A LOCAL authority aiming to restore and improve bus services across the whole of England’s largest county has revealed it will consider introducing demand-responsive services in urban areas as well as market towns and rural areas.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council heard passenger numbers had remained low for many urban services since lockdown measures were eased and some had either been recently cut or seen route changes “to pick up more passengers”.

Introducing demand-responsive services in larger urban areas would be significant because the authority has previously relied on those areas proving to be commercially viable.

The council’s Labour group leader and Mayor of Scarborough Councillor Eric Broadbent said with the Department of Transport pandemic recovery grants for bus operators expiring on April 5 “things in Scarbrough could get dramatically worse”.

He said: “I believe the government has been warned that bus services across the country could be reduced by one third if this goes ahead.”

Veteran councillor David Jeffels said the following recent bus service changes, the lack of transport in numerous villages was becoming an increasing issue as well.

The concerns have been raised as the authority awaits a decision from the government about how much of its £116m eight-year Bus Service Improvement Plan will receive funding.

The plan’s top priorities are to expand the council’s on-demand bus service, YorBus, which allows app users to book and track services, and to also support services which have been impacted by the pandemic.

The authority’s executive member for access Councillor Don Mackenzie told the meeting the authority’s Yorbus pilot in the Ripon, Bedale and Masham area was proving to be very successful.

He said if the trial finished positively, while demand-responsive transport would mainly be aimed at rural areas, it was a model that could also be used in urban areas.

Coun Mackenzie said: “Even if we don’t get all the money we will get enough of the money to make a difference both to rural bus services where our real challenge lies, and also the urban services in places like Scarborough.

“Without question bus services are under a great deal of pressure in a huge rural county such as our own where the great distances the buses have to travel from village to village mean the costs are greater than the fares they are going to pick up and the revenue they’re going to receive.”

He said the £1.5m of subsidies the council currently gave to bus firms to support bus services was “nowhere near enough”, and the authority would do all it could to combat the impact of the end of the recovery grants.

Coun Mackenzie added the authority had played its part in enabling bus operators to withstand the financial pressures “of having no one paying for fares on their buses by maintaining payments to them as if there had been no pandemic”.