Purpose

 Most bus services are provided commercially,
but the Council can supplement these services with additional local
bus services to increase accessibility and sustainable transport in
the council area.

 

The Council has its own supported
bus service budget of £283,000 and this is currently
supplemented by funding from Section 106 developer contributions
and Department for Transport grants.

 

The North Northamptonshire Bus
Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) outlines ambitions to increase
patronage for local bus services which is most likely to be
achieved by uplifting capacity in urban areas. The Council received
BSIP funding in three tranches to help achieve this aim with DfT
agreeing this could fund services to March 2026.

The Executive on
14th
September 2023 delegated authority
to the Executive Member for Highways, Travel & Assets in
consultation with the Executive Director of Place & Economy to
take any actions needed to award the local bus service contracts
and any further decisions/actions relating to expenditure of the
BSIP+ funding.

 

As reported to Executive on 18
April 2024, a series of service improvements has been developed for
implementation using this funding, subject to affordability and
value for money.  Annex 5 provides a status update for the
service improvements reported to Executive.

 

The new/improved services are
being introduced on a phased basis. Because of the uncertainty of
future grant funding levels, many contracts have been awarded with
initial terms ending on 29th
March 2025, with possible
extensions for one or more further years. 

 

The allocation of further revenue
grant funding to support bus services makes it affordable to extend
all the contracts currently expiring on 28th
March 2026 on which extensions are
exercisable for a further year to 27th
March 2027.

 

However, contract DMN408 for one
evening journey on Corby service 2C will not be extended beyond the
current contract termination on 28th
March 2026 as this service
represents poor value for money, carrying no more than one
passenger per journey.

 

Content

To extend the local bus service contracts set
out in Annex 3 following the allocation of additional grant funding
and terminate the local bus contract shown in Annex 4 due to poor
value for money.