A worried councillor said changes to bus services in Solihull had caused chaos for people trying to get to work or college. Councillor Andrew Burrow told a meeting of the West Midlands Combined Authority Board that his inbox was “full of complaints” from people who have encountered difficulties since changes came into effect earlier this week.
He added affected services were subsidised by Transport for West Midlands resulting in concerns public money was being used and still not delivering. Anne Shaw, executive director for Transport for West Midlands, said there had been a change of supplier following the end of contracts for some services, resulting in “teething problems”.
Councillor Burrow raised the issue at Friday’s (January 10) meeting during a discussion of the Mayor’s draft budget proposals. One of the proposals relates to the increase in the Transport Levy each of the seven member councils pays for travel schemes, such as concessionary passes.
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Soon after he was elected, Mayor Richard Parker set out his plans to reform the bus network across the West Midlands and move from the current deregulated model to a franchise one. A public consultation on the bus franchise proposals was also launched earlier this week.
Councillor Burrow said: “My personal inbox and that of the Knowle councillors are full of complaints from residents on the recent bus timetable changes which were either not advised out or people had a great deal of difficulty in finding out. We’ve had kids unable to get to college, we’ve had people turning up late to work, the buses aren’t actually running on the roads they’re supposed to be on because they re-routed them but some of the buses are going down the old roads.
“It has not been effective. These are subsidised routes, this is of concern we are spending public money and not delivering the results. I think I need to bring it up because we’ve got the Transport Levy on here and I’m worried we can’t actually do this properly. It is not good, I’m talking to officers about it because it is of concern.”
Mayor Richard Parker said: “It is inadequacies with the current bus service, it’s timetables, it’s reliability and its cost which is exactly why we are following the route towards bus franchising so we can improve services which would benefit everyone across the West Midlands including your residents. It was a conversation I was having with members of the business community in Solihull who aired their frustration a number of times with me about the quality and reliability of bus services across the borough, including north south links between the poorer parts of Solihull and where most of the jobs are, that partly drove my commitment towards franchising in recognition of the current failures all of our people have to suffer as a consequence of the current model.”