‘More likely to see a badger than a bus in the countryside’, says CPRE

Commenting on the National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on the local bus service system, Crispin Truman, chief executive of CPRE, the countryside charity, said:

‘This report must serve as the ultimate wake-up call for the government to act to turn-around a system of public transport that’s been failing rural communities for 35 years. The refusal to properly plan or fund public transport has created vast ‘transport deserts’ across our rural areas where there’s virtually no alternative to owning a car. You’re probably more likely to see a badger than a bus in the countryside.

‘We’ve seen years of deregulation and cuts in the name of efficiency and competition, and where politicians have made a desert they call it a public transport system.

‘The National Audit Office has highlighted yet again how the savage cuts to socially necessary bus routes are particularly damaging for rural communities, and it’s shocking that the government isn’t monitoring how many people across the countryside have been cut off from vital services and jobs through lack of public transport over the past decade.

‘The government says it wants people to use their cars less and ‘level up’ left-behind communities. If Ministers want to make this a reality for rural England, they need to fund and deliver a National Bus Strategy that sets out minimum service standards for every rural community, and provide the funding to ensure routes are put in place wherever there aren’t commercial routes.’