A community campaign group has described proposals to end subsidies for two bus routes as an “own goal”.
The £58,000 subsidy for the 77 to the Devil’s Dyke from Easter to mid-June and the 79 to Ditchling Beacon are due to go in Brighton and Hove City Council’s budget cuts.
But Brighton Active Travel has criticised the move, saying that it would affect services that benefit the poorest people.
The loss of £29,000 for the 77 Devil’s Dyke service would remove the “enhancement” to the weekend and public holiday operation, reducing the service from two buses an hour to just one.
The weekday service is subsidised for a few months at the start of the season – from Easter – and buses do not run at all on the route from September to Easter.
Removing the £29,000 subsidy from the 79 route to Ditchling Beacon would result in the end of the summer service.
Both routes – referred to as “Breeze up to the Downs” services – are operated by Brighton and Hove Buses.
Brighton Active Travel said: “It would be a bizarre own-goal if the Labour-run council in Brighton and Hove cuts the 77 and 79, two buses that give the greatest benefits to the poorest people.
“These buses are the cheapest way to get to the Downs quickly and people with the lowest incomes need that the most so the council would be kicking people who have the least.
“Mental health and physical wellbeing are boosted by getting out into the fresh air and relative peace of the South Downs on the 77 and 79 buses.”
The group is also concerned that the proposals would encourage more people to drive to the South Downs, increasing traffic, pollution and danger on the roads. More pressure on parking would also affect blue badge holders.
Brighton Active Travel said: “All this at a time when the council wants more people to travel by bus and reduce car journeys.
“For such a relatively small saving, many vulnerable groups would be harmed and the Labour-run council would be gambling with its own reputation.”
An equality impact assessment included in the council’s budget papers said that the proposals would adversely affect older people, children and the disabled.
There are more than 30,000 people in Brighton and Hove with an older persons’ bus pass – and a higher than average percentage of older people use supported services.
The assessment said that older people were also less likely to drive as their age increased, in part because of associated health conditions and disabilities.
Younger people also used the services as did people with disabilities. More than 50,000 people in Brighton and Hove – nearly one in five – had a disability and 6,500 had concessionary bus passes.
The assessment also said: “Access to leisure activities, the countryside and, in particular, to health walks at Stanmer Park may be curtailed by the loss of the Breeze up to the Downs services.
“In addition, retail and doctors/hospital appointments may be more difficult or costly for people to attend.
“Young people show the highest levels of importance for good local bus services.
“The ‘Breeze’ services serve schools on their route and, if cut, there may be barriers to education as well as social and leisure activities as young people are less likely to have access to any other form of transport.”
The council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee is due to discuss the budget proposals at Hove Town Hall on Thursday 8 February from 4pm.
And the annual “budget council” meeting is due to start at 4.30pm on Thursday 22 February.
Both meetings are scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
More Labour cuts. You can’t trust new labour
Unfortunately, this is the world we live in. As free thirteen years of economic downturn, this has to happen. It’s economically the sensible thing to do, however unpopular it is with certain groups.
Another own goal by this council.
The poorest people don’t need subsidised bus trips up to.the Dyke and the Beacon!
They need more money just to survive!
You think a poor person has money to waste on a bus ride up to something they’ve probrably seen a hundred times?
I’m sick of hearing about how poor people need everything except more money in their pockets to survive! We don’t need this or art galleries!
We need money! Much more of it!!!
And no £1-£2 tax cut is going to make a blind bit of difference!
How do I know?
Because the callous Conservatives stopped my PIP and now I can’t afford to leave my flat at all!
I agree with the spirit of your statement, Simon. And realistically what is being proposed here is 30 minutes. Some minor removal of convenience for a significant saving. I suspect for the majority, this won’t make a blind bit of difference, and because of that, is a very reasonable cut to make, especially if it means elsewhere, more important services are not.
Simon
I would agree the poorest people need more money.
You’re aware that those who are not poor also use these services and enjoy the freedom of having a few drinks and meal or a nice picnic and walk. There’s plenty to do and explore for everyone to enjoy if they don’t want to spend time in the city.
Even poor families need an outlet so let them choose where they want to go, you’re not a spokesman for them so please refrain from saying what they don’t or do need and allow them to spend their money how they want.
If they want to go to the Dyke everyday, so what ?
You’re sick of hearing about poor people needing this but never any more money. On the contrary, those I’ve spoken too or read about have stated that with rising costs money doesn’t go very far and that’s not just poor people, that’s most people I’ve spoken too. I’m not poor neither am I rich, but still having to watch the pennies.
You claim we don’t need this or art galleries, opinions will vary from person to person.
Actually, I do need these buses to run on weekdays during the summer months. I’m a pensioner living on her pension + pension credit + housing benefit but without a car and these buses take me into nature where I can walk and pursue my love for observing, recording and photographing that remains in these patches of nature. It is vital for my health, both mental and physical, and my general wellbeing. Also reducing these bus services with will create a greater use of the car which is already too high at both Ditchling Beacon and Devils Dyke where car parking is full to overflowing on sunny days despite room on the buses. Rather than reduce the buses, a forward-thinking progressive council would increase funding for this public service which is far more sustainable than that inevitable increase in the private car, both in terms local air quality as well as reducing CO2 emissions. I am now fighting lung cancer with a particular type of lung tumour they tell me is becoming more and more common among non-smokers like me. Ironic almost isn’t it if the dangers in our city is yet another from the traffic exhaust which our City Council clearly and shamefully seem so disinterested in reducing.
Well said Claire 🙂 Have you seen my petition regarding the 79 here : https://www.change.org/p/urge-brighton-and-hove-council-to-maintain-subsidies-for-the-79-bus?recruiter=43626883&recruited_by_id=97a50090-6bd3-0130-20c0-00221968d0e0&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard&utm_medium=copylink
I would have thought Brighton Active Travel would prefer visitors to the Devil’s Dyke and Ditchling Beacon to use “active travet” such as walking or cycling rather than sitting on a bus.
I see there is no data on how well the services are used. Is this really a good use of our money?
Perhaps Brighton and Hove Buses and/or The National Trust could provide the necessary financial support, rather than being funded by council tax.
Surprised this isn’t being paid for out of all the excess income that they get from parking fees that goes to support other community bus services such as Big Lemon.
Yet again,One word DISGRACEFUL I was Born in Brighton But what has happened to Brighton?More More student accommodation they obviously bring in money,where does the monies go?? We harp on about Well being but all I see is Metal Health rising surely people trying to go out for a few hours up on the Downs with fresh air to clear heads for a few hours rather than sitting at home at then eventually at the doctor’s
Active Travel includes bus services, not everybody can walk or cycle and you are aware both locations are on the boarders of the city. Cyclists could take their bikes on the Beacon bus too.
Giving us loading data would be helpful.
B&H already provide support. 58K would hardly cover wages for the drivers doing these routes.
I too agree that these service’s should be funded from the parking excesses and I thought they were tbh with you, so begs the question of where that funding went.
The local contracted bus services I believe comes from a different pot.
A heavily subsidised service that is probably mainly used by tourists and not the locals. I’d rather subsidised bus services helped those on low incomes get to work/ school and were more targeted. Still its Brighton Active Travel BAT by name BATTY by nature.
I’d like to know why cuts always have to be to services and low paid staff. The obvious answer is to whittle down the hangers on with obscure job titles who incredibly ‘earn’ £250,000pa.
There’s plenty of them to go around and it’s about time there’s was a cull and a need to see whether this sort of job could be done by someone equally qualified but on a lower wage.
Well, I caught the first service on the 79 yesterday (Sunday). By the time we got to the Beacon there were several people downstairs and at least a dozen upstairs. Additionally some passengers used the bus to get off at Old Lodges at the top of Stanmer Park. I managed to chat to about half the passengers and we were all locals. This is on a chilly, cloudy day in Febraury when there was a thick mist when we got to the Beacon;… hardly a day for the tourists, (fortunately the cloud soon lifted once we were up and walking so the journey was well worth it). Yes, tourist do use it in the summer and in good weather the bus is much busier.
The sevice needs the subsidies because it’s use is very weather dependent and probably not economic on the less busy, bad weather days. It’s well used when the weather is good and given the council’s total budget the money involved is not enormous.
I sometimes think these schemes are thought up by people who have sufficient money for their everyday needs and think “What might I like to do in my leisure time?” rather than “What would help needy people?”
These services are the only way non car drivers can get to these sites. They are not at all well advertised. Free to bring your bike on board, free for kids accompanied by adults. If the service is under used, it should be promoted more. Even the bus drivers sometimes don’t know the service offers properly. On the 78 bus for example you can travel from the lodges to the village for free. And.the bus can stop anywhere along that route to pick you up.
This is such a shame and so counter productive. For just £29k to remove the Ditchling Beacon summer service just doesn’t, add up – it is a really popular service for locals and tourists and is the only way to get to the beacon without a car.
The South Downs are a massive underused asset and the eco-tourism value to the city is huge. Divorcing our city from these spaces is just short sighted. Encouraging more car trips in a climate emergency is just wrong.
I respect the Kantian approach but I sit on the utilitarian thoughts about this.
The service will still run every hour… So maybe read the article before having a melt down. End of the day the bus company should pay for this as it has the privilege of running the busy routes and makes £6 million profit a year
Pretty well put by Dave. Total agreement here.
Dave
Only the 77 will run the 79 will be completely withdrawn.
Yes my understanding is that the 79 will be completely withdrawn. If you don’t want this to happen please sign my petition here. https://chng.it/ynCd2QpNm5
Thanks
These buses are important for walkers who want to access the South Downs.
For sure you might use a car to get to your starting point, but then you have to return to the same spot to pick it up.
Last summer I used the Devil’s Dyke service, walked along the South Downs Way, cut down to Shoreham, and then got the 700 seafront bus service back to Brighton. Hopefully, that walk will still be possible this year.
The Ditchling Beacon buses are already rare, and I took a University bus to Stanmer park, and then walked up through the woods to Ditchling Beacon, and that’s already quite a trek, but recommended. From Ditchling Beacon I then walked west to Clayton Mills, and then I cut back down to Brighton via the Chattri. It was a six hour walk by the time I got back as far as Withdean, and then there were surprisingly few buses running down the A23 to get me back into town.
Without these buses, there comes a point when you’d probably need a taxi, and that’s when your Sunday walk suddenly becomes expensive. The buses also give us city dwellers access to the countryside, and the walks there are a very different experience from a stroll along the same bit of sea front near your house.
I guess, with further cuts to an already limited bus service, the ‘active travel’ walker just makes a different plan.
If we are talking buses, I’m far more concerned about the stealth cuts to night time services by our privatised bus company. The night buses were stopped during Covid but cuts to evening services have got even worse since.
The number one cross-city bus service used to run all night from Whitehawk to Portslade, but that east /west route no longer serves the night time economy.
For example, if you leave a pub in the city centre at 11.30 on a Friday night you now struggle to find a bus back to Hove and, in my case this frequently mean’s an hour’s walk home – and that’s particularly annoying when you’ve already paid for the ticket that includes nightbus services.
The state-subsidised 700 service runs through the night but there’s a five quid flat rate surcharge after midnight, regardless of whether you’ve already paid for a ticket in advance.
The 700 isn’t state funded.
Well Stagecoach are government subsidised under the current £2 fare cap scheme, and under the fuel duty refund (BSOG), but I was told the 700 coastal service got extra funding as a key national route thing, and maybe that’s wrong.
Funding for buses did change a lot after usage dropped because of Covid, and extra government funding came in to encourage people back onto the buses.
Funding for all public transport seems to be quite a mystery when you look into it. It’s also not clear how the train services are heavily subsidised and yet most rail fares are now unaffordable. If you need to travel as a family or as a group, it’s still way cheaper to do so by car.
At this current time, all bus companies across the country are under the £2 fare cap.
As for BSOG, funding has reduced over the years with no additional or extra funding. It’s the same across the board for all bus companies.
The 77 until recent years used to be a really attractive service which in the summer operated with open top buses. Whilst I realise Brighton & Hove only run it because the council subsidise the route, they got rid of the two dedicated open top buses which were used on the route and instead just put on normal service buses. The attraction of the open top service was therefore lost and instead you just get a ride in a normal bus. If the effort was made to make the idea of a trip on the two services more attractive by using open toppers like they do with the sightseeing service (run exclusively by Brighton & Hove buses), I’m sure more people would use it and thus increase the passenger loading and income from it.
On the other side of the coin, if the money used to subsidise the service is needed elsewhere to fund vital City services then I don’t see a problem with cutting it.
Great let’s have a really huge car park all over the Downs and make Stanmer a car park to replace the one at AMEX being used for yet more student accommodation. Oh and their cars.
Or, you could just wait for the still frequent bus service and not be a silly duck about this. 🦆
When we (the pre-National Park org) introduced this service back in the late 1980s, it was the old open top Southdown Buses that initially provided the service. When it became established and people realised the benefits of using the bus, not least the fact that there are regular “car jams” and full car park on busy summer weekends, it was taken on by B&H Buses. The buses can be packed, the subsidy helps keep them running in the less busy times. A NT survey identified some interesting bus-dependencies, such as the lifeline for widows who used to rely on their husbands to drive, who would otherwise be sadly isolated with this loss, or parents of young children whose partner used the sole ca for work and they could get out to Devil’s Dyke or Ditchling Beacon by bus.
In this climate changing world, when we are trying to get more sustainable and responsible travel, this cut to a vital social and leisure service is a retrograde step.
Let’s hope councillors speak up at their meeting and save this de minimus £ sum in the budget.
Once an hour still feels perfectly reasonable for people to enjoy this route sand provides access. Unfortunately, a pragmatic approach really does need to happen with BHCC finances, because if they went bankrupt, you wouldn’t have any service, it would be mandatory cut completely, rather than this reduction.
After flying cross country from the Dyke, the paraglider pilots often use the train to get back to Brighton and then these buses to get back to the Dyke, to collect their cars. They may not necessarily be the poorest people, but it is a useful service.
The article does not say how many passengers actually use the current services. That might inform the discussion.
Two more things:
1. The vehicles used are possibly ones that would also be used on peak services. B&H are making use of ‘down time’. The consequence of there being no Breeze services is that each vehicle will be less economical to run i.e. not being used all the time.
2. The Breeze service ls are ‘stage’ services. People can board and use them along their route, but not necessarily at the extreme ends i.e. in Stanmer Park itself or between Woodbourne Avenue and Ditchling Beacon. Any measure of use has to be for those peripheral sections of the route.
Excellent point Justin, that information could very well sway a lot of opinion. I’m a big advocate for evidence-based discussion too.
Oh no! I am a regular user of the 79 bus to Ditchling Beacon. I love to walk from there to Lewes across the Downs and then catch a bus from Lewes back to Brighton. I have a bus pass because I am a pensioner and this regular exercise keeps me fit and healthy. I don’t have a car and the 79 is my way of getting out onto the Downs.
You can still go! It’s just going to be every 60 minutes instead of 30.
Thanks, The article was unclear about how it affects the 79, which is only hourly at the weekends. I think you are referring to the 77, which I also sometimes use in the week.
The article says that if these changes go forward, the 79 service will be completely withdrawn.
Benjamin
Read the article again, the 77 will be reduced but the 79 completely withdrawn.
Excellent discussion. What a well informed lot the resident of the town are for sure.
Politicians need to up their game locally and nationally..
The open top 77 bus has been an absolute life saver in the Summer school holidays for years. We live in such a heavy polluted city that it was one of the few cheap days out that a family with no car and little money could enjoy a real adventure and feel like you were Far far away. A picnic blanket, a few sandwiches and a couple of kites provided my family with such a rare a healthy day out of our tiny home with no garden.It was also a fantastic chance for the young to mix with the old in such a positive way. I’ve lost count the times a lonely older person has taken the time to point out interesting places and shared memories to my children on the journey which has enriched both of them.It’s such a sad decision.
GREAT NEWS we can all drive to the Downs. Stanmer should be a huge park n ride site. Stop all this green nonsense and pollute the land.
!