Train services throughout the region are actually improving. This is partly the result of the lobbying and agitation of the Joint Transport Committee which, before we had a mayor, was all the local authorities in the region working together under the able leadership of Martin Gannon, who is now Deputy Mayor to Kim McGuinness. The fact that we had several Red Wall seats in our region which the government was desperate to hang onto did help secure some investment for the new Northumberland Line up to Ashington and Blyth.
Leamside Line
The proposed Leamside Line has also achieved prominence because of the lobbying by all political parties and local authorities. If built this would take traffic off the main line between Northallerton and Newcastle so main line services could be improved, and would also provide services for other communities in the North East, particularly Washington, the largest town in the UK not to have a railway station. The main line goes from four tracks to two at Northallerton because two tracks branch off to go round by Stockton to Ferryhill. Rebuilding the line would continue these two tracks to Tyneside.
But trains are not the only form of public transport, although politicians like them and enjoy being photographed in shiny new ones. For most of the population the main way of getting about in the region is the humble bus, and here the picture is far worse.
Buses
Noise about the election crowded out news of a report by Friends of the Earth and academics at Leeds University, which shows that in 40 parliamentary constituencies which were captured by the Tories in 2019, services have declined by an average of 45% since 2010. Some areas had declines of 60%, particularly in the West and East Midlands.
Does this matter you might think? Surely most people have access to a car. Even if they do not own one, someone can give them a lift. I remember when I was involved with the NHS, we looked at a village in East Durham and found that there were actually four people who did not have a car, could not get a lift, or were not near a bus route. It was more sensible to recruit volunteer drivers than to subsidise a new bus route.
Yes, it very much does matter for two big reasons. If we are serious about achieving net zero, we want to encourage “modal shift”. That is using public transport more and cars less. No one is talking about banning cars, just using them less. Filling a bus up will take probably forty cars off the road. But for people to use them services have to be comfortable, reliable and frequent, like the expresses are now, but unfortunately not many local routes.
Secondly everyone agrees that we need an industrial strategy which will bring more high-quality jobs to the region. These cannot be in every village or town, like the old pits used to be, but will be in centres of excellence such as Newton Aycliffe Industrial Estates, Integra 61 at Bowburn, Netpark at Sedgefield or the new International Advanced Manufacturing Park near Washington. Hopefully these will provide good apprenticeships for our young people. That is no good if they cannot get there. Good transport connections are essential.
Who has control?
Not everyone knows how buses are run at the moment. Local authorities are “transport authorities” but this means they can provide timetables, bus shelters and bus stations, but do not have any control over the bus operators. Only a few big mayoral authorities such as London or Manchester can control what the bus operators actually do. The other mayoral authorities are aiming to acquire these powers as soon as they can. At the moment the bus companies are profit making operations. They are happy to run routes like the express ones but will only operate unprofitable ones if local authorities will give them a subsidy. The aim is for the new mayoral authorities to control the franchises to the operators, so they decide which routes are run and how subsidies are spent. This is a legacy of the Thatcher government deregulating public transport and letting any operator run a service. The result was too many buses for a short period and then not enough for a long one up until now. Since local authority spending has been drastically cut the result is less subsidised routes and fewer buses.
Giving local authorities and mayors control over bus franchising will not automatically provide more buses, although they should be more reliable. If there is to be a reliable service that is convenient and easy to use, so people want to use it, then there needs to be more funding. This is a difficult decision the new government has to face.
