THURROCK Council’s transport team have been working hard over the last three weeks to find a solution to the gap that would be left if the 374 bus was no longer fully subsidised by the council.
Cllr Oliver Gerrish said: “When we were forced to choose between helping keep the 11 or the 374 going, it was a very difficult decision.
“At the time I asked officers in the transport team to work with the private bus operators to see if alternative provision was possible.”
He said: “Many people remember fondly the time when local councils had the authority to run their own bus services, but – outside of London – that is no longer so. Councils cannot run services and many, such as Southend for example, do not even subsidise routes that are not commercially viable.
“Unfortunately, that is the key and it has been since the mid-1980s. Bus operators are business people and have to make a profit – if a route doesn’t pay for itself it will not run.
“Some councils, like us here in Thurrock, understand that some communities need a public transport service and try to find the money from our ever-shrinking public purse.
“Both the 11 and the 374 each cost Thurrock Council around £¼ million a year to keep going. It’s money that would otherwise go to support things like adult or children’s social care and it’s not an insubstantial amount.”
He said: “We didn’t want to raise hopes before we were confident we had a solution and although I can’t say 100 per cent, I am very hopeful we can get to a better outcome for our communities and at very little cost to the council.
“Detailed and delicate discussions have been going on between us and the bus operators for some time and that will continue this week. While we cannot – and have not been able to – discuss too much publicly because of the very commercially sensitive details, residents should be aware that we are working hard on this and hope to be able to share more news soon.”
