Thirty Worcestershire bus routes face axe as firm loses £1m a year

MP for Wyre Forest Mark Garnier said the bus model "doesn't work" due to more people having cars

Bus passengers in parts of Worcestershire could lose almost all services unless more people start using them, a travel operator has warned.

Diamond, run by parent company Rotala, said all but one of their routes in Kidderminster and Redditch were losing money.

In a letter to Worcestershire County Council, it said up to 30 services could be withdrawn without support.

The council said it was in talks with the operator over possible solutions.

Simone Gregory travels on the bus at least three times a week to Birmingham Road in Kidderminster. She said with the weather getting warmer, it is easier for her and her 18-month-old to catch the bus rather than walk.

"This bus is also my elderly nan's only route past her house," she added.

'Stretch limo'

Gemma Ingleton from Callow Hill in Redditch, who is registered blind and uses a cane, said she did not want services to be axed as she would be reliant on others and cannot afford taxis.

She uses the number 11 service to and from her home to the town centre, but the service faced being cut altogether in August.

"I've only just come back to using buses in January as I was in the shielding group due to Covid," she said.

"I actually broke my thumb then as after I was waiting for a bus one night and it didn't turn up, I walked home with my cane but I couldn't see the pavement and I broke my thumb and was in a cast for six weeks."

She added: "I want the services to keep going… without them it would mean a 50 minute walk to the town centre or I am completely reliant on others and I can't afford taxis."

However, Mark Garnier, Conservative MP for the Wyre Forest, said people have changed the way they get around, including in rural communities.

"More and more people have got cars so fewer people use buses, as fewer people use buses the bus companies take off routes," Mr Garnier said.

"The bus model doesn't work and we've got to accept that, if we start talking about how much money we put in the subsidies you get back to a situation we had back in 2010.

"All of us across the two counties were subsidising some of these bus routes to the tune of £68 per passenger...you can get them a stretch limo for that," he said.

Rotala operates within the Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) area across Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire

Mr Garnier said there were alternative ways to get people who rely on the buses to where they need to go, including a Demand Responsive Transport trial currently happening in Bromsgrove, which involves people booking onto larger mini buses.

He also said subsidising Uber taxis was cheaper than "pushing around huge buses" which he were "big polluters".

'Commercial suicide'

Rotala said in the letter, also sent to MPs and the Department for Transport, that passenger recovery rates were consistent with the industry at just over 80% compared to pre-Covid levels.

No routes in Kidderminster were profitable, the firm said, with only one making money in Redditch.

It said the industry was "very fortunate" to be supported by the government throughout the pandemic, but overall business was "heavily loss making" despite price rises and smaller routes.

"The losses are in excess of £1m per year. We cannot continue as we are because this is commercial suicide."

Conservative MP for Redditch Rachel Maclean said she had written to transport minister Grant Shapps on the issue and that she would "leave no stone unturned" to safeguard bus services.