of services for cost comparison purposes. The preferred option, Option 2, assumed a reduction in the number of services (due to cost pressures).

8.3 The area review identified a number of services that might fail the value for money criteria. These are set out as Appendix 2 to this report. Two of these services - 201 and 205 - formed part of the budget economies agreed in the summer. This accounted for around 38% of the savings anticipated from the review.

8.4 On receipt of the tenders it was apparent that to maintain the existing services in their current form, without implementing savings from the area review, would require an increase in expenditure of some £81,000 per annum on services which now cost £402,000 per annum, ie 20% more.

8.5 At the same time it was also apparent that tender price increases were lower on average than in other areas tendered recently. As a result, some of the services set out in Appendix 2 continue to meet value for money criteria. Consequently, a larger proportion of the conventional bus network has been retained where conventional bus is the mode which best meets the needs.

8.6 Nevertheless, two services remain from Appendix 2 which do not meet criteria:

(i) Service 2 Lower Green-Hawkley-Liss-Petersfield; and

(ii) Service 221 Bordon/Whitehill local service.

By withdrawing these services and the little-used Saturday journeys on service 250 (Liphook local service) the £81,000 pressure can be removed and the budget balanced.

8.7 As part of the review, a range of community transport options was developed for services which were thought likely to fail value for money criteria upon tendering (Appendix 2). In light of the better than anticipated value for money performance of services on tendering, it is now proposed that community transport provision is made only for Services 2 and 221 (see Appendix 2).

8.8 Overall, therefore, the combined effect of the area review process and tendering has retained the majority of services in the Alton tendering area but, despite overall tender price increases, this has been contained within the current budget.

9. Conclusion

9.1 In order to maximise accessibility whilst containing expenditure within existing budget, it is proposed to adopt the recommendation from the East Hampshire Area Review (Option 2).

10. Impact Assessments

10.1 It is considered that the actions outlined above should not have any detrimental impact on equalities or race discrimination. The area reviews in particular seek to provide journey opportunity to locations for all members of the community.

Recommendation

That approval be given to awarding tenders based on a pattern of services consistent with Option 2 of the East Hampshire Passenger Transport Review in the light of tender results which would produce the following service revisions:

(i) Service 2 Lower Green-Hawkley-Liss-Petersfield to be withdrawn and replaced with community transport provision;

(ii) local Service 221 Bordon/Whitehill to be withdrawn and replaced with community transport provision; and

(iii) local Service 250 Liphook - Saturday journeys to be withdrawn.

914Rpt/JM

APPENDIX 1

STAKEHOLDERS/ATTENDEES

Adult Services Alton, Fareham, Petersfield

Alton College √

Alton Community Centre

Alton Community Hospital

Alton Town Council

Altonian Coaches

AMK Coaches √

Binsted Parish Council √

Bordon & Whitehill Vol. Car Service √

Buriton Parish Council √

Bus Users UK

Chase Community Hospital

Community First √

Community Transport East Hampshire √

East Hampshire Disability Forum

East Hampshire District Council √

East Hampshire Primary Care Trust

East Hampshire Primary Care Trust

East Hampshire/Havant Area Youth Group

East Meon Care group

Eggars School

Emsworth & District

First Hants & Dorset √

Froxfield Parish Council √

Hampshire Ambulance Service north/south

Hampshire Vol. Care Group Advisory Svc.

Hants & IOW Strategic Health Authority

Havant-Haslemere Line Users Group

Horndean Community School

Horndean Vol. Care Group

Liss Parish Council √

Meadow School

Mill Chase Community School

Minerva Accord √

North Hampshire Primary Care Trust

Petersfield Hospital

Petersfield School

Petersfield Tomorrow √

Petersfield Town Council √

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust

South West Trains √

Stagecoach South √

Treloar Trust √

West Tisted Parish Meeting √

Whitehill Town Council √

All other parish councils and vol. care groups

APPENDIX 2

PASSENGER TRANSPORT SERVICES IDENTIFIED BY THE REVIEW (REPORTED 5 AND 18 JULY 2006) FOR POSSIBLE WITHDRAWAL

* Suggested for retention on Mon-Fri only

Opportunities evaluated for greater use of Community Transport/non-conventional services: