WORCESTER’s Green Party councillors and campaigners have called for ‘One Pound Fare to Take You There’ on buses across the city.
Following the last minute extension of bus funding and £2 fares Green councillors in Worcester are calling for a long-term funding plan for buses with additional measures to increase bus usage.
Last week, the Green Party launched their ‘A One Pound Fare to Take You There,’ policy which will reduce the cap on single local bus fares to £1 and seek to increase usage of buses, since passenger levels in most areas have never fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Greens want to see free bus travel for everyone under 22 as well as protection of existing schemes.
County Councillor Matthew Jenkins said: “The £2 cap in single fares across England has benefited many bus users, but there is no point offering cheap fares on buses that don’t exist.
“Almost one in 10 local bus services were axed in Great Britain in the last year despite government promises to improve local transport connectivity being a key pillar of its levelling up agenda.
“Cheaper fares must be combined with major investment in buses and bus services to boost bus travel.
“We need our buses to work for passengers, not for the profit of large private bus companies. We need greater powers for our councils to set routes and frequencies.
“That is why Greens would put an end to the current system where private companies can cherry-pick the profitable routes while leaving other passengers out in the cold and some communities completely cut off.”
Community campaigner Tor Pingree says, “Better public transport benefits everyone – when more people use public transport congestion on our roads is eased and in the long run the health costs associated with air pollution are reduced. Residents in St Clement have told me that irregular bus services with hardly any evening or weekend provision stop them from going into the city for shopping or leisure activities. .”
The Green Party says it would pay for bus service improvements at a national level by scrapping the £27billion national road building programme, diverting this money to public transport, and allocating a proportion of their proposed carbon tax to fund the £1 fare and free travel for everyone 21 and under.
