Emilia Melville - statement to WECA Committee (20/09/24)

Dear Dan Norris and members of the committee,

We welcome the agenda item 14 paper on bus improvement options. The proposed study of bus improvement options should be implemented urgently.

However, we do not understand why this could not have been started at least a year ago. The proposal does not even set out a detailed scope for the study.  It is essential that all of the UAs, including North Somerset, have scrutiny and a say in the detailed scope of this study.  There should be a steering group for the study that includes representatives of all four UAs. While the national policy context is going to change, this will take years, and the West of England cannot wait until these have been implemented before finding longer term solutions to our transport woes. 

The lack of a Passenger Transport Executive has been a problem in the West of England since before the creation of the UAs. Setting this up is key to unlocking other potential solutions to bus improvements, as the paper acknowledges. We are aware that this will be a significant shift in power away from Unitary Authorities. The payoff, in terms of social, economic and environmental benefits for our region is significant, and we urge all parties to get out of the ‘zero sum game’ mindset, and step into meaningful collaboration. 

We attended the first section of the WECA Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Monday. In response to a detailed history of the delay in taking action on buses in the last 4 years from Cllr Toby Wells, Dan again repeated his familiar list of the reasons why ‘its’ complicated’ in the West of England.  We had expected that Agenda Item 14 would be a report that would detail these reasoning with more background, implications and options analysis by officers.  We were disappointed to see the current paper which is simply a proposal. On Monday Dan alluded to more detailed work having been carried out behind the scenes, and stated that he has ‘no problem’ with scrutiny committee members seeing this work. Dan should be asking his officers to pro-actively share this work in the form of a report (which should have been provided in addition to this high-level budget proposal).  This level of passivity and evasion makes us wonder whether any such detailed work exists, or whether this is a smokescreen to hide inaction. 

Setting up functional West of England wide transport governance is crucial. However, achieving this involves a challenging process of trust-building between Unitary Authorities who see themselves as competing for funds directed into supported bus services. Building this trust is not easy, so we recognise that Dan is not in an easy position. However, being Mayor of a combined authority was never presented as an easy job. Dan should be acting as a leader, and building a team spirit between the UAs, rather than using lack of trust as a political football and airing dirty laundry in public.

We know that Dan Norris’ predecessor did extremely little in the Mayoral role.Comparing himself favourably to this extremely low bar isn’t a great look - Dan, why don’t you strive for something better and choose a more impressive role model? Similarly, saying that ‘if the red box system is good enough for central government it’s good enough for regional government’ is not relevant. There’s no consensus that regional government be a less progressive or modern version of central government. Why not use modern communication processes?

Overall, we hope that this budget proposal will lead to forward movement on bus services improvements. Buses may be an intellectual puzzle, work day project, or political football for the people on the ‘members’ side of the table, but for many many residents of the West of England the reliability of buses may be a question of access to education, ability to hold down a job, or to have social connections which we know are essential for mental and physical health.  For others, good quality bus services are the thing that enables sustainable and ecological transport choices for daily life.  We urge you to start making meaningful progress, and agree to this proposal.