'Stranded' seaside villagers call for better buses

David Greening says he relies on his neighbours to take him shopping

People living in a coastal village say they feel "stranded" and have welcomed national proposals to improve bus services.

David Greening, 79, from Aldbrough, East Yorkshire, said he had "well and truly lost" his independence due to poor services and relied on neighbours to take him shopping.

The Commons Transport Select Committee has urged the government to support councils "to grow their bus networks" and ensure there is funding for "socially necessary services".

Local bus firm East Yorkshire said rural areas were "very challenging to serve" and called for "longer-term commitments around funding", while the government said its Bus Services Bill would prevent rural routes being scrapped.

Lorraine Styles lives near a bus stop but says she cannot rely on the connections

Aldbrough is about 12 miles (19km) from the city of Hull and seven from the seaside town of Hornsea.

Villager Lorraine Styles uses buses to travel into Hull and Beverley, but she said she could not rely on limited connections from Aldbrough.

Despite living by a stop, she first drives to Hornsea, or the five miles to the village of Sproatley, before catching a bus.

"If I want to go to Beverley, I have to drive into Hornsea. If I want to go to Hull, I drive to Sproatley to get the bus into Hull because it's the quickest one," she added.

A report by the Transport Select Committee, published on Wednesday, said many communities, especially those outside of major cities, had suffered a significant decline in their local bus networks over the past decade, leaving many without access to reliable services.

The committee wants to see a five-year funding settlement that "would enable local authorities to make sustainable improvements to their networks".

A timetable in the seaside village of Mappleton, near Aldbrough, shows there are five buses each day to Hornsea

CPRE, the countryside charity, said transport inequality in the countryside was holding back the economy, with more than half of England's small towns now "transport deserts".

"Outside large urban areas, people who can't afford a car face social isolation as well as reduced access to education and work," the charity said in a statement.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander previously said the Bus Services Bill would "overhaul how bus services operate – better connecting communities across the country".

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said it had "also stepped in to prevent a fare hike for passengers by extending the £3 fare cap until March 2027".

Ben Gilligan, of East Yorkshire buses, said the challenges of serving rural communities included scattered populations and the number of destinations customers wanted to travel to.

Funding had been provided for some additional services in the county, such as extra evening journeys from York to Pocklington, via Stamford Bridge.

"These services have been well received," Mr Gilligan said. "However, it is also important to recognise that as an industry we have additional costs of operation from wage inflation, extra National Insurance payments, as well as generalised increased costs of operation."

"We would like to see longer-term commitments around funding which would allow us to invest and take a longer term view about services that are less commercially viable."

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