More buses in Bath and North East Somerset are under threat of being axed if the council does not increase its transport funding, a local public transport campaigner has warned.
Bus routes which are vital for communities but are not profitable for bus companies to run are financially supported by local authorities.
In the West of England, councils such as Bath & North East Somerset pay a “transport levy” to the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), about a third of which is used to pay for these routes.
Addressing Bath & North East Somerset Council’s climate scrutiny panel on 22nd January, transport campaigner David Redgewell warned that bus services were at risk unless the council increased the levy it paid.
He said: “The levy has been frozen which means as the cost of providing bus services has gone up from staff, resources, drivers, cleaning, and maintenance, the levy stands still.
“If the levy doesn’t get raised, then the bus services running out there that you’ve got supported in Bath — that’s services like the 20, services like the 4, services on evenings and Sundays, services down to the Somer Valley — are in threat of being withdrawn, some of them, from September.”
He added that WECA CEO Stephen Peacock had been asking for “urgent discussions” with council leaders to ensure the levy was increased.
Mr Redgewell told the scrutiny panel: “It’s not just from Bath and North East Somerset. It’s also from Bristol City Council and South Gloucestershire.
“It has not moved with the level of inflation for providing bus services in four years, yet the cost of paying for bus services — paying drivers, cleaning, tendering — has become more.”
Last year, the levy was frozen. Papers which went before the WECA committee in January 2024 said the freeze could be absorbed by taking £1.1 million out of the “smoothing reserve” for transport costs.
But it warned there would need to be a 13% increase in the levy in the 2025/26 financial year, with further rises of 7% and 4% in the years after.
This year’s transport levy will be voted on at the WECA committee meeting on Friday 31st January. Papers going before the committee state that Bath & North East Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council will both pay a 5% increase to their transport levy, while Bristol City Council will pay a 3% increase.
The paper said this could be a “balanced position” if money was taken out of reserves.
In 2023, buses across rural North East Somerset were cut after the levy was not increased in line with inflation, triggering a bitter row between Bath & North East Somerset Council and Metro Mayor Dan Norris.
At a WECA committee meeting in June of that year, Mr Norris called Bath & North East Somerset Council’s actions “a disingenuous, mean-spirited, deceptive, devious thing to do”.
Councillor Sarah Warren, who was representing the local authority at the meeting, accused him of “misrepresentation”.
Mr Redgewell has urged the council to discuss raising the levy. He told the scrutiny panel: “If you want, you can play a political football and say it’s all the mayor’s fault but it won’t wash and it will cause damage to this council and to WECA.”
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
