Hampshire County Council Scrutiny Review:

Transport in the Community

East Hampshire District Council's Response

Background:

The following notes were taken at a meeting of the Building Successful Communities Panel, which took place on 12 July 2007 at Penns Place, Petersfield. The meeting was attended by 22 councillors.

Key Questions:

1. What progress is being made by Hampshire County Council and partners in identifying and dealing with gaps in passenger transport services in respect of their ability to meet community needs?

1.1 How well established is the process for assessing community needs?

_ EHDC members & officers have been involved in Market Town Health Checks in Alton, Bordon and Whitehill, Petersfield and Horndean, which give valuable information on community needs.

_ Changes in settlement growth need to be assessed but bus routes are not dynamic and do not respond to change

_ Members feel that, since the demise of the CHRTS meetings, they are disenfranchised from involvement in transport issues.

1.2 What is the current level of knowledge about the gap between identified need and current provision in relation to meeting community needs such as -

a) Healthcare

_ A need to assess journeys to hospital e.g. the effect of the new community hospital in Havant. How will people access it from the Horndean area? Problems in accessing hospitals in Portsmouth by public transport from the EHDC area.

b) Employment

_ Strategic Group needs to be set up to define what services are needed, when and where. Lack of semi-skilled labour force in the Petersfield area has meant that companies such as Whitmans have to bring in labour from outside the EHDC area e.g. Havant and Leigh Park, using their own transport.

c) education and training

_ Need for HCC to prioritise transport to education establishments. Evidence that it is increasingly difficult for youngsters to access Sixth Form Education in the EHDC area e.g. 16 - 18 year olds from the Bordon & Whitehill area find it difficult to get to Alton Sixth Form College.

_ Many secondary school pupils have problems getting to schools of their choice e.g. majority of pupils from Clanfield now attend The Petersfield School instead of Horndean Technology Coillege but do not have school transport.

d) shopping and leisure

_ Youngsters have problems in accessing local sports centres in Petersfield, Alton and Bordon because there are no early evening bus services operating

_ Small, sustainable, low floor accessible buses (e.g. AMK service 73) are ideal for shoppers to get to market towns such as Petersfield. Since the service moved to a Wednesday (Market day in Petersfield), numbers using the bus have almost doubled.

1.3 What partnership working is taking place in relation to responding to gaps, particularly when these are cross boundary?

_ Hopefully the recruitment of a new transport officer at EHDC researching community transport and HCC's new Rural Pilot will respond to the gaps in provision. Recent bus cuts in the EHDC area have left many areas with little or no service.

1.4 Are there particular population groups, whether age specific, disability specific, or economic groupings such job seekers and young people in training, for whom addressing gaps is problematic ?

_ Feedback from our Citizenship lessons with 14 year olds highlights the problems they have in getting to the main towns for leisure or meeting friends in the evening.

_ Similarly, older people need access to more than shopping e.g. leisure and `fun' activities'

_ Feedback from EHDC's Disability Forum and Treloar College in Alton reveals a lack of accessible vehicles for them to use. Frustration that Treloar College students cannot use the Cango services in Alton.

2. What could be done to achieve more effective use of passenger transport services in Hampshire?

2.1 How do current methods of achieving effectiveness, in relation to co-ordinating commercial and non commercial services provided through rail, bus, coach, community and demand responsive transport, and Hampshire County Council transport, work?

_ A need for the route of the A3 Bus Corridor to be extended to `Old' Clanfield (Rising Sun etc.); `First' would pick up extra passengers making it an even more viable service

_ A need to support more Sunday bus services, as the day is often used to access leisure services.

_ Need for through ticketing e.g. the demise of the 38 service from Liss to Portsmouth means that bus users using the 37 service will have to buy two separate tickets as two companies are involved (`Stagecoach' from Liss/Petersfield to Waterlooville; `First' from Waterlooville to QA Hospital and Portsmouth)

_ SW Trains ticket offices often shut and vending machines difficult to use. Also, as a result of SW Trains' zero tolerance on travellers without tickets, puts extra pressure on the situation.

_ Although passengers living close to the A3 Bus Corridor are well served, people living beyond walking distance of the corridor have very poor services e.g. Catherington and the Hazleton Estate. Perhaps community transport vehicles could feed in passengers from these areas to key bus stops on the A3 Bus Corridor?

2.2 Could the current approach to co-ordinating services to reduce the number of empty seats, duplicated routes and vehicle under-use be improved, and how?

_ Need to make passengers aware of changes to the timetable

_ When bus passes are distributed by EHDC, need to make `Farepass' users aware of bus services available

_ Problems of space on buses from Portsmouth to Horndean and Clanfield; buses often full because they are used for local journeys e.g. within Portsmouth. Possibility of using different colour tickets to give priority for longer journeys?

_ Lack of integration between bus and fast trains in Petersfield, especially for bus services south of Butser. As a result, too many passengers use their cars to get to Petersfield station, resulting in severe parking problems.

2.3 What, if any, additional steps could be taken, Hampshire wide, to improve effectiveness?

_ Need to improve disabled access to public transport e.g. few low floor, wheelchair accessible buses in the EHDC area. In addition, railway stations such as Liphook are not disable accessible.

_ HCC need to be more responsive to local views about bus routes. In addition, too little time given for any kind of meaningful consultation.

_ Taxi Bus services that have replaced bus services do not allow booking on day of use

_ Prohibitive cost of public transport needs to be addressed.

Gwil Williams

Community Access Officer

East Hampshire District Council