Join 'Going Green' and East Suffolk Line Community Rail Partnership

The next meeting of the Going Green Transport Project (GGTP) and the North Line Group (NLG) of the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership (ESLCRP) is scheduled for April 7th 2015 and their members are hoping more local bodies will join them.

The Project and the Group are two separate and active bodies focusing on transport development in the Waveney market towns and the communities connected to them which work cooperatively by scheduling meetings together and share some overlapping membership.

The Project is constituted to enable cooperation between communities, operators and user groups and supports transport development for all forms of sustainable transport by being an information exchange and by administrating funds. For example; members of the Project produced a leaflet 'Discover the Blyth Valley' promoting rail and bus ridership between Halesworth and Southwold (now in its second edition) and through the Project they raised the funding and coordinated distribution. Members of the Project frequently advocate for local transport at high-level meetings with operators and local government such as the Suffolk Sustainable Transport Forum and report back to the Project. By holding open meetings six times per year it enables networking and discussion on transport issues focused on a specific area and links them with bodies with a wider remit. The Project also holds funding ring-fenced for the North Line Group of the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership.

Membership of the GGTP costs £3 per year to cover its incidental expenses and is due each February.

The next meeting of the Project is very important as all members need to renew their membership before the AGM later this year. New members are always welcome and prospects are invited to attend.

The ESLCRP is an unincorporated association of local government, public transport operators and community groups. The Partnership aims to bring together representatives of the local transport authority, local planning authorities, the train operating company, infrastructure operator and a wide range of local community groups with the objective of securing the future of the East Suffolk Line (Lowestoft to Ipswich) and Felixstowe Line (Ipswich to Felixstowe) railways through increased patronage and revenue. Representation of communities is through the three separate line groups; North (Lowestoft, Oulton Broad, Beccles, Brampton, Halesworth), South (Darsham, Saxmundham, Wickham Market, Melton, Woodbridge) and East (Felixstowe, Trimley, Derby Road, Westerfield).

The line groups are intended to bring together user groups, station adopters, station friends groups, local public and private sector organisations and the voluntary and community sector. Each of the locations where a railway station is situated within the CRP has their own views about how they would like their railway to develop in the future. These groups enable local people to be involved in putting the ESLCRP Action Plan into effect in their locality and each line group elects a representative who sits on the main ESLCRP board.

Membership of the line groups is open to any organisation willing to uphold the aims of the ESLCRP. The North Line Group membership presently includes Halesworth Town Council, Beccles and District Regeneration, Bungay Town Council transport representative, East Suffolk Travellers Association and individual volunteers in Abellio Greater Anglia's 'station adopter' scheme. More members are always welcome and may apply to join any line group at any time. www.eastsuffolkline.com

Some items for the agenda of the next meeting are likely of interest to both GGTP and NLG members. Please contact the chair/s below by Friday 3rd April with other items for the agenda.

• Update on Rail in the City Day. ESLCRP members will be on Liverpool Street Station from 7am to 7pm on May 20th to promote visiting Suffolk and its attractions by rail. (Why not bring your leaflets to the meeting)

• Update on the Bus Hub at Halesworth Angel Link.

• School transport: Sir John Leman (Beccles) has withdrawn free transport impacting on Halesworth and Lowestoft parents faced with a cost of £540 p.a. per child regardless of age.

• Designated Community Rail status: what does that really mean? (A lot actually)

• Update on Beccles station developments.

• Update on the consultation on the long rail franchise award in 2016.

• Distribution of the Discover Blyth Valley leaflet; who, where, when.

• Halesworth station ticket machine launch

• Introducing the new CRP support officer.

• Appointment of chair for GGTP.

• Update on Lowestoft Vision and Waveney District Council redevelopment scoping study of Lowestoft station. 

• Promotion of the Sunday rail service improvement on May 17th

• Update on Darsham Car Park.

• NLG support for the Anglia in Bloom entries of Halesworth and Beccles

• And as always; round table reports on any local issues from each town/parish and the opportunity for advice and support from the members in attendance.

There are many projects and ambitions around with a transport dimension that the NLG / GGTP would be glad to have information about or support. It hopes by this that people will bring them to their attention.

Date:   Tuesday April 7th 2015

Location: Council Chamber*, Halesworth Town Council, London Road, IP19 8LW

Time:  GGTP: 10:30 to 11:30

Time:  NLG: 11:30 to 12:30

Contact:

Nat Bocking 

chair NLG, chair GGTP

nat (at) pixlink (dot) co (dot) uk 


*only accessible by stairs

New buses boost but old rules dog community transport

Halesworth - The Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin MP stopped by this small Suffolk market town today on his way to open a new road in Lowestoft to announce that Halesworth Area Community Transport (HACT) had been successful in its application to the £25 million Community Transport Vehicle Fund for a new 16 seat minibus.

HACT had applied in January 2015 for funding for a 16 seat coach-built
disabled accessible vehicle to replace their only one available for hire to schools and
community groups which can be driven on a Category B (normal car) license. The new vehicle will also be used to train drivers to achieve their MiDAS certification. HACT's other vehicles are over the weight limit for a 

HACT very successfully operates a scheduled Section 22 service (the 511  Halesworth Hoppa) which is a lifeline to people in Halesworth and Holton. It  also provides Section 19 services to many local groups. 

For over four years, HACT has lobbied the Secretary of State and other officials about the challenge to community  transport operators of a dwindling supply of volunteers who can drive 16  passenger minibuses over the MAM limit on a car license ( D1 entitlement). Otherwise the operators need to invest at least £2000 (which is unsecurable from a volunteer) in  training for each volunteer to pass a PSV. 

The DfT has responded to suggestions to make the PSV test free of charge to CTOs that it gives them an unfair advantage over commercial operators.

In April 2013 Sue Jay, the chair of Suffolk Community Transport, took the  opportunity of a visit to Suffolk by the Department for Transport's chief  civil servant Graham Pendlebury to advise him that this licensing burden is  hampering the recruitment of volunteer drivers. The Community Transport Association has also advised its members that faced with this challenge, they should switch to using smaller and lighter minibuses for  their fleets - advice HACT has evidently heeded.

The CTA told the DfT that "D1 (issue) must be the top of  the heap for policy change" when the DfT was consulting on how the European  Union helps or hampers transport in the UK. The DfT then put the question to the CTA, given that D1 is EU  legislation, "what room does the DfT have to create a solution?" 

HACT  considers the simplest solution is to make an exception to raise the MAM  weight limit for community buses with volunteer drivers operating a section  22 route because the drivers (with MiDAS certification) would be familiar  with their vehicles and the regular scheduled routes and this was a very  different safety scenario to a school or community group using a minibus on  a one-off trip. HACT considers the UK members of the European Parliament  must present that proposal to the EU. 

Though they need lightweight vehicles for Section 19 services; a fleet of them would greatly limit  HACT's service flexibility and would also negatively impact its revenue opportunities. With an average of 60 passengers per day in Halesworth, community  transport operators like HACT could not meet passenger demand with 8  passenger minibuses without a huge decrease in hard-won efficiency. HACT  must use 16 passenger vehicles to meet present demand on a 50 mile daily  route (4 to 5 cycles) within its resources of vehicles and volunteer  staffing. Heavier vehicles are essential as a 16 passenger  coach-built vehicle is a much more accessible, efficient, versatile and comfortable vehicle than a smaller (and so lighter) van conversion. HACT's passenger cost per mile is still a  place where no commercial operator dares to tread without some form of  subsidy.

Study finds "contracting" in voluntary services is killing them

http://www.independentaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Volunteering-final.pdf

A study has concluded that the roles of volunteers are increasingly becoming marginalised as they are treated as employees and overburdened by bureaucracy as more voluntary and charitable organisations take on contracts to provide statutory and social services. This diminishes the value to volunteers of freely giving their time.

It found that there has been an exodus from large ‘corporate' agencies as they professionalised
their services and replace volunteer managers with paid staff in order to be confident of meeting their contractual requirements.

"Volunteer managers no longer welcome all comers or see it as a key part of their role to find ways in which those who come forward can be helped to find ways in which they can contribute to the work of the organisation. Instead they use formal methods modelled on the processes used to appoint paid members of staff and using tools very similar to job descriptions, person specifications and the taking up of references to try to ensure that the volunteer is equipped – often after a period of training - to carry out a specific and pre-determined function within the agency."

"Nearly half (49%) of those who were not current volunteers but wanted to get involved
said they had been put off by the degree of bureaucracy involved."

Bike racks approved for UK buses

In 2009 I investigated why UK buses don't have the sort of bike racks they do in the USA and Canada. I found there was a UK pressure group that was trying to do this but apparently bike racks were not allowed under EU legislation. I banged my head on it for a bit and then gave up. Now somebody at the DfT had another look at the issue and on October 17th the IVS unit informed Bikes On Buses UK that buses CAN have a bike rack on the front or back as long as the vehicle remains within its maximum permitted length. This could have a real impact on the use of rural buses as it will extend their range and ridership. Moral of story: never take no for an answer.

http://www.bikesonbuses.com/recent-news/

MP backs blue badge regulation change

Repost from  http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk published: 14th October 2014

A Suffolk MP has put further pressure on the Department for Transport to change the regulations regarding the issuing of blue badge parking permits to community transport providers.

Earlier this year, Suffolk Community Transport (SCT) called on the Government to review its policy after some of its members were refused a permit despite the vital role they play providing transport to the elderly and disabled.

The issue hit the headlines in May when Halesworth Area Community Transport (HACT) where refused a permit despite holding one for several years, with Suffolk County Council stating:

“Under the Government Blue Badge eligibility criteria that we are required to work within, the Regulations state that an organisation will only be issued with a Blue Badge if they both care for and transport disabled people who would themselves be eligible for an individual Blue Badge. Unfortunately as your organisation only transports and does not care for disabled people, I regret I am unable to authorise a badge for you.”

The HACT decision was overturned following a second appeal, however other community transport operators have faced similar difficulties when apply for the permit - which allows parking in restricted areas.

As a result SCT, which champions the role of the community transport sector in Suffolk, called on the Government to change its policy.

Now, SCT has received the support of Waveney MP Peter Aldous, who has written a letter directly to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for Transport Robert Goodwill MP. In the letter Mr Aldous says:

“I believe SCT has put together a strong case and therefore I would be most grateful if the DfT  could  review the eligibility rules around organisational blue badges, amending the rules to state – ‘Community Transport Operators offering services predominately to disabled people should automatically be given  an organisational blue badge’.”

SCT represents Suffolk’s 14 community transport operators including those in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket, Hadleigh, Stowmarket, Haverhill, Sudbury, Beccles and Halesworth.  Its Chief Executive, Susannah Waters, said: “We are delighted to have received such strong support from Mr Aldous in our pursuit for a regulation change and we hope the DfT gives serious consideration to our request. It seems a very strange decision to prevent services providing transport for people with disabilities from parking is spaces reserved for people with disabilities. Our view is that the guidelines for local authorities, issued by the DfT, require fundamental change.”

Letter to Richard Drax MP

Richard Drax MP - Member of Parliament for South Dorset

Dear Mr Drax,

I have viewed on the BBC website your speech in parliament yesterday 29th April 2014 on rural bus services and I thank you for speaking so clearly and eloquently to raise those issues with your fellow MPs.

(I cannot embed the BBC video but it is available here or read the Hansard here.)

I am a town councillor for Halesworth in Suffolk and a volunteer with Halesworth Area Community Transport, one of the many community bus operators of which you spoke, as well as chair of my local community rail partnership. So I feel I am* dealing directly at the coal face of the rural transport problems you highlighted.

In terms of localism: I find great difficulty in enabling passenger participation in rural (or urban) route design. 

A contributor to a recent House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report on transport and accessibility to public services said:

"Too many authorities choose to ‘do things’ to communities rather than spend the time finding out what they actually need and want first ... local people should be correctly liaised with prior to any changes being made, it is them that have to live with any consequences and they should be listened to correctly about how they will be impacted but also so they properly shape services..."

Independently I had proposed a solution to this very problem at the following link which I kindly ask you to consider.

timetable-design

I posit that what passengers and communities need is free access to a software application that displays all the current bus, train and other public transport schedules and actual ground-covered routes in a given area on a simulator to visualise service and modal connections. On this they could enter proposed timetables and route variations so service alterations can be modelled and compared.

Another challenge facing the Community Transport Operator which you did not raise is the licensing of drivers and the cost of training volunteers to meet the EU driving standards (which incidentally were designed with countries which have no community transport systems of their own). The Community Transport Association has made many representations to ministers on this issue and there are informative papers in the House of Commons library.

I cannot find any statistics that support that volunteers in community transport that are D1 entitled (without PSV licenses) are any more dangerous than drivers who have had to take the PSV test. I recently took my PSV and it cost the taxpayer something in the region of £2500 for just one individual. This was the test fees and the travel and the subsistence for the three days of training I had. Yet we offer our own volunteers very much the same standard of training in-house through the MIDAS scheme, a good scheme for skilling our volunteers but which has no bearing on operating a minibus legally on the road.

(It appears to be the view of my local MP Dr. Therese Coffey that more funding for this PSV training is the way forward - to which I disagree).

Again, I outline the problem in detail at the link below. I have proposed a legislative work-around the EU barriers by adjustment of weight limits for a certain kind of transport service and I urge you to consider this issue and share it with those in parliament who are responsible for making the decisions that will solve the problems that you have thankfully raised.

weight-rules

With kind regards

Nat Bocking

*I should have also acknowledged local bodies like ESTA, The Going Green Partnership, Sustrans etc. who are very active locally.

P.S. I shall have to write again to Stephen Hammond The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport to address a few points. He obviously isn't getting it. The innovation he wishes for isn't coming from our councils and in my experience, they haven't been very supportive of innovation such as the Handy Bus model when it is presented to them.

ADDENDUM

Below is the latest response from my MP Dr. Therese Coffey who I copied in into this letter and who I have written to before.

You can write to your MP and most other politicians from here www.writetothem.com

Richard Drax MP responded by email on the 7th May:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding my adjournment debate on rural bus services. May I also thank you for your kind words regarding my speech.

Your idea is interesting; however I would encourage you to write to your own MP, Dr Thérèse Coffey, to see if it has practical application for your local area."

In turn I replied to Dr. Coffey:

I understand from our prior correspondence that the present government will not seek to amend the weight rules as I propose. However, our correspondence has not elucidated how this government will solve the problem of the declining numbers of volunteer drivers in community transport. I am open to discussing other ways forward. It would be useful to have an indication that this government recognises our concerns on this issue, even if considers just one proposed solution is not viable.

Also, in the debate Mr Drax talked of enabling the ‘localism’ agenda. I think my suggestion for route modelling is a viable contribution to delivering on this government’s policy in public transport so I would be glad to know if you or Mr Drax had passed that information to the relevant minister.

Suffolk cuts subsidy to community car schemes

Suffolk County Council have informed local Community Transport Operators that the 2014-15 Budgets & Service Level Agreements have now been finalised.

"A review of mileage between 2010-11 and 2013-14 has highlighted that hospital appointments are not within the service specification of supported Community Car Services. The majority of these journeys are high mileage, moving services away from local service provision.  Therefore from 1^st April 2014 the mileage subsidy will no longer be supported. Subject to operator’s volunteer availability, passengers may continue to access car services for hospital appointment journeys at 45p per mile.  The council will continue to support the operator’s admin support for each passenger journey covered. In line with these changes, the 2014-15 car service budgets have been adjusted in relation to the current year end hospital appointment mileage forecast..."

What this means is that for hospital journeys, the county council will no longer pay the 10 pence per mile subsidy, thus that will have to be collected from the passenger or borne by the non-profit operator of community car schemes. County have confirmed that "car service operators will not be subject to a reduction in budget as such, as it is the passenger who will be supporting the drivers mileage rate." SCC have not announced what this will save them per year.

Many CCS work using volunteers drivers in their own cars and they reimburse the volunteer at 45 pence per mile. The passenger is charged 35 pence per mile and the 10 pence of council subsidy makes up the difference. The schemes also get 40 pence per journey taken to cover  the administration of claiming back mileage. 

So now CCS might have to offer passengers two different charging scales: 35 pence for local journeys which are subsidized and 45 pence for hospital journeys which aren't.

Figures from the AA and RAC show that the real cost of car ownership per mile can be over 50 pence per mile. Many volunteers don't mind shouldering this cost, in the same way they don't mind travelling to volunteer somewhere, but on taking long journeys to hospitals, that can be significant.

This action will certainly reduce the number of options that patients have to get to hospital appointments and increase the difficulties many have of attending them, especially when changes to commissioning of services have moved them to ever more distant hospitals, such as the proposal to close the liver resection department in Norwich and move it to Addenbrookes. In that case it may be a small number of cancer patients but it could be a death sentence to some of them.

According to the Department for Transport; 21.1 % of people in rural Suffolk live more than 60 minutes by public transport from hospital compared to 9.9% of rural England overall. Source: OCSI 2011 Department for Transport (DfT) 2009.

There are 35 LSOAs (each averages a population of 5000 people) in Suffolk more than two hours travel time from a hospital by public transport.

Between 2009 - 2012 there were 184,947 missed NHS appointments in Suffolk, costing£17.6 million. There is no hard data on the reasons why people miss appointments but local anecdotal evidence shows that poor transport, particularly in rural areas, is one reason. The West Suffolk Hospital says the cost of each 'DNA' to them varies according to whether it is a first or follow up appointment and for which speciality but the estimated loss is about £110 per appointment.

I feel the voluntary and community sector is not being served by the arbitrary fixed rate the HMRC sets for mileage reimbursement they will accept without question of employees making profit, which is also applied to volunteers using their cars in community car schemes.

Since 45p per mile (for the first 10,000 miles) is now below the RAC /AA rate of car operation, as fuel and insurance costs rise, volunteers using their own cars in CCS will continue to subsidise these schemes, leading to increasing difficulty in recruiting volunteer drivers into schemes or forcing schemes to be capitalised in a way they provide their own vehicles. This is a huge barrier to establishing schemes and has many attendant costs beyond the vehicle. For a start it is quite a complicated five-step calculation for volunteers to work out if they might be making a profit or not. 

I have brought this up with Dan Poulter MP but I did not get a satisfactory response as he didn’t see the difference between employee use and volunteer use and the legislation is framed around the taxable benefit of using a car for work. The Chartered Institute of Taxation had suggested in 2011 that 50 pence was fairer when the rate of 40p then "was below the cost of running a car".  After a comprehensive consultation in 2008, the Community Transport Association concluded that low tax-free mileage allowances combined with rising fuel prices was deterring potential voluntary drivers. It asked the Government to increase the tax-free rate to 45p per mile which was realised in the 2011 budget.

Raising the allowable rate again to 50p or 55p per mile for volunteers using their own cars will have no impact on the costs of SCC and community transport schemes yet the schemes might be able to operate and charge lower rates or offer sliding scale on longer journeys but fixing it at 45p per mile does not allow any flexibility because it is for many volunteers and schemes less that their true cost, especially for short journeys.

Town Council Funding Guidance

Town or parish councils can provide small amounts of grant funding for local community organisations however they also have a duty to ensure their council is not spending the precept on something which could be funded or part-funded by another means. Whenever possible, all applicants, especially for larger grants or to fund ongoing services, would be well advised to present evidence of research into other sources of funding and the outcome of any other applications with their application to their local council.

I would also suggest that grant applicants should contact local enterprise or community development agencies to access the free advice available on making grant applications and if the activity needing funding is likely to require ongoing funding from the public purse; to consider how that activity can be delivered on a sustainable basis.

To prevent any delay in obtaining a decision, it's a good idea to check with the clerk when your application will be considered by the council and if possible, be available to attend if any questions arise at the council meeting.

It is worth noting that nearly all funders want to know about the impact that their funding has had. It is good practice to describe in the grant application how the outcomes of the funding will be monitored and reported on afterwards. A follow-up report to the council is always appreciated.

The good news is there are potentially thousands of sources for grant funding in Suffolk but the bad news is keeping track of the constantly changing landscape is near impossible for a town or parish council. Many small local funds are best accessed through local community development agencies. The availability of such support services often varies too but these are the resources I could find in Halesworth at present.

Funding

County councillors have a Locality Budget Grant for local projects in their division which benefit the community such as village halls, sports and social clubs and toddler groups.

If you would like to apply for a locality budget grant, please contact the county councillor who represents the area where your project is based.

Hundreds of big and small charitable grants are administered through the Suffolk Community Foundation. For up to date information please visit:

www.suffolkcf.org.uk Telephone 01473 602602

Grants for Waveney, Holton and Halesworth from the Bernard Matthews Fund are administered by the Norfolk Foundation.  Grants are normally made in May and November each year.

www.norfolkfoundation.com Telephone 01603 623958 (Wednesday-Friday)

Halesworth is fortunate to have a Co-operative store and so can apply for cash grants from the Anglia Cooperative Community Foundation as well as for raffle prizes from the store.

www.arcs.co.uk/main_accfapplyraffle.asp

The Halesworth and Blyth Valley Partnership is an independent charity (number 1099489) that exists to promote, support and encourage any charitable purposes for the protection of health and improvement of the social, cultural, economic, educational and environmental well-being of Halesworth and the Blyth Valley area. 

Contact: Mr. Ezra Leverett, Telephone 01986 874551

The organisation Lions Clubs International has a Halesworth branch which makes donations to good causes.  Contact Lions Clubs International District 105EA thorough their website:

www.halesworthlions.org.uk

Green Grants Machine is a website for identifying environmental funding.

www.greengrantsmachine.co.uk

Suffolk Libraries provide online and library terminal access to Grant Finder where a short registration form gives users immediate, free and unrestricted access to a comprehensive national database of funding opportunities.

www.open4community.info/suffolklibraries/Default.aspx

Application Support

The voluntary and community sector support agency Community Action Suffolk is funded by Suffolk County Council to support applicants to access funding from the National Lottery, charitable trusts, local, national and European government under a wide variety of schemes.

Community Action Suffolk can access Grant Finder to conduct funding searches and provide advice and signposting for applicants.

www.communityactionsuffolk.org.uk

Telephone 01473 345300

Provided by the United Kingdom Government, businesses and community groups can find a wide range of grant funding and support information at:

www.gov.uk/business-finance-support-finder

Funding Central is a free resource for charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises that lists thousands of funding and finance opportunities, plus a wealth of tools and information to support developing a sustainable income strategy.

www.fundingcentral.org.uk

Waveney District Council has a Community Development Team to support community and voluntary groups to develop and seek funding which will help deliver the Sustainable Communities Strategy. There are a number of specialist officers for different groups and objectives. The Funding Manager of the WDC Funding Team has access to Grant Finder and can conduct funding searches.

Email: volgrants@waveney.gov.uk

Telephone 01502 523182 / 01502 523186

Suffolk County Council also receives funding from Central and European government to make grants for community purposes such as economic, sport, leisure, cultural and educational development often in partnership with other agencies. The priorities and availability and pathways to such funding are constantly changing. There are a number of specialist officers and many council staff can support community development in their local area through the council’s Our Place scheme. Ideally your first contact for support from the County Council will be your elected member.

Email ourplace@suffolk.gov.uk

Buses in Crisis Report

The Campaign for Better Transport has published a report on the effect of cuts on bus subsidy.

http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/files/Buses_In_Crisis_Report_AW_PDF_09.12.13.pdf

It finds that 47 per cent of local authorities have cut their support for buses in 2013. 

"Next year could be even worse, with some authorities planning to stop funding buses altogether. Local and national government needs to take action or whole networks will disappear."

Between 2011 and 2013, the East of England cut the most with a 19 per cent cut in spending, followed by the North East and East Midlands.

You can track bus cuts on their interactive map http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/save-our-buses/map and report to them any cuts in your area.

Macmillan uncovers hospital parking lottery

Macmillan research has revealed the full cost of hospital parking in England. While some hospitals offer free parking to cancer patients, others charge up to £3 an hour for parking.

To find out how you can challenge costs in your area, order a campaign pack.

Macmillan Cancer Support surveyed hospital trusts in England to find out about their parking policies - and found huge variations, patients face a lottery in the price of hospital parking and the availability of discounts.

Despite government guidance stating that hospitals should offer free or reduced parking to cancer patients, many still face the burden of these costs. Macmillan is campaigning for all hospitals to remove car parking charges for cancer patients.

Read their report on car parking charges to find out more. Download the report 

• The average daily cost of using a hospital car park is £7.66, but the situation is a lottery. Some hospitals offer completely free parking, while others charge anything from £2 to £24 a day
• Despite government guidance, 59% of hospitals in England are still charging at least some cancer patients to use the car park
• Almost 10% of hospitals in England have ignored government guidance completely and continue to charge cancer patients the full price for parking.

Community transport groups are struggling to cope

From the EDP October 22, 2013

Two north Suffolk community transport groups have called for action from the NHS as they struggle to cope with the rising demand of passengers needing to attend hospital appointments. 

The Beccles and Bungay Area Community Transport (BACT) and the Halesworth Volunteer Centre were set up to provide transport to people who do not have easy access to other forms of public transport to allow them to go shopping, visit relatives or attend important appointments with health professionals. 

However, both groups say they have faced an increase in demands for hospital transport since the NHS in Suffolk and Norfolk introduced the single point of assessment in 2011, putting an end to the days when patients were given free access to hospital transport to their appointments by asking their GPs. As a result, hundreds of people with no access to other forms of transport are turning to community transport operators to find a way of attending their appointments. 

Debbie Blowers, BACT manager, said: “The demand for hospital transport is out of control. It is putting a huge strain on resources, which is simply not sustainable. The ramifications are that our budgets will run short and those who need transport for essential tasks such as shopping, paying bills, attending appointments or even to take part in social activities will get pushed down the priority list in favour of those needing to get to hospital. 

“Our volunteer drivers are becoming fed-up as they are spending so much time at hospitals which is not what they signed up to do and it certainly isn’t only what community transport services were set up to do, but is increasingly now our main activity with no extra funding to do it. 

“The NHS is taking advantage of the good nature of community transport schemes throughout Norfolk and Suffolk who do not like to let anyone down. However, the passenger requests for hospital work are putting a strain on the schemes, their employees and their wonderful volunteers and we are at the stage of not knowing where else to turn to.” 

BACT figures show that the number of people using the service to go to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital has risen from about 100 per month to 180 since the beginning of the year, while journeys to the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston have risen from 80 per month to nearly 200. And figures from Halesworth Volunteer Centre show journeys have risen from 465 between April and September 2012, to 709 between April and September this year. 

Suffolk Community Transport, an umbrella group set up to support the county’s individual community transport operators, has been involved in talks with the NHS and further discussions are planned later this month. 

Andy Evans, chief executive of HealthEast, said: “NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group, locally known as HealthEast, is responsible for planning and commissioning patient transport services. 

“This is for patients who need clinical support during their journeys, and who are unable to travel by other means. The service is provided locally by the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust since April 1 this year. It’s delivered in line with national eligibility criteria set by the Department of Health. Patients who do not meet the criteria may be eligible for financial help with the cost of their journey. 

“We know that concerns have been growing among community transport groups about increasing pressure on their services, and we are arranging a meeting, together with representatives from EEAST, to discuss how we can work together.”

This report is reinforced by the data from the Southwold Voluntary Help Centre. Between April - August of 2012 they 345 trips to hospitals and in the same frame in 2013 they have made 465 trips. 

If 200 new homes for Framlingham, please ask where are the buses?

On Tuesday 19^th November Taylor Wimpey East Anglia is hosting a public exhibition to give local people the chance to view and comment upon emerging planning proposals for a new residential development on land to the east of Fairfield Road, Framlingham.

According to the OSM NaPTAN bus stop database, there are no bus stops along Fairfield Road. We hope local people will ask, what contribution to local transport infrastructure will this development bring?

Prior to this consultation event being opened to the general public, there will be a private preview exhibition which for members of Framlingham Town Council, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Suffolk County Council, plus local businesses and community groups.

.

This private viewing session will take place at Framlingham United Free Church in Albert Place, Framlingham, on Tuesday 19^th November between 2pm and 3pm, and will be attended by Taylor Wimpey representatives and other members of the project team. Taylor Wimpey happy to talk in detail about our proposals and answer any questions you may have.

They are proposing to submit a detailed planning application for up to 200 new homes on this site, which has been identified as being suitable for a residential development of this scale in Suffolk Coastal District Council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (2010).

By coming along to the stakeholder preview consultation and providing them with your feedback on the proposals, you can help to influence the details of the final scheme before they submit a planning application later in the year.

Please confirm your attendance by emailing framlinghamconsultation@webbpr.net. If you are unable to come along to the special preview session, you are of course welcome to attend the main public exhibition between 3pm and 8pm.

Woodbridge Community Car Scheme needs your help

An innovative car scheme which provides transport for disadvantaged residents in and around a Suffolk town has suffered a blow after its new co-ordinator has been forced to step down due to ill health.

The devastating news means the Woodbridge Community Car Scheme – which helps residents who do not have access to other forms of transport to attended vital appointments, go shopping and visit friends and family – urgently needs to find a replacement co-ordinator to keep the service up and running.

It was only a few weeks ago the car scheme was celebrating being back in operation after recruiting the new coordinator whose predecessor had retired after holding the post for several years.

Scheme secretary Robert Brockbank said: “This is a very sad situation and our first thoughts are with Michael who had shown tremendous community spirit by agreeing to be our new coordinator, but has had no choice but to step down due to health issues. “We really are now in a very tricky situation as we simply cannot run the service without a coordinator to oversee its day to day running, so once again we are calling on a community minded individual to come forward to help us keep this valuable service running.

“The transport we provide really is a lifeline to many people such as the elderly, those with disabilities and others who cannot find access to other means of transport. Without us many local people would struggle to carry out simple tasks such as go shopping, pay bills or attend medical appointments, so anyone who has the time and ability to step in to this role would be making a huge difference to the community.”

The new coordinator would handle all calls to the service, arrange and confirm journeys, keep driver’s records up to date, attend occasional meetings on behalf of the organisation and keep quarterly accounts. The role can be home based, and expenses are paid.

Anyone who would like to learn more about becoming  the coordinator for the Woodbridge Community Car Scheme should contact Robert Brockbank on 01394 383641 or by post to St John’s Family Centre Woodbridge Ltd, St John’s Old Vicarage, 24 St John’s Hill, Woodbridge, IP12 1HS.

The service is run entirely by volunteer drivers who use their own cars on a non-profit making basis. Passengers contribute on a mileage basis towards the cost of a journey.

Media needing more information should contact Patrick Lowman on 07792 428555 or by email patrick_lowman@sky.com

Woodbridge Community Car Service is part of St John’s Family Centre Woodbridge Ltd which is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales No. 03720558, and a registered charity No. 1075415. St John’s Old Vicarage, 24 St John’s Hill, Woodbridge, IP12 1HS.

Community Rail Partnership recognises 'Community'

A meeting of the East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership (CRP) was held at 19:00 in the Day Centre London Road Halesworth on Tuesday 29th October 2013. 

Attending were myself, Nat Bocking, as a Halesworth Town Councillor and the HTC chair Annette Dunning, Glyn Buck of Brampton Station Adopters, James Steward, Area Customer Service Manager for Greater Anglia, Tim Ward, the CRP officer and Trevor Garrod, chairman of East Suffolk Transport Association and Geoff Butterwick, chairman of the CRP.

Geoff Butterwick outlined the role and recent history of the CRP and made an invitation for all those present to join the NORTH LINE GROUP of the partnership. The CRP is now divided into three groups, the north covers the railway line from Halesworth to Lowestoft, South covers Darsham to Ipswich and East is Westerfield to Felixstowe. When the three line groups are established, each will elect a representative to sit on the CRP board.

The East Suffolk Lines Community Rail Partnership was launched in 2004, with aim of contributing to the objectives of the National Community Rail Strategy, i.e.

•     increasing ridership, freight use and revenue;

•     managing costs down;

•     bringing about greater involvement of the local community; and

•     enabling local rail to play a larger role in economic and social regeneration.

Some of the 'wins' of the CRP have been the Beccles Loop, improved signalling, establishing an hourly service and the integrated ticketing and scheduling of the Halesworth and Southwold buses but it has been acknowledged that the partnership has not been as active as it could in involving communities which is why it has reorganised itself to emphasise the 'community' and created a new board to give an enhanced role to representatives of the local communities served by the railway by creating these new line groups.

The present board consists of

Chairman - Geoff Butterwick

Suffolk County Council - Sally Harper and Tracy Vobe, Passenger Transport Manager (job share)

Ipswich Borough Council - Michael Newsham, Planning Regeneration and Transport

Waveney/SCDC - Dr. Carolyn Barnes, Projects Officer

Abellio Greater Anglia - Geraint Hughes, Partnerships Manager

Network Rail - TBA

North Line Group - TBA

South Line Group - TBA

East Line Group - TBA

The CRP officer Tim Ward can do the leg-work of contacting groups and setting up meetings and so on.

It was generally agreed by those attending that creating the North Line Group (NLG) would be a useful endeavour but that the outreach to local community groups and businesses to join the NLG was only just beginning.

Those attending pledged to contact people through their local networks of community and business groups to encourage participation in the CRP and the North Line Group.

Trevor Garrod and I agreed that initial meetings of the North Line Group should be coordinated with the existing GOING GREEN TRANSPORT PROJECT meetings to make it convenient for all attending. The next meeting of GGTP is December 3rd, 2013 at 10.30 am in the Halesworth Town Council Chamber, London Road. Therefore it's suggested that the next North Line Group meeting begins at 11.30 am. This will be subject to confirmation.

The annual cost of membership in the CRP has not been established. Discussing that and electing a chair for the North Line Group would be some of the first order of business.

The constitution of the CRP and other documentation is now online at

http://eastsuffolkline.co.uk/about/community-rail-partnership

Anyone interested in participating in the Community Rail Partnership should contact Tim Ward at major.ward@btinternet.com

NPTDM recognises need for collaboration in design

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been searching for any tools to enable users, operators and regulators of public tranport to be capable of collaboration on service design.  I have taken to writing to software companies and university research departments setting out the problem and asking for their suggestions on how this can be achieved.

The international Trapeze Group has kindly informed me that their National Public Transport Database Manager software does allow playback of both real-time and scheduled data and so allows you to see where every vehicle goes so that 'what if' scenarios in route and schedules can be visualised.

Interestingly the NPTDM information sheet  highlights exactly the point I am trying to make:

Working with other local authorities is the key to NPT Data Manager. You can share data with other authorities, improving your own service by seeing how neighbours’ services affect yours...

However, their director of sales advises me that to use this tool we are talking in terms of "some tens of thousands (of pounds) for the product". 

I have replied that tens of thousands of pounds would be out of the question for an individual town council or CTO but ensuring that communities have this capacity is in the national interest so I would lobby government to enable it. I see no reason either that the need for collaborative public transport design doesn’t apply to transport world-wide.

Put service design in the passengers' hands

At a town council meeting recently a member of the public stood up to complain that the recent changes in the local bus timetable had unforeseen consequences for many townspeople as they could no longer make a connection with another service (and other operator) that they regularly used to.

The particular details don't really matter as it is very common that a change in service to benefit passengers in one area will usually be to the detriment of others elsewhere. It is the simple domino effect of shifting resources.

Since the deregulation of the bus companies in 1985 it seems the decisions by operators are only driven by the bottom line instead of passenger need. Ensuring that their profits go up or that their costs go down or they gain some form of advantage for themselves as a commercial enterprise is naturally their duty to their shareholders.

What's missing from the process of consulting the public about service design in public transport is any capacity in the users and their elected officials to design services for themselves or even understand the implications. Just to appreciate the impact of the complaint, a unpaid councillor spent several hours plotting impentrable timetables into spreadsheets and it was still far from clear as to what a solution might be.

What passengers and communities need is free access to a software application that displays all the current bus, train and other public transport schedules and actual ground-covered routes in a given area on a map to visualise service and modal connections. On this they could enter proposed timetables and route variations so service alterations can be modelled and compared.

This shouldn't be hard to realise. Timetables are widely published and the GPS coordinates of bus stops and train stations are freely available. Features such as factoring-in vehicle slowing from peak passenger loading, vehicle speed, basic revenue and cost calculations should also be included.

A simulation engine would then move the vehicles around the map according to the timetables so that the different connections and modes could be visualised.

Then there might be happy discoveries that several buses cross paths on a rural road which ought to have a shelter placed there so it could become an interchange. It would also show that a Suffolk village only has 4 buses a week whereas a much smaller one has 25 buses a day running through it empty because of their fortunate position in-between service hubs and not because of demand.

But most importantly such a tool would then allow communities to design services for themselves or at least engage in a dialogue with operators armed with sufficient information to fully understand the impact of service proposals and changes.

A tool with these kinds of capabilities could answer the many 'what if' questions in public transport route planning that - because of complexity - is in the UK determined by commercial operators and by tendering for route subsidy common in rural areas. Communities would be able to visualise and cost local public transport provision for themselves and so enabled to lobby for services and amendments and analyse solutions such as community transport and DRT with data from this modelling. The capability to 'predict and provide' and consider service innovations will not be just in the hands of private operators but will also be where it belongs; with the users.

Then rather than pitting every village, town and parish against each other for a better service from the network provider through political patronage, transport planning can be made collaborative; as each stakeholder in a route will be able to work together and see how services to meet their needs would impact others and so more efficiently and fairly distribute the limited resources to statutory, commercial and charitable transport operators.

A contributor to a recent House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report on transport and accessibility to public services said:

"Too many authorities choose to ‘do things’ to communities rather than spend the time finding out what they actually need and want first ... local people should be correctly liaised with prior to any changes being made, it is them that have to live with any consequences and they should be listened to correctly about how they will be impacted but also so they properly shape services..."

There are already demonstrations of live time-table simulation on the web. Here is a visualisation of the trains running from Norwich.

There is an open-source platform for train timetabling and planning called Open Track which can produce train schedule graphs from text timetables.

Software maker Zircon takes these train graphs a step further with a tool for visualising timetable conflicts in 3D. Their website has a video demo.

Train Graph

I will prevail on university transport departments in the UK and USA to give me any pointers to existing software or encourage them to undertake developing this as a project. I hope someone reading this one day will understand the problem and so be interested and will get in touch. 

nat (at) pixlink.co.uk

Buurtbus a wrong turn for D1 solution

On October 3rd I attended a sustianable transport conference where I had the good luck to buttonhole Dr. Stephen Hickey, chairman of the Community Transport Association. We had a coffee and chat about the D1 crisis; the challenge faced by many community transport operators with a dwinding supply of volunteers who can drive 16 passenger minibuses on a car license, otherwise they need to invest £2000 (which is unsecurable) in each one to pass a PSV. In April 2013 Sue Jay, the chair of Suffolk Community Transport, took the opportunity of a visit to Suffolk by the Department for Transport's cheif civil servant Graham Pendlebury to advise him that this is hampering the recruitment of volunteer drivers.

Dr. Hickey was well informed on the subject though apparently not of my campaigning on it. However I realised afterwards the Spring 2013 CTA journal has a round-up of minibus licensing issues and the D1 issue that says in the preamble: "the CTA has been receiving an increasing number of enquiries about driver licensing entitlelments..." It goes on to reproduce the same licensing flow-chart I drew back in 2011 and advises that operators in future may have to consider smaller and lighter minibuses for their fleets. But this is the nub; it is not practicable and it would lead to a reduction in services and increases in overheads for many volunteer-run operators if they had to switch from 16 passenger to 8 passenger buses or use lighter, less robust, buses under the MAM limits.

He told me the good news that he and Bill Freeman, the CTA chief executive, had recently had meetings at the Department for Transport and had presented the data from the recent CTA survey on the D1 issue. He recalled that the CTA survey had shown him the D1 issue was of great concern to his members and so the CTA had told the DfT that "D1 must be the top of the heap for policy change". The DfT was consulting on how the European Union helps or hampers transport in the UK.  The EU Balance of Competencies Review closed on 6th August 2013.

If I recall, Dr. Hickey said the DfT put the question to the CTA, given that D1 is EU legislation, what room does the DfT have to create a solution? I said that as far as I was concerned, the simplest solution was to make an exception to raise the MAM weight limit for community buses with volunteer drivers operating a section 22 route because the drivers (with MiDAS certification) would be familiar with their vehicles and the routes and this was a very different safety scenario to a school or community group using a minibus on a one-off trip. I put it to him that if necessary, the UK members of the European Parliament must present that proposal to the EU.

When I asked what he or the DfT thought might be the answer, he ventured the DfT were looking into the 'Buurtbus' model. Not necessarily as a solution to the D1 issue but to increase the saturation of services in rural or marginal areas. I haven't heard of these but Dr. Hickey explained they are widely operated in the Netherlands in partnership with commercial operators where 8 passenger buses are driven by volunteers on scheduled routes "at a minimum subsidy".

Coincidentally no doubt, the Summer 2013 issue of the CTA Journal has an article about the Buurtbus, stemming from a visit by CTA trustee Gareth Blackett to Amsterdam on an ATCO bursary. 

It turns out this innovative Dutch model was inspired by the UK. I would venture that HACT in Suffolk is a typical example in which a scheduled service is provided with a 16 passenger minibus driven by volunteers. 

There are now 200 Buurtbus schemes in the Netherlands, some established over 30 years. Gareth Blackett considered why are these so successful in the Netherland and posited it was becasue of "the nature of the partnership between the statutory authorities, commercial providors and the voluntary sector" in the Netherlands - indicating that this kind of cooperation isn't always the case in the UK, it is practically non-existent. The CTA reported "it is said that the Buurtbus could potentially offer a solution to the UK's accessibility challenge..."

The CTA journal promises in its next issue to reveal in more detail what Gareth Blackett learned. I might venture to suggest that if anyone wants to see what a successful 'Buurtbus' operation might be like, they ought to come to Halesworth.

What concerns me though, because Holland has the same rules, is that these Buurtbus are still operated with 8-passenger minibuses by volunteers with an ordinary car license and not a PSV.

However, with an average of 60 passengers per day in Halesworth, community transport operators like HACT could not meet that passenger demand with 8 passenger minibuses without a huge decrease in hard-won efficiency. It must use 16 passenger vehicles to meet present demand on a 50 mile daily route (4 to 5 cycles) within its resources of vehicles and volunteer staffing. There are also a number of other factors; a 16 passenger coachbuilt vehicle is a much more accessisble, efficient, versatile and comfortable vehicle than a smaller van conversion. 

In May 2013 the CTA gave evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee which was holding an enquiry into transport for people with disabilities. The CTA Journal reports that acting chief executive Ewan Jones informed the committee: "even though people with disabilities might be entitled to concessionary travel, if there was not a vehicle they could get on or a service they could use, the entitlement would be of little use to them." Mr Jones also informed them how community transport was funded and how the sector was exploring new business models to remain sustainable.

There is potentially a host of issues in partnerships between voluntary, statutory and commercial bodies which some experienced voluntary operators can recall with bitterness and which the CTA hints at.

Halesworth's passenger cost per mile at an outstanding 90% of capacity is still a place where no commercial operator dares to tread without some form of subsidy. HACT receives no route subsidy but manages to make up the deficit in fare revenue by continually fundraising, so using up precious volunteer time and enthusiasm. I would also hazard a guess that the "minimum subsidy" provided in the Netherlands is much higher than any subsidy anticipated in the UK.