From the Chamber: All Aboard the Bus

Cllr Martin Alder is Executive Member for Active Transport, Travel and Highways and Ward member for Twyford, Ruscombe and Hurst.

My brief is Active Transport, Travel and Highways. Having worked in a transport industry all of my career, someone thought I was an obvious fit. I have found it an interesting brief with many challenges, and a sense of achievement when things get delivered. I have a team of professional officers doing the really hard work, providing me, a politician, with the information I need to do my tasks. In return, I do as politicians are supposed to do. I put the views of the mythical “ordinary person on the Clapham Omnibus”. Then in simple terms, I make the final decisions from the possible options where I am authorised to do so. If it requires a higher level for the decision, then a recommendation is made, that is progressed through the appropriate process and if agreed an idea becomes a reality.  That process all takes time, often bound by legal requirements that have to be complied with. Hence, whilst it can appear that the Council moves slowly, it is in fact often limited to moving at the fastest pace that the law allows.   

One of my briefs is the bus network, which is an interesting subject for me.  Having used public transport in a number of countries, mainly in Europe, it is interesting to compare how it’s done in different countries. As a casual user, the network we have in our semi-urban and urban area compares quite favourably.   

Could it be made better? Well, like most things, almost certainly, but it isn’t always cheap, or easy to do so. That means careful research as to what services are needed and how to resource it. There needs to be good monitoring of usage patterns to ensure best value for money for all involved, especially if public funds are being used to “kick start” a new route, or service pattern. Sums can be quite large, running into many tens of thousands of pounds per year for a route. 

How is this all done? Well by having a good plan of course. Our aims and plans are contained in two documents the Wokingham Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) and the Enhanced Partnership Plan (EPP). These two documents provide the basis for what we do with our bus services and how we do them with our partners.  The BSIP plan looks ahead to 2040 and broadly speaking the EPP provides the details as to how the BSIP is delivered. Both are lengthy and detailed documents, well worth a read by anyone wondering why the bus network is the way it is and where it is headed in the longer term. 

The next event that I have related to the bus network, is chairing a meeting with our partners to review the BSIP as part of our regular monitoring process. This will concentrate on the BSIP plan for 2025/26 and how we will spend grant funding.