Parents 'grateful' as doomed bus service saved

A bus service which was due to be axed has been temporarily saved.

The 918 service, which runs from Severn Beach and Pilning to the Castle School in Thornbury and Marlwood School in Alveston, was facing cancellation from July.

However, South Gloucestershire Council has agreed to spend £240,000 of its reserves to continue funding the service for the next academic year.

Caroline Brewser, a parent of children at the Castle School, said: "Words cannot express how grateful the families are for the funding."

She said: "It enables local children to travel safely and punctually and develop an important sense of independence and responsibility.

"To us, this is not just a bus, it is an essential and fundamental part of our daily existence."

The council will also keep the 84/85 bus, which connects places like Cromhall and Hawkesbury Upton with Wotton-under-Edge and Yate, running until September.

But it is still unclear how and if the service will be funded once the reserves run out.

Bus routes which do not make a profit for operators are often subsidised by local councils, such as in South Gloucestershire.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Willmore, cabinet member for planning, regeneration and infrastructure, said: "I'm really sorry that all we could do at the minute is give you another year.

"It's another year of trying to persuade the West of England Combined Authority to prioritise the service."

Local councils in the West of England region pay a transport levy every year to the combined authority, to be spent on subsidised buses, as well as bus passes for elderly and disabled people.

But this year, despite rising costs to run services, the councils are not increasing how much they pay for the transport levy - meaning more cuts to services could soon be coming.

South Gloucestershire Council will pay just over £4m for its share of the transport levy in the next financial year.

The cabinet was asked if this was a fair amount, given the pressures on many routes across the district.

Mr Willmore said: "The money we've just approved to keep the 918 and 84/85 going, had we put that into an increased levy to WECA, then the amount WECA would have been in a position to spend on our buses would not have saved those two buses.

"At the minute, there is a disincentive in the system to increase the levy."

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