Wednesday March 30th was the last scheduled run of the Handy Bus Club under the aegis of Suffolk ACRE and the Time For You Project.
This is not the Handy Bus obituary. We haven’t shut it down but we have now reached a peak in the foothills of the mountain ahead. This is where we have to take a moment to stop and look at where we’re going.
We carried round-trip three people today and a guide dog from Peasenhall into Halesworth to do their shopping. Two of our passengers are disabled though you’d be hard pressed to notice how the other one is but their condition prevents them from driving. One passenger is also a family carer. We all had a jolly chat riding along in the bus about nesting birds and who was driving the slow tractor ahead of us until I broke the news. It was upsetting to hear this service might end just as it was getting started because my employment contract has reached its end. Another passenger had just booked a dental appointment and had expected to use our bus. Before our bus existed, they had great difficulty going to a dentist.
The genesis of the Handy Bus Club was the ‘Time For You’ study commissioned by the Department of Health into the needs of rural ‘hidden’ family carers (those not known to care agencies) in the Sibton and Peasenhall area and funding was given to find ways of locally enabling breaks from caring for them. Once I had found these hidden carers – many more than we expected - I learned from them that giving them a short holiday didn’t factor high in their priorities, they had many other unmet basic needs. And in the spirit of teaching someone to fish rather than just giving them a fish; we looked at how to harness the local resources available to meet those basic needs first. For example, we connected the village hall to broadband Internet so that computer and work skills training will be held there soon. Family carers and everyone else in that area don't have to travel to Lowestoft for them any more. Like food and shelter, transportation is very high up the pyramid of basic needs because without it; many other needs cannot be met.
There are mountains of knowledge on what happens when people can’t access essential services; their health and well-being suffers and so their needs increase, then eventually the public purse has to pay to treat acute needs that could have been prevented. Though I knew the time frame was short, I had to try something even though it might fail. If we failed, I would ensure we learned something. Besides that buses to Halesworth were very infrequent (the town that people preferred for services in but only those with cars had access to), I also found that for a host of other reasons, both ‘staged’ and DRT buses were often inaccessible to carers and vulnerable and isolated people. So I conceived of the Handy Bus: a bus that carries things and knowledge as well as people that offers neighbourly assistance so its users can obtain what they need.
Although I hoped we would have achieved more by now, I have learned that you can’t change a culture overnight. I will report to the Department of Health that enabling a more useful model of public transport will make a difference to carers and others well-being and that scheduled bus services are preferred to modes requiring advance booking. I have found as well that a friendly, helpful person as a ‘conductor’ on a bus encourages bus usage and people’s participation in the activities they can reach on the bus. I don’t think the Big Society will cut through all the red tape we encountered fast enough for commercial operators to try such ideas soon. However, a Handy Bus Club can try them today. If we can show it works, then commercial operators might give it a try too.
At this moment, we have been asked if we can expand the Handy Bus into Laxfield as well which would also serve hamlets along the B1117 where many people are now isolated from local shops and essential services by the axing of the 532 service. This is attractive because there is not a big enough pool of potential human resources to operate a Handy Bus service solely between Sibton, Peasenhall and Halesworth but there might be enough if Laxfield was included. Then these communities linked by the Handy Bus might be able to work together to meet their needs.
Until now the Handy Bus has been in practice a free service. We chose to honour any kind of concession pass and it was too much red tape to charge fares anyhow. But to continue, we will have to make a charge and we think a subscription paid whether you travel or not is fairest, as we can spread our costs amongst people who won’t travel but are prepared to subscribe as a kind of charity or to support a family member. Also, this makes the cost of revenue collection very low and simple to administrate.
With three months of operating data, I find a service on our scale will not make a profit from an affordable fare and so it would require about 50% subsidy (around £3500 per year) or the bus would have to find additional ways to make money, such as by making deliveries or running errands or contracting to deliver a social care role. But this is exactly what a Handy Bus can do. Up till now, fare subsidies of 50% have been considered low in rural transport. We don't want to put anyone out of business but in the past, Suffolk County Council has contracted for around £75,000 for three years in a limited area a statutory task we are confident of providing too, if they met our revenue shortfall. Plus, by chartering spare vehicles from local community transport operators that are otherwise depreciating and under-used, we are a revenue stream that will support other community services in a true and rare win-win scenario.
By operating as a non-profit association, by using volunteer drivers and chartering vehicles from a community transport operator, the Handy Bus Club can operate differently, in ways that allows the users to determine the schedule they want from month to month. But it does mean that we can’t claim back from concession passes (only about 70% of the published fare is refunded by the way) so every passenger has to pay for it until the service can be registered with the Transport Commissioner. But isn’t it an attractive proposition for rural villages to have a bus service of their own which is not subject to the whims of the County Council? Nearly every passenger the Handy Bus has carried and 75 other local bus passengers we surveyed said they would gladly pay a fare, if that’s what it took to provide them with a bus service.
At this moment the Handy Bus has some seed money to cover the basic overheads of insurance, it has a vehicle supplier, it has volunteer drivers and it has growing passengers. What it doesn’t have is enough people willing to give a few hours a month to run it. Because of their age and needs, such as caring for someone, we can’t expect that all our passengers will be able to help run the service, though everyone can contribute in some way.
What the Handy Bus needs most of all is people who understand that without a practicable bus service, their villages and their neighbours’ villages quickly cease to be viable places to live. That starts with the most vulnerable people in our society, the young, the old, the unwell and those caring for them but once communities begin to collapse; nobody is insulated from it. I have met a few people, including elected representatives, that don't believe that community transport is necessary but ask an estate agent how the extent of local transport and the existence of ‘good neighbour’ schemes affect rural property values. So it basically comes down to everyone making a simple choice; give a little of your time now or pay much more with real money later. The Handy Bus is a simple and relatively cheap way to help build sustainable, resilient communities that people will value and invest in.
But then I have also learned from this project that if you try to fix a problem in society, you might hold a mirror up to someone in power. Innovation disrupts the status quo. Whilst we agitate to establish an accessible scheduled bus service for everybody where none existed before, Suffolk County Council has withdrawn support for scheduled services and imposed Demand Responsive Transport as a replacement. How our ambition sits with some detractors' stated belief in 'Big Society' provision has yet to be resolved.
Advocating for the Handy Bus has been taken by some as asserting an uncomfortable fact that DRT is not accessible to many users and does not fulfil its promise as a replacement. Some potential supporters are beholden to those feeling threatened by our presence. Some of those we expected more cooperation from seem to consider us as competition that will affect their own interests. It is naive not to consider there is a political dimension in everything. Our position was always clear from the outset: the Handy Bus aims to enable people to use all forms of public transport. By travelling with a person prepared to assist them if need be, someone who is isolated or someone recovering may regain the confidence to use public transport. Our bus buddy acts as an information point about all forms of local transport. As our service is quite limited, we want to enable travel to a destination with one mode and travel back with another if necessary. Our passengers have a person on their bus who knows their local area and can help plan their journey, rather than waiting for a response from a far-removed call centre. Only eight percent of local bus passengers we surveyed can send a SMS message. What rural communities need is a mix of transport options. The Handy Bus fills in service gaps that had existed long before and have recently got wider.
Some people have said to me “I’m not concerned about buses, I have a car…” That sounds reasonable until I point out that some Handy Bus passengers also have cars but some are getting to an age where they shouldn’t drive or will soon be unable to. Some appreciate they don’t have the bother of parking on crowded market day and by leaving the car at home, they are helping support their community too. What will life be like for those more fortunate when they too cannot drive?
Others parish representatives have raised concerns that pensioners have to pay for a bus when the County Council’s concession pass entitles them to free travel, though these are mostly people who don’t use any buses now. To them we must point out we don’t have any choice in this unless the Government changes the rules, but as an entirely voluntary non-profit association, all profits will be passed to the members. We will charge what it costs, nothing more.
When I make a ‘pitch’ about continuing the Handy Bus Club to people, I am always asked a whole barrage of questions about what times the service will run, where will it go? People are interested in a service they need but are not asking themselves “how can I help run it” or “how do I help”? The answer to everyone asking for details is: what do you want it to be? How can you help us make that happen? From the last three month’s trial, I and the other volunteers know what it takes to provide the service and are confident that everyone can participate. With an open mind and a bit of trust in our fellow man or woman, satisfactory answers to everything presently unknown will be found.
From now on, these will be our ambitions:
Recruit more people to be a Bus Buddy. They ride on the bus for free in return for acting as a bus conductor helping passengers and by being a good neighbour doing errands for those in need and being a point for social contact to tell people about the opportunities and services around them. The Bus Buddy is in touch with passengers needing pick-up by mobile telephone. Each ‘shift’ for a Buddy is about four hours. They could start and finish from the stop nearest them.
Recruit more people to be Handy Bus drivers. If you passed your car test before 1997, you can drive a Handy Bus without needing another test. Each driving ‘shift’ is about one and a half hours, or both shifts can be done over four hours. They start/finish in Halesworth and our drivers have car parking and other facilities provided.
Recruit more people to hold the Handy Bus phone on a rota once a week. They are our call centre. They will take bookings for the Bus Buddy or the bus pick-up off the route during business hours when the bus isn’t running but when it is, they will pass the calls to the Bus Buddy. These phone holders could also do the basic Handy Bus Club administration. If someone has experience as a club treasurer, it won’t be any more difficult than that.
Our volunteers will be mentored by Suffolk ACRE and given appropriate training through SAVO, MiDAS and Suffolk ACRE and other resources.
We will recruit trustees and adopt a constitution. At first we shall be an association and when necessary a charity. We will open bank accounts and purchase liability insurance and produce and adopt all the policies community schemes need to nowadays.
Ideally we will find someone willing to accept the challenge of leading this for as long as it takes or at least three months to start. It wouldn’t be 24/7 and could fit in with another project or part-time job. Perhaps you know someone with some time on their hands and with suitable experience or, perhaps better in the long term, an ambitious un/under employed person over 21+ with a driving license, desperate for work experience that would be significant on their C.V. Perhaps a foreign student would like to come to Suffolk on their Gap Year? I don’t think you can get much more real-world management experience than setting up a social enterprise transport company.
Then, if you really want the detail, the Handy Bus could serve Peasenhall, Sibton, Laxfield and communities along the way twice a day on Wednesdays in the morning and around midday to start with. With enough volunteers and passengers, we could increase the service to 3x a day and 2x a week and so on. The initial schedule would enable a visit of about two hours in Halesworth. From between 9.30 to 10 AM the Handy Bus would call at all its scheduled stops and any requested stops and drop passengers in Halesworth. To save money, IF the Handy Bus has not taken any passengers into to town in the morning, it will not run past ALL the scheduled stops in the afternoon but will stand-by to run to wherever it is called for, so that people arriving in the town by train or on the 588 from Norwich might get home.
Now, can we have your support to achieve this? If you are interested, please get in touch with me as soon as possible at 01473 345300 or nat.bocking@suffolkacre.org.uk
