Archived decisions

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

1. Summary

1.1 This report:

(i) sets out the process for the Hart and Rushmoor area reviews;

(ii) details the outcome of tenders for local bus services in the Blackwater Valley tendering area (Aldershot, Fleet, Farnborough, Yateley areas); and

(iii) proposes a plan of action that ensures 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 thus enhancing well-being.

2. Recommendation

2.1 That approval be given to awarding tenders based on a pattern of services consistent with Option 3 of the Hart Passenger Transport Review and Option 6 of the Rushmoor Passenger Transport Review, in the light of the Blackwater Valley tender results, which would produce the following service revision:

Service 71 Farnham-Fleet to be withdrawn and replaced by community transport provision.

3. Background

3.1 Bus industry costs are currently rising ahead of general inflation (at around 8% per annum. By contrast local authority service inflation increases are around 2.5%, and due to other irresistible service pressures the County Council decided to reduce bus subsidies by £500,000 (around 8%) over two years). This situation is forecast to continue in the next few years and there is also some uncertainty over Government revenue funding for bus service support. It is important therefore that as contracts are retendered, the 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 service provision; and

(v) the relationship between commercially provided services and those financially supported achieves the greatest efficiency.

3.2 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.

4. Approach

4.1 The approach has been to undertake area passenger transport reviews. A review of Hart district was carried out in late 2005 and one for Rushmoor borough in mid to late 2006. These reviews represent a new approach to reviewing and planning passenger transport services in Hampshire. The reviews preceded a tendering exercise for all supported services in the Blackwater Valley area which incorporates both districts.

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

4.3 Options developed using this approach are scored according to how well they enable people to access employment, education, health, retail and leisure 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.

4.4 A critical aspect of the review process is the engagement of stakeholders in the process. This has included district and parish/town councils, bus operators, the community transport sector eg Hart Voluntary Action, and other key players. The cooperation of the major bus operators is vital in order to ensure that, wherever possible, the review considers both those services which are financially supported by the County Council and those which are operated as business ventures without support. Stakeholder engagement has a key role to play both in developing options and also validating the final choice of options.

4.5 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 patronage as well as those areas where social inclusion objectives may best be achieved.

4.6 These elements have formed 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) encouraging increased and more effective use of "unconventional" transport such as taxis, community transport, shared cars and demand-responsive services where conventional bus services are no longer appropriate.

5. Hart and Rushmoor Review - Context

5.1 The Blackwater Valley area group of contracts has been extended to 28 July 2007. The tendering area covers all of Hart district and Rushmoor borough. Stagecoach is the predominant operator in Aldershot, Farnborough and Yateley, whereas in Fleet, Countywide Travel is the principal operator. Sureline Coaches is the only other operator of a contracted route (Farnborough-Ash).

5.2 Some contracted routes cross the county boundary into Surrey en route to Farnham or Camberley. There is considerable cooperation and joint working between Hampshire and Surrey on cross-border bus service matters. Each county contributes funding to cross-border contracts in respect of mileage within its boundaries.

5.3 Hart district with lower population density is served predominantly by supported services. Given the prevailing rate of cost increases for bus services, it was anticipated that many of these supported services would fail to meet value for money criteria when tendered. This could result in their withdrawal. To reflect this, options for a rationalised bus network were modelled and the recommended option followed this approach.

5.4 As a result of careful tender preparation, it was possible to obtain (tender) prices which allowed a greater proportion of conventional bus services to meet value for money criteria.

5.5 The preferred option from the Hart review (Option 3) anticipated that three services would fail to meet value for money criteria but in the event only two - service 71 Fleet-Farnham and 78 Quetta Park-Fleet Rail Station failed criteria. The former is proposed for withdrawal at a cost saving of £89,500 before provision of a Community Transport alternative (approximately £42,000) and a reduction in access score of two points.

5.6 Although the tender price for service 78 (£13,500) fails to quite meet value for money criteria, the estimated cost of a community transport alternative is higher. The service is one of three that specifically provides morning and evening journeys into Fleet rail station for commuters. They were viewed as important by stakeholders in the consultation process due to pressure on parking spaces at the station and as a way of reducing car journeys. A new contract will therefore be awarded for a conventional bus service as the lower cost option.

5.7 Rushmoor Borough, with a higher population density, has a predominantly commercial bus service network including a number of services operated as part of the Blackwater Valley Quality Bus Partnership (QBP) and two routes part funded from Department for Transport monies as a result of successful Kickstart bids. The review anticipated that one service - 41 Farnborough-Ash - might fail to meet value for money criteria. Consequently, a community transport alternative was evaluated as Option 6. Following a successful Surrey County Council Kickstart bid for routes 4 and 5 (North Town-Aldershot-Farnham), the review concluded that evening journeys on the section between Aldershot and North Town might be well supported. A tender for such journeys was therefore included in the tendering exercise which followed the reviews.

5.8 The area review estimated that the loss of service 41 would achieve savings of £50,000 per annum. In the event, it proved possible to retain service 41 as it met value for money criteria and at a budget saving of £16,000. Replacement of service 41 by a community transport alternative would have reduced the access score by 5 points.

6. Consultation

6.1 The Rushmoor and Hart Transport Forum has been used as the principal means of engaging with stakeholders. Special meetings of the Forum were held to launch the two reviews, to report back on options and to feed back details of the outcome of tendering. A wide range of organisations was invited to participate in the process - listed in Appendix 1.

6.2 A summary of the Blackwater Valley tendering results will be presented to a meeting of the Rushmoor and Hart Transport Forum on 23 May 2007. Any matters arising from the Forum will be reported orally at the Decision Day.

7. Assessing the Options

7.1 Each option devised was assessed against its suitability for providing access to the following (LTP2 priorities):

(i) employment;

(ii) education - primary, secondary and further;

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

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

(v) leisure.

7.2 Each option was scored against each set of access locations, (i) to (v) above, showing:

(i) opportunity to travel to those facilities;

(ii) frequency and flexibility of service; and

(iii) accessibility and ease of use for those with disabilities.

7.3 For the purposes 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.

7.4 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.

7.5 Using the approach outlined in Section 4, a number of incremental options

were considered. These are set out in the table below.

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

7.7 The table estimated the costs of providing each of the options for the two area reviews. These costs are set against the access score achieved. The costs shown are existing costs as at April 2007 on a "like for like" basis.

PASSENGER TRANSPORT AREA REVIEWS - HART AND RUSHMOOR

OPTIONS

7.8 The table shows that for Hart :

(i) Option 2 offers the greatest cost saving but scores low on accessibility;

(ii) Option 3 would deliver an improvement on the existing situation and generate cost savings; and

(iii) Option 3a offers optimum journey opportunities but no cost saving.

7.9 Option 3 was placed before Members and key stakeholders as the preferred option at a meeting on 23 June 2006.

7.10 For Rushmoor, the table shows that:

(i) Option 5 offers a budget saving but offers the lowest access score;

(ii) Option 6 improves Community Transport provision but is notionally funded at the expense of services which may have higher scores than services elsewhere; and

(iii) Option 7 introduces a requested evening service but at a high start-up cost.

7.11 In view of the provisos contained in the analysis of Options 6 and 7, no single option was recommended from the Rushmoor review. Instead, the recommendation was that Option 7 should be costed through the tendering process but evaluated against the tender results as a whole before implementation was considered. This was reported back to a meeting of Rushmoor Borough Members on 30 November 2006. The outcome of the tendering for Option 7 is set out at paragraph 9.5.

8. Outcome

8.1 The Area Reviews are district council based and cover the area within the district boundaries. This facilitated clearer consultation and stakeholder engagement. Both conventional bus services and community transport were included in the reviews. However, the tendering exercise covers a much larger area and deals only with conventional bus services.

8.2 The preferred option for Hart (Option 3) anticipated a rationalised conventional bus network (due to increased costs) and increased community transport resources (same operating times, more vehicles).

8.3 In order to allow for flexibility of implementation in the light of the tendering results, no preferred option was put forward from the Rushmoor review.

9. The Tendering Process and Outcomes

9.1 The current contracts for supported services in the Blackwater Valley tendering area expire on 28 July 2007. A total of 46 bus or coach operators had previously expressed an interest in tendering for supported services in this area, but only 11 requested details of the tenders when contacted. Of these 11, only 7 operators actually submitted bids. These were the incumbent contract holders (Stagecoach South, Countywide Travel Limited and Sureline Coaches), Alder Valley South, AMK Chauffeur Drive, Countryliner Limited and Tellings-Golden Miller.

9.2 Tenders were issued for the existing pattern of service for cost comparison purposes. All tenders included a low floor vehicle option. Tenderers were invited to put forward their own alternative timetable options. All options in both reviews assumed a reduction in the number of supported services due to cost pressures.

9.3 The area reviews identified a number of services that might fail the value for money criteria. These are set out in Appendix 2.

9.4 On receipt of the tenders it was apparent that, without implementing potential savings from the area reviews, the current network of services would not cost more than it currently does.

9.5 Option 7 ( Rushmoor Borough Review) sought costs for additional evening journeys on route 4. A range of alternatives priced from £5,000 to £15,000 per annum was received. Whilst this cost could have been met within the existing level of support, the reduced level of the bus subsidy budget for 2007/08 and 2008/09 means that it would be imprudent to introduce additional evening journeys at this time. Introduction of the evening journeys would have increased the overall access score by 1 point.

9.6 Tender price increases were lower on average than in other areas of the county recently tendered. 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 transport is the mode which best meets the needs.

9.7 Nevertheless, the following service remains from Appendix 2 which does not meet criteria:

Service 71 Fleet-Farnham (Monday-Saturday).

9.8 As part of the area reviews, a range of community transport options was developed for services which were thought likely to fail to meet value for money upon tendering (Appendix 2). In the 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 service 71. This proposal is currently being developed.

9.9 The overall combined effect of the area review process and tendering has retained the majority of bus services in the Blackwater Valley tendering area at a saving of approximately £50,000 on current expenditure. The access score would reduce by two points.

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.

11. Conclusion

11.1 In order to maximise accessibility, whilst containing expenditure within existing budget, it is proposed to fulfil the recommendations from the Hart and Rushmoor Area Reviews.

11.2 Although the tender results suggested the feasibility of introducing additional evening journeys within the existing level of support, these should not be proceeded with due to the overall reduction in the budget for supported bus services.

1228Rpt/JM

APPENDIX 1

PASSENGER TRANSPORT AREA REVIEWS - HART AND RUSHMOOR

STAKEHOLDERS

Age Concern - Blackwater, Yateley and District

Age Concern Hampshire

Aldershot Air Cadets

Aldershot Neighbourcare

Arriva serving Surrey and West Sussex

Blackwater and Hawley Town Council

Blackwater Mobility Trust

Blackwater Valley and Hart Primary Care Trust

Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth

Bramshill Parish Council

British Red Cross (Fleet)

British Red Cross (Hook)

Citizens Advice Bureau (Fleet and RAF Odiham)

Citizens Advice Bureau (Yateley, Hartley Wintney)

Civil Service Pensioners Alliance

Club Hampshire County Council

(The) Connaught School

Countywide Travel Limited

Cove School

Crondall and Ewshot Neighbourcare

Crondall Parish Council

Crookham Village Parish Council

Curtis Court Day Care Centre

Deaf Plus

Disabled Action Self Help (DASH)

Dogmersfield Parish Council

East Elmbridge and Mid-Surrey Primary Care Trust

Eversley Parish Council

Farnborough College of Technology

Farnborough Neighbourcare

Farnborough Sixth Form College

Farnborough Welcome

Fernhill School and Language College

First Great Western

First in Berkshire

Fleet and District Voluntary Care Scheme

1^st Fleet Boys Brigade

Fleet Methodist Church

Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Frimley Park Hospital NHS Trust

Frogmore Community School

Frogmore Day Care Centre

Greywell Parish Council

Guillemont School

Hampshire County Council

Hampshire Primary Care Trust

Hart Access Committee

Hart District Association of Parish Councils

Hart District Council

Hart Housing Association Limited

Hart Lions Club

Hart Voluntary Action and Yelabus

Hart Voluntary Care Groups Advisory Service

Hartley Wintney Parish Council

Hartley Wintney Voluntary Care Group

Heckfield Parish Council

Henry Tyndale School

Holy Trinity RC Church Care Group

Hook and Odiham Lions Club

Hook Care Group

Hook Parish Council

(The) Linden Education Centre

Long Sutton and Well Parish Council

Mattingley Parish Council

North Hampshire Chamber of Commerce

Oak Farm Community School

Odiham Parish Council

Parity for Disabled

Ramsay House

Rosefield Day Care Centre for the Elderly

Rosie Minibus Group

Rotary Club (Blackwater Valley)

Rotary Club (Hart)

Rotherwick Parish Council

Rushmoor Access Group

Rushmoor Borough Council

Rushmoor Voluntary Services

St Peter's Church Care Group

St Swithun's RC Church Care Group

Samuel Cody School

Seeability

Sentinel Housing Association

South Warnborough Parish Council

South West Trains

Stagecoach South

Stratfield Turgis Parish Council

Sureline Coaches

Wavell School

Winchfield Parish Council

Women's Royal Voluntary Service - Hart District

Yateley and District Lions Club

Yateley Industries for the Disabled

Yateley Neighbourcare

Yateley School

Yateley Town Council

Zebon Copse Residents Association

APPENDIX 2

PASSENGER TRANSPORT AREA REVIEWS - HART AND RUSHMOOR

BUS SERVICES IDENTIFIED BY THE AREA REVIEWS FOR POSSIBLE WITHDRAWAL