Since Stagecoach announced proposed cuts to local bus services in Folkestone and Hythe district, our elected Green councillors have been listening to residents and taking action to have your voices heard by Stagecoach and Kent County Council – those responsible for the bus services.

Cllr Polly Blakemore, Cabinet Member for Transport, Regulatory Services and Building Control at Folkestone and Hythe District Council, has written to the Commercial Director of Stagecoach South East to impress upon him the devastating impact the proposed changes will have. Her letter is printed below, for full transparency.

Leader of Folkestone and Hythe District Council, Cllr Jim Martin, has also written to the Commercial Director of Stagecoach and met with him and the Managing Director to amplify residents’ concerns. Both Cllrs Martin and Blakemore have suggested collaborating with Stagecoach on a local ‘use it or lose it’ campaign to help to encourage bus use across the district, which might help to preserve services – but Stagecoach is not interested.

Cllr Martin says: “the public need these services, yet because of the current model of bus service provision, where private profit reigns supreme, there is a disparity between what the public need and what they get”.

Determined to reflect the views of residents, and the broad public dismay at the proposed cuts, Cllr Martin has appeared on BBC South East Today and Radio Kent to make the case for service retention.

Unfortunately, the Green-led district council has no decision-making power to stop the cuts. Stagecoach is subsidised by Kent County Council, which is conservative led. The ability to influence bus services is directly determined by whether Kent County Council subsidises the services or not.

Our Green Party county councillor for Hythe West, and co-chair of Shepway Green Party, Cllr Jenni Hawkins, says: “Years of financial mismanagement by the Conservative-led administration at Kent County Council, and over a decade of austerity policies from successive Conservative governments, has left KCC in dire financial straits…they currently appear unwilling or unable to help, but I will continue to press the case”.

Cllr Hawkins quickly established a petition on the announcement of the cuts and joined residents at Folkestone Bus Station in protest in July. She has also written to Stagecoach, highlighting a particular concern for residents of Lympne who will be affected by changes to the number 10 service. “Unexpected cancellations of buses on current routes”, Cllr Hawkins says, “have also left residents in desperate situations…this poor level of service from Stagecoach simply is not good enough”.

Green Party national policy is to re-regulate the bus industry, with local authorities having responsibility for ensuring that bus services reflect all the principles for a public service, including the setting of routes, frequencies and fares.

Cllr Polly Blakemore’s letter to Stagecoach:

Further to your recent announcement about cuts to some of the services in the Folkestone and Hythe district, I write to make representations on behalf of our many worried local residents.

Residents rely upon the existing bus services in their day-to-day lives and are hugely concerned about how the proposed cuts will affect them. There will be children whose journeys to school will be made more difficult and probably more expensive as they will rely on either their parents or a taxi service to get them to and from school so pushing more private vehicles on to the road at a time when we should be trying to do precisely the opposite.

The reduction of the No 16 service to a Folkestone to Canterbury shuttle only means there are vulnerable residents, both old and young, who will no longer be able to get a direct service from Hythe to school, college or hospital appointments in Canterbury. I have been made aware of cases where this service reduction will have a devastating effect on the quality of residents’ lives.

There are whole communities served by the No 74 bus, for example, where elderly people have moved on retirement with the assurance that there is a regular bus service enabling them to get in and out of town. This service has already been reduced and is now under threat of withdrawal meaning that vulnerable and disabled residents in these communities risk becoming stranded and unable to access shops, services and businesses in the town centre.

The withdrawal of the no 10 would leave the village of Lympne with no bus service at all so resulting in another isolated community.

It seems there are possible solutions such as running smaller more efficient buses but increasing frequency rather than cutting services back to the extent that they are no longer useful or reliable.

Whilst understanding the commercial pressures Stagecoach is facing, we would like to work with you to save those routes whose loss would be so detrimental to my constituents. We are more than happy to assist with a ‘Use it or lose it’ campaign over the coming months. The Leader of the Council, Jim Martin, will discuss this with you further at tomorrow’s meeting.