Cuts to local bus services will go ahead

The council's cabinet today (Tuesday, 7th November) approved cuts to the borough's subsidised buses to achieve savings of just over £1m.

The cuts and changes to local services will go ahead as follows:

88 – Altrincham – Wilmslow – Knutsford

This will now be incorporated into route E with the 27 Macclesfield to Knutsford service.

This will see the service reduced to an hourly service and extended to go to Macclesfield (would be once every two hours as per the present 27 service) and alternately to Northwich.

The first service of the day from Knutsford to Altrincham will be retimed to allow passengers to arrive into Altrincham for 08:20am; the first bus of the day will arrive in Altrincham for 07:10 and the last bus of the day will leave Macclesfield at 17:45.

200 - Wilmslow – Manchester Airport

Service withdrawn with an hourly railway service from Styal Railway Station introduced in May 2018.

130 - Macclesfield to Wilmslow to Manchester

Sunday services withdrawn.

The council had intended to seek savings of £1.57m but following residents' feedback to their public consultation it agreed to reduce the amount of money it intended to save by around £500,000 - meaning more services will be subsidised than originally planned.

The council went out to public consultation earlier this year to seek the views of residents on the possible withdrawal of evening and weekend services and the reorganisation of daytime services.

In total, 3,959 responses to the consultation were received. The council took into account a number of factors before arriving at its final network of supported services.

Councillor Paul Bates, cabinet member for finance and communication, said: "We face challenging financial constraints and we recognise that some of our residents will be affected by a reduction in services.

"We have had to make some tough decisions but we feel that we have met many of the concerns expressed in the consultation feedback by re-configuring some routes and retaining the subsidy on routes where the removal of services would have resulted in hardship.

"I want to thank all those people who took the trouble to contribute to the consultation and we would like to see residents making greater use of our buses, where practicable, so that car dependency across the borough is reduced."

Operators are to be invited to provide costs for evening services on some key routes and the council will award tenders, which offer best value, taking in duration of route-working through the day and evening.

The council will no longer support Sunday bus services unless they are totally self-sustaining.

Proposed changes to the borough's 'Little Bus' service will be delayed to ensure that the service is not over-subscribed.

Although savings are estimated at more than £1m – rather than the £1.57m originally planned – an accurate financial position will not be known until the tendering and procurement process has completed.

Full details of routes and adapted services can be found online.

Tags:

88 Bus Service, Bus Services, Cheshire East Council