The Forum for Political Dialogue met between 1996 and 1998 in Belfast as part of the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
The Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiation, etc) Act 1996 provided for a Forum constituted by delegates elected in elections under the same Act to consider and examine issues relevant to promoting dialogue and understanding within Northern Ireland. The Forum met at the Interpoint Centre, York Street, Belfast from 14 June 1996 to 24 April 1998.
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Transport in Rural Areas, Parliamentary Elections Voting System, Organosphates Insecticides, Forum Submission to Chancellor of the Exchequer, Special Debate
Northern Ireland Forum
for
Political Dialogue
~~~~~~~~~
TRANSPORT IN RURAL AREAS
A REPORT
BY
STANDING COMMITTEE 'E'
(The Northern Ireland Economy)
~~~~~~~~~
Presented to the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue
on 3 April 1998
Note
DRAFT REPORTS
This report has been prepared by Standing Committee E for
the consideration of the Northern Ireland Forum for Political
Dialogue. Until adopted by the Forum in accordance with its
Rules, this report may not be reproduced in whole or in part
or used for broadcast purposes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Committee wishes to express its sincere thanks to
all who provided submissions or contributed in any
other way to this investigation into Transport in Rural
Areas.
CONTENTS
Section Page
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS FROM
INITIAL RESPONSE ON INTEGRATED
TRANSPORT POLICY 3
3. RURAL TRANSPORT ISSUES 5
4. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS 14
APPENDIX A - MEMBERSHIP OF STANDING COMMITTEE E
APPENDIX B - ROADS REQUIRING UPGRADING AND
IMPROVEMENT
APPENDIX C - MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN FROM
MR TED HESKETH (TRANSLINK)
TRANSPORT IN RURAL AREAS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 On 14 November 1997 the Northern Ireland Forum for Political
Dialogue adopted the initial response prepared by Standing Committee
E (The Northern Ireland Economy) to the “Developing an Integrated
Transport Policy” document published in August 1997 by the
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
1.2 Following its adoption by the Forum the response was forwarded to the
Transportation Unit of the Department of the Environment for Northern
Ireland for onward transmission in response to the UK-wide invitation
to contribute towards developing an integrated transport policy.
1.3 When the response was being debated in the Forum a number of
members while welcoming the response and commending those who
worked on it felt that it was mainly relevant to the Belfast conurbation
and was remiss in not highlighting the needs of rural areas, particularly
those in the western part of the Province.
1.4 In his summing up the then Vice-Chairperson of Standing Committee E
welcomed the opportunity to consider this issue further in Committee.
In the interim, Standing Committee E has considered in greater depth a
number of the issues raised in the Forum debate and has concluded that
1
it would be appropriate to present to the Forum a separate Report on
Transport in Rural Areas.
1.5 For ease of reference and by way of linking the two Reports the key
recommendations from the initial response on Integrated Transport
Policy are re-stated at Chapter 2 of this Report.
2
2. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS FROM INITIAL
RESPONSE ON INTEGRATED TRANSPORT POLICY
2.1 A co-ordinated effort should be made to reduce the level of car
commuting in Northern Ireland and particularly in the Belfast area.
2.2 An extensive and sustained “Hearts and Minds” campaign should be
initiated to encourage modal-shift, where possible, from private to
public transport.
2.3 Priority should be given to the development of Flagship public
transport services in Belfast.
2.4 An integrated smart card payment system should be developed for
transport services, both public and private, in Northern Ireland.
2.5 A “Residents Only” car parking policy should be considered for the
inner city area of Belfast and, as appropriate, for other parts of
Northern Ireland. This policy could be part of an overall strategy to
reduce the provision of free all day parking facilities in city and town
centres.
2.6 The problem of existing bottlenecks, such as the West Link in Belfast,
the Toome Corridor and the main route to Larne, should be urgently
addressed.
2.7 Road pricing should only be considered for implementation on a
national basis.
3
2.8 The integration with, and co-ordination of, Ulsterbus services with
community transport and voluntary provision should be encouraged,
particularly in rural areas.
2.9 Government should aim to reduce social exclusion of certain sections
of the community such as the elderly, the disabled, the young, people
on low incomes, etc, and ensure that transport and planning policy
deals with rural community needs.
4
3. RURAL TRANSPORT ISSUES
(a) Need to Upgrade Existing Road System
3.1 The Committee considers that there is an urgent need for upgrading
and improvement of many roads throughout Northern Ireland and while
resource implications probably rule out the building of any more
motorways a need does exist in some areas for lengths of additional
high quality road to be built eg to facilitate the development of the
East/West economic corridor. With the ongoing development of out of
town shopping centres a system of feeder roads to these centres should
also be introduced.
3.2 The Committee shares the concern voiced by several Forum Members
when integrated transport policy was debated in the Forum that many
of the roads in the Province and particularly those in rural areas west of
the Bann are not adequate for the amount of traffic currently using
them. This situation needs to be remedied and allowance made for the
future development of rural industry.
3.3 There is a clear need for a review of the road infrastructure throughout
Northern Ireland and a list of some of the worst bottle-necks and roads
which require upgrading and improvement is set out at Appendix B.
5
Recommendation:
A review should be carried out of the road infrastructure
throughout Northern Ireland with a view to upgrading and
improving existing routes and building additional high quality
roads where necessary, including feeder roads to out-of-town
shopping centres.
(b) Adequacy of Public Transport
3.4 The frequency of the public transport service in some rural areas is
low. This is brought about through lack of passengers and infrequency
of use and when the frequency of service is low the number of
passengers tends to fall further. Services in a rural community are most
at risk and are more likely to be withdrawn.
3.5 In many areas public transport is now used only by those who do not
have access to private transport. This fall in the demand for public
transport services increases the difficulty of providing services that are
commercially viable. If services are cut to retain viability in the face of
decreasing demand those without access to a car will be further
disadvantaged. The Committee believes that there is a need to
subsidise these rural services and would encourage consideration of the
use of school buses on rural public service routes, where appropriate.
3.6 In view of the scattered nature of development in Northern Ireland and
the very high dependency of rural dwellers on cars, the Committee is
6
also deeply concerned about the effect of recent Budget measures on
both private and public transport.
3.7 The commercial remit of Ulsterbus means that conventional public
transport is unlikely to provide an adequate level of service and the
development of the strategic use of community and voluntary transport
could bridge this mobility gap. The Community Transport Association
aims to meet the transport needs of people who find it difficult to use
conventional public transport because of cost, disability or age.
Recommendation:
Government should consider subsidising rural bus services and
utilising school buses on rural public service routes. Community
and voluntary transport should also be used to bridge the mobility
gap created by inadequate public service provision in some rural
areas.
(c) Requirements/Problems of Freight Transport
3.8 The ability to move goods freely is important for the economic
prosperity of Northern Ireland. While there may be some opportunity
for increased use of rail (see paragraph 3.14) the vast proportion of
freight movement will continue to be by road. The Committee
considers, therefore, that it is important to create improved conditions
for essential commercial traffic.
7
3.9 Improved road structures and adequate alternative routes would keep
lorries out of villages and small towns where they tend to disrupt traffic
flows. A number of main routes like the A4 - Dungannon to
Enniskillen and A5 - Londonderry to Dublin which have been
designated trans-European routes and the A3 Armagh to Monaghan
route are also clearly unsuitable for the volume of heavy traffic which
currently uses them. The Committee considers that funding should be
made available to bring these through routes up to standard.
3.10 Recognising that it is essential for goods to be delivered to shops in all
locations the Committee feels that a greater effort could be made to
arrange for deliveries to be made outside normal working hours.
Recommendation:
To create improved conditions for essential commercial traffic
funding should be made available to bring main routes up to
standard.
Recommendation:
A greater effort should be made to arrange for delivery of goods to
shops outside normal working hours.
8
(d) Car Sharing
3.11 The principle of car sharing is attractive in terms of its ability to reduce
the total amount of car travel. Car occupancy levels are low and most
car journeys are undertaken by the driver on his or her own. The
Department of the Environment is planning to carry out some research
to see what can be done to encourage the practice of car sharing and
they will be providing better parking facilities at some locations, as a
pilot exercise, to make it a more attractive option. The Committee
would also encourage the Department to examine existing
arrangements in other countries, for example, high occupancy cars
using bus lanes, as part of their research.
3.12 There is potential throughout Northern Ireland to reduce travel to work
car journeys through the greater use of sharing arrangements. Such
arrangements are more acceptable in rural areas where journeys tend to
be longer. To facilitate car sharing the Committee feels it is necessary
to provide free car parking areas adjacent to appropriate main road
junctions and roundabouts.
Recommendation:
Provision of free car parking areas adjacent to appropriate main
road junctions and roundabouts is necessary.
9
Recommendation:
The Department of the Environment should examine existing
arrangements in other countries like the use of high occupancy
vehicle lanes.
(e) Rail Network
3.13 The Committee welcomes the announcement of the re-opening of the
direct line between Antrim and Belfast. This will create an opportunity
to develop travel from towns north of Belfast into the urban area. The
Committee feels that in planning for the future there may be scope to
expand this project to include a link line to Belfast International
Airport. This link could be viable if there is future industrial
development at the airport.
3.14 The rail share of the overall freight market is very small, although
railway lines run close, but not into, our major ports. The Committee
considers that an examination should be undertaken of the potential to
move freight from the roads onto the railways by extending the rail link
into the ports. There may also be scope for the introduction of roll-on
roll-off rail/ferry links at Belfast and Larne harbours.
10
Recommendation:
The project to re-open the direct rail link between Belfast and
Antrim should be extended to include a link line to Belfast
International Airport to cope with future industrial development.
Recommendation:
An examination should be undertaken of the potential to move
freight from the roads onto the railways by extending the rail links
into the ports.
(f) Environmental/Planning Issues
3.15 The location and nature of development affects the amount and method
of travel, while the pattern of development is itself influenced by
transport policies and infrastructure. The Committee believes that by
planning land use and transport together, in ways which enable people
to carry out their everyday activities with less need to travel, the
environmental impact of transport can be reduced in the longer term.
The re-development of brown field sites, for example, is one way to
help reduce the need for travel. All transport planning should, of
course, also take into account the need for reduction in pollution levels.
3.16 In "Transportation in Northern Ireland - the Way Forward" the
Department of the Environment states that environmental
considerations already play a fundamental role in the development of
11
proposals for new roads. In rural areas the road alignment is chosen to
take account of the character of the landscape, to conserve landforms
and features of historic or natural interest, and to avoid disruption of
local communities.
Recommendation:
Land use and transport should be planned jointly in ways which
enable people to carry out their everyday activities with less need
to travel.
Recommendation:
All transport planning should take into account the need for
reduction in pollution levels.
(g) East/West Economic Corridor
3.17 The Committee considers that the East/West economic corridor is of
vital importance considering the amount of business transacted
between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. In the light of this there is
a need to ensure that suitable road structures are developed and
maintained both in the Province itself, eg the A8 route between Belfast
and Larne Harbour and in Scotland linking Stranraer with major cities
in Scotland and England.
12
Recommendation:
Government should ensure that suitable road structures are
developed and maintained to service the entire East/West
economic corridor.
(h) Road Pricing
3.18 Road pricing, in various forms, is common in many parts of the world.
The Committee considers, however, that on account of the size of
Northern Ireland and acknowledging the special needs of rural dwellers
road pricing is not acceptable in the Province.
Recommendation:
Due to its inappropriateness road pricing should not be introduced
in Northern Ireland.
13
4. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1 A review should be carried out of the road infrastructure
throughout Northern Ireland with a view to upgrading and
improving existing routes and building additional high quality
roads where necessary, including feeder roads to out-of-town
shopping centres.
4.2 Government should consider subsidising rural bus services and
utilising school buses on rural public service routes. Community
and voluntary transport should also be used to bridge the mobility
gap created by inadequate public service provision in some rural
areas.
4.3 To create improved conditions for essential commercial traffic
funding should be made available to bring main routes up to
standard.
4.4 A greater effort should be made to arrange for delivery of goods to
shops outside normal working hours.
4.5 Provision of free car parking areas adjacent to appropriate main
road junctions and roundabouts is necessary.
4.6 The Department of the Environment should examine existing
arrangements in other countries like the use of high occupancy
vehicle lanes.
14
4.7 The project to re-open the direct rail link between Belfast and
Antrim should be extended to include a link line to Belfast
International Airport to cope with future industrial development.
4.8 An examination should be undertaken of the potential to move
freight from the roads onto the railways by extending the rail links
into the ports.
4.9 Land use and transport should be planned jointly in ways which
enable people to carry out their everyday activities with less need
to travel.
4.10 All transport planning should take into account the need for
reduction in pollution levels.
4.11 Government should ensure that suitable road structures are
developed and maintained to service the entire East/West
economic corridor.
4.12 Due to its inappropriateness, road pricing should not be
introduced in Northern Ireland.
15
APPENDIX A
MEMBERSHIP OF
STANDING COMMITTEE E
(THE NORTHERN IRELAND ECONOMY)
Democratic Unionist Party - Mr St C McAlister - Chairperson
Mr S Wilson
Mr W Snoddy
Mr M Carrick
Ulster Unionist Party - Mrs M Steele - Vice-Chairperson
Mr D Nesbitt
Mr R J White
Mr J Clarke
Alliance Party - Mr S Neeson
Mr S McBride
*Mr P Osborne
NI Women's Coalition - Ms M McWilliams
*Ms N Heaton
Labour - Mr M Curran
*Mr W White
*Miss C Rainey
Ulster Democratic Party - Mr G McMichael
*Mr D Adams
Progressive Unionist Party - Mr H Smyth
*Mr R Stewart
* attend the Committee on behalf of the party under Rule 14(4)(a) of the
Forum Rules of Procedure.
16
APPENDIX B
ROADS REQUIRING UPGRADING AND IMPROVEMENT
A2 Belfast-Carrickfergus
A3 Armagh-Monaghan
A4 Dungannon-Enniskillen
A5 Londonderry-Dublin
A6 Belfast-Londonderry
A8 Belfast-Larne Harbour
A32 Omagh-Enniskillen
Omagh throughpass (Stage 3)
Comber by-pass
Motorway Link: Craigavon Centre to M12 Roundabout
Northway (Portadown)
Toome by-pass
Saintfield-Belfast
West Link
Vital links with GB (East/West Corridor)
17
APPENDIX C
NORTHERN IRELAND FORUM
FOR POLITICAL DIALOGUE
_______________
STANDING COMMITTEE E
_______________
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
(Mr T Hesketh and Mr A Watt
(Translink))
on
RURAL TRANSPORT
Thursday 18 March 1998
18
NORTHERN IRELAND FORUM
FOR POLITICAL DIALOGUE _____________
STANDING COMMITTEE E
Thursday 18 March 1998
_____________
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
(Mr T Hesketh and Mr A Watt
(Translink))
on
RURAL TRANSPORT
The Chairman: Mr Hesketh and Mr Watt, thank you both for agreeing to meet with
the Forum’s Economy Committee. While feelers have been put out about transport in
general, some members thought it timely to look at rural transport in particular, bearing in
mind that the Department of the Environment has been looking at it.
One of the issues to come up in our initial discussions was that of public transport, rail
transport and the relationship between the two. The Committee will also be keen to hear
whether you consider there to be a place for community school buses et cetera.
Finally, bringing it up to date, we would like to have your comments about the Budget,
and, indeed, anything else you consider to be helpful. For example, do you have any
information about subsidized transport in rural areas? Have any studies been done in the rest
of Europe that either approve or disapprove of it?
Mr Hesketh: Your introduction has been extremely useful. I welcome this
opportunity to discuss rural transport specifically.
I have with me, Mr Andy Watt, who by way of background started out in Portadown,
went to Enniskillen, Magherafelt, Derry/Londonderry and is now back in Belfast as the
director of operations. I hope his extensive experience of rural transport will be useful this
morning.
Before I hand over to Mr Watt can I say that although the Budget details are not
totally clear yet, it does seem that we are not going to get hit by a further increase on diesel
fuel duty, which was adding £1 million to our costs every year.
Another significant issue is the rural bus grant. The Government have been talking
about putting £50 million towards providing buses in rural communities, of which I
understand the Northern Ireland share will be in the order of £1·3 million. There are to be
discussions between ourselves and other interested parties about this. For instance, while
Northern Ireland’s voluntary transport sector is relatively fragmented, there are organizations
19
such as the Rural Community Network in the Cookstown area and the Community Transport
Association. There is also an organization in Derry and people in Lurgan. So there is
probably the potential for us to work alongside some of those people because we have the
hardware — the buses.
A lot of our buses take children to school and workers to work in the morning, but
they do not do much during the day because we are under pressure to meet the Government’s
financial targets. So a lot of buses are sitting around during the day which could be made
available for use under certain controlled conditions. I hope this additional money will give an
impetus to that sort of co-operation between the publicly-owned bus companies and the
voluntary sector.
The Chairman: Will £1·3 million make any difference?
Mr Hesketh: £1·3 million will always make a difference. It is not a fortune in the
context of a £100 million turnover, but we are grateful for everything we receive.
The Chairman: But is it going to have any real impact?
Mr Hesketh: We have to start from the position where Ulsterbus has seen a decline in
its number of passengers of 4% or 5% per annum. Public transport is in serious decline.
Great Britain started to go through this period of decline in the mid-1980s and we are only
beginning to experience it now. As well as having to meet financial targets there is the whole
question of maintaining services; losing 4% or 5% of your passengers is not a lot, but when it
happens year on year it can suddenly make a bus service non-viable.
The other factor affecting school transport is this freedom of choice policy. We carry
approximately 70,000 children every year, but in this first year it has gone down by 2,000.
That is not a dramatic decrease, but next year as this new policy feeds through the system it
will be 4,000, then 8,000 and so on. A town like Omagh is a classic example. The buses are
there mainly because of the school traffic, but they are also available to take workers into
town. So if you weaken the school transport system, you weaken the overall network. We
are carrying something like 160 loss-making routes, and although that is part of the overall
deal, if you are losing 4% or 5% of your passengers each year you have to start looking very
hard at those routes.
Also, how much should be charged for fares? The history of fares in Northern Ireland
is that they have been kept very much in line with inflation, whereas there have been real fare
increases in Great Britain. We have had to factor that into our thinking. We have tried to
strike a balance between higher fares and making cuts in services.
Now, that was all before yesterday’s Budget, which does help. It was the first Budget
in a generation that has done anything positive for public transport. We could not have
expected any more from the Government in their first Budget. They have signalled their
support for public transport, and that is particularly important for a province like Northern
Ireland.
Mr Watt: You did mention funding, and we have a report hot off the press which
compares funding here with the situation in Great Britain and parts of Europe.
20
You mentioned rural transport and I have a few slides which will give you some insight
into the picture here. This shows the major depots throughout the province. Later on I will
show you the number of bases that we have and where we operate from. The black line
shows the railway network, but it is impossible to show the bus network on a chart this size
because it is so extensive; each base has a spider’s web of services linking the main towns, as
well as serving the rural areas.
Northern Ireland Railways has 57 stations and halts, and Ulsterbus has 72 depots and
sub-depots. For example, Sixmilecross, Fintona, Gortin and Dromore are all sub-depots of
Omagh depot. Staff are locally-based which helps us to cut down our costs.
We have three area managers, one in the north, one in the south and one covering
Belfast and the Citybus area. And we have a railway services manager. We have 23 district
managers, 10 of whom have joint responsibilities for bus and rail. Those district managers
must live in the area that they serve, and they must be involved in the local business
organizations and have a relationship with the local community. And we have three depot
controllers in the smaller depots (Ballymoney, Cookstown and Carrickfergus), who are a
grade below the district manager, but who do a similar job. They are potential future district
managers.
As Mr Hesketh has said, the numbers of passenger journeys have been decreasing over
the last two to three years, particularly fare-paying journeys. From the reorganization of
school transport in 1990, where open enrolment was introduced, school passenger journeys
increased from about 60,000 to 72,000 last year. This has dropped this year by about 2,300.
The organizations employ a total of 3,619 people. The overall turnover is
£102 million, with passenger journeys for the last financial year amounting to £84 million.
That figure will go down slightly this year because of the fall in passenger journeys this year of
about 4% or 5%, and there are a number of possible reasons for that.
Lastly, I will touch briefly on the types of services operating throughout the province.
The Goldline network which was introduced in 1990 links all the major towns, primarily with
Belfast, but also with each other on certain routes. We have a number of vehicle types now in
stage carriage: we have the conventional 49- and 53-seater vehicles; minibuses, which are
12-, 19- and 25-seater vehicles; and the Handybus, which is a 39-seater vehicle. A significant
amount of our business is to schools and villages throughout the province.
Contract business is primarily for factories, with a very limited number to schools.
And then there are the special services. For example, a significant Easibus service has been
built up in Belfast since its introduction three years ago. We increased it in June 1997 to
17 services throughout the province. We are currently reviewing that and some have in fact
been taken off because they have not proved cost effective. We are presently considering
introducing Easibus-type services in Bangor, Londonderry and Dungannon. Easibus is a
low-floor accessible minibus and we encourage people, through the completion of a special
form, to let us know their particular needs.
The Centrelink service in Belfast links the bus and railway stations in the city. And,
finally, there are Citybus and Flexibus.
21
The Chairman: Given the Government’s push towards getting more people to use
public transport, have you identified the reasons for the overall decline in passenger numbers?
Mr Hesketh: There are a number of reasons, the main one of course being the
increased use of cars. There are a variety of lesser issues such as the growth of out-of-town
shopping centres, extended shopping hours and Sunday opening. These shopping centres are
significant insofar as people no longer need to travel to town centres or city centres — for
example, in Belfast they can get all they need at Forestside.
The original shopping centres were primarily grocery outlets, so that when you needed
a new coat you went into town and that journey was more likely to be made by public
transport.
Fifty per cent of households typically have a one car, which is very often used by the
breadwinner to travel to and from work, and then is available at other times of the day. And
now that these shopping centres are open until 9 o’clock at night — indeed some of them are
open all night — people can use their cars for their shopping so that is business lost to public
transport. The third big factor is the significantly reduced numbers of school children, and this
trend is continuing.
As against that we are taking a number of measures to try to improve public transport.
But while the Government’s ‘The Way Forward’ document was issued with the best
intentions, with optimistic noises about improving the quality of the service, my budget was all
the while being reduced. We used to have a relatively young bus fleet, but over the past three
to four years our bus fleet has got significantly older and is now above the national average.
The type of initiatives that will attract people away from cars are those like Park and
Ride or bus lanes, where people can see that they can make their journey more quickly by bus.
I am not disregarding the railway interest but in rural Ulster — which is what we are mainly
here to talk about today — 84% of the journeys are made by bus. Therefore it is the success
or failure of the bus network that will really determine the quality of public transport for most
people.
All the towns highlighted in Mr Watt’s slide have a local manager who has a high level
of autonomy. He is expected to be very responsive to changing needs and demands and he
can do that without direct recourse to Mr Watt. That is a real strength of the organization
here, and you will not find that same level of devolved authority to local management in other
parts of the British Isles.
Mrs Steele: You mentioned that passenger numbers are decreasing by between 4%
and 5% per annum. Is there a greater decline in rural areas than the city?
Mr Watt: By and large, the scene is quite similar throughout the province, according
to the financial results from each of the main depots. Belfast has probably suffered most for
the reasons that the managing director outlined: the growth in car ownership; the out-of-town
shopping centres; and we have suffered greatly recently from the increased number of
roadworks and the disruption they cause to traffic in the city.
22
Rev William McCrea: You mentioned that the new arrangements on parental
freedom of choice for schools would reduce the 70,000 children who currently use the bus
service by some 2,000 per year. Could you clarify that again?
Mr Hesketh: There is protection for those children already attending schools beyond
the three mile limit for their school life. The new rules this year will affect 2,000 new form one
secondary school children and a similar number each year as the roll-out continues.
Mr Watt: There was also a proposal to exclude over-16s from free transport last
September. While that did not go through we are not sure what this year holds, but it is
obviously still on the table. That could mean the withdrawal of 1,500 to 1,600 passes per year
over three years.
Rev William McCrea: The Government document ‘Shaping Our Future’ talked
about the vital role for transport and it recognized that the current infrastructure will need to
be improved to provide a high level of accessibility to combat social exclusion. But how do
you square that with your very first slide which highlighted the vast difference in transport and
road networks between the west and east of the province. How on earth are we going to
attract people onto buses when we do not have a proper network in the west of the province?
What railways do we have? There is only a railway network on one side of the province. The
west has nothing. And the roads in the west are pathetic as well, we are starved of major
roads. Yet we have the largest network of low-grade roads, in terms of mileage. How on
earth do we get people out of their cars when many of the roads are not even serviced by
buses or anything else?
Mr Hesketh: We have the rail network that we were left with. With the benefit of
hindsight I think some of the people who made the decisions years ago would not have made
those same decisions today. But we can only go forward. We are looking forward to the
reopening of the direct rail line between Belfast and Antrim, which will greatly benefit people
in Antrim, Ballymena and Coleraine and so on. But I accept that that is a very limited
advance.
The rural network that we have is, believe it or not, much better than that in
comparable parts of Great Britain. You may find that hard to believe, but that is the reality.
The strength of it lies in the integration of the schoolchildren and the ordinary buses. In a lot
of other places they have more dedicated school fleets contracted. Those buses are not
available to the ordinary customer, and that is the difference. In Northern Ireland the boards
also have their own fleets — about 700 buses. I said earlier that we have hardware available
that we could perhaps make better use of. It is not for me to talk about the boards’ buses, but
I would have thought that the same argument applies. This may be something for the
future — closer co-operation between the public sector and the voluntary transport groups.
Mr Watt: As the managing director said, the school transport and public transport
network are inextricably linked. I have a breakdown here of where the 700 buses are located.
The closer to Belfast the boards are the fewer buses they have. For example, the Belfast
Board has only 64 buses, whereas the Western Board has 285 buses, so a lot of the local bus
services there are drawing only schoolchildren. The services we operate draw schoolchildren
and farepaying passengers and give the general public the opportunity to use those vehicles.
23
Mr Snoddy: You mentioned in your opening remarks that you will no longer have to
pay the extra duty on fuel. We talked about how to get people out of their cars. Will this
help subsidize fares in order to make it cheaper for people?
Mr Hesketh: It does not subsidize it because none of it is retrospective. What they
mean is that they are not going to put their arm in their pocket for another £1 million next
year, so in that sense we have been let off. Obviously we have no other way of passing it on
to the customers.
Mr Snoddy: In terms of running costs, fuel, obviously, is a big factor. If you do not
have to pay that duty, that is a big saving. Surely that should lead to a reduction in fares or
the stabilizing of prices?
Mr Hesketh: What it means is that we will not have to increase fares this year. It
does not mean that we will be able to reduce them. The difficulty that we are going to have
this year is striking a balance between maintaining rural services and putting up fares. When
you are faced with a 4% or 5% decline, what do you do? My instruction from the
Government is that I have to deliver the 8% financial return — that is the number one priority.
If I do not deliver on that they will get somebody else who will. The important thing is that
we try to deliver this policy sensibly and sensitively, and that is where the strength of the local
managers around the province is quite important.
We have a difficult decision coming up. We have to strike a balance between fares and
services against the background of declining passengers, and there is no way of ducking it.
Our drivers will rightly expect their increase. Wage inflation is running ahead of ordinary
inflation, and wages account for 60% of our costs. In order to meet the financial targets the
Government have set we have difficult decisions ahead in the next couple of weeks — it
would be even more difficult had it not been for yesterday’s Budget, I may say.
Mr Poots: You mentioned park-and-ride. I think everybody accepts that that is a way
forward, but I do not see anybody moving it forward. I represent the Lagan Valley area,
which takes in a fair sweep of the M1 motorway and three major roundabouts. Recently an
area plan was done for the Lisburn area, and there was nothing in that to indicate where they
would be prepared to put park-and-ride facilities. Obviously the Department of the
Environment Planning Service is going to be driving it forward. Is anything happening?
Mr Hesketh: The Department has set up a transportation unit under a chap called
Dennis O’Hagan, and he is the person responsible for driving this forward. That group works
in conjunction with the transport steering group. That was one of the good things that came
out of ‘The Way Forward’: it brought together the key players — the transport operators, the
planners, the Road Service — in one group. There are other people there as well such as the
Environment and Heritage Service, Traffic Branch and other groups. It is the first time in the
context of Northern Ireland that all the key players have been brought round the one table to
look at things like park-and-ride and car-parking policies.
Mr Poots: What about the bus lanes? Is there any progress being made there?
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Mr Hesketh: There is some progress, but it is very slow. We started off with fairly
modest bits of bus lanes to get the Belfast public, in particular, used to the concept. That is
now starting to gather pace. When you have a bus lane into somewhere like Great Victoria
Street that makes a very significant difference.
The other bus lane that is going to be very important for rural Ulster is the one that is
planned on the M1 and the Westlink and into the back of the Europa bus yard. That will
benefit every service that comes in from the south and the west of the province, be it from
Newry, Omagh, Enniskillen or wherever. They will all get a quick run in from Stockman’s
Lane into the Europa Bus Centre on a dedicated bus lane most of the way. That will be a
huge step forward. It is being done in phases. The first phase is from Roden Street into the
bus yard. Planning permission has been granted for that. It is now going through the final
phases. The European money is in place and that project should be going ahead fairly soon.
The Chairman: Can you give us a time-scale for the whole thing to be in place?
Mr Hesketh: I cannot because it is out of my hands, but the first phase should be well
underway, if not completed, by the end of this calendar year.
The Chairman: Will it be completed in two years?
Mr Hesketh: I think that two years is not unreasonable. It is one of these projects
that everybody wants to succeed. There are no losers; it is a win, win for everybody involved.
The Chairman: So it is definitely a runner.
Mr Hesketh: There is no question about that, and with the amount that has been
spent on consultants’ fees nobody is going to abort it at this stage.
Mr Clarke: With regard to bus routes, what is happening about the super route that
was put on from Saintfield Road right down into the city with park-and-ride?
Mr Hesketh: I have to accept responsibility for the super route in the sense that
I promoted it as a concept, as one way of solving the traffic problems on the southern
approaches. It was one of those schemes that nobody picked up and ran with. They have
now come back to it. They have done bits and pieces around Supermac, but they realize that
they still have the same problems. The Department of the Environment has just employed
consultants to review the original super-route proposals.
Mr Clarke: The congestion in that area is dreadful, and it is going to get worse with
the opening of the extension to Forestside.
Mr Watt: There are proposals to develop the southern approaches first. That could
include a park-and-ride facility at Cairnshill and bus-priority measures into the city centre.
Mr Hesketh: When it was decided not to go ahead with the super-route proposals,
we put forward the concept of a quality bus corridor along that route with a high-quality
service, modern vehicles, fast, frequent service, bus lane all the way, priority at traffic lights
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and high-quality bus shelters — in other words, public transport the way it ought to be as a
means of helping to ease the traffic congestion on that route.
Mr McBride: I want to endorse a couple of things that have already been said. I am
concerned about the progress on park-and-ride, particularly on the Ormeau Road.
One point that does arise from what you have said is the question of communication
within the Department of the Environment about all these issues. I see a lot of planning
decisions as running flatly against what you and we would like to see out there. This whole
emphasis on out-of-town shopping centres is to facilitate the private car. You build masses of
car parking and the damage to the urban centres is very great, yet the Department of the
Environment seems to be promoting those quite ruthlessly. Forestside is an extraordinary
thing and D5 is apparently going to be a great deal bigger. The left hand does not seem to
know what the right hand is doing. Can we do anything to ensure that transport is taken more
into account when planning decisions are being made?
Mr Hesketh: I could not agree more. Also someone mentioned ‘Shaping the Future’.
That document is very worrying because they have seized on the transport/green issue and
said “OK, if we are going to have 120,000 new households outside Belfast, we had better put
them on transport corridors.” In our submission we point out that the population of the inner
city has come down from 400,000 to 280,000. Why not put people back in that area? You
can see it beginning to happen around Laganside. The Laganside apartments are very
acceptable and popular places to live. If you go to Dublin or any European city, you will see
plenty of people living very nicely in apartments. High-rise and medium-rise living got off to a
bit of a bad start in Belfast, but the blocks at Knocknagoney and Mount Merrion, which were
failures in the public sector, have been transformed very successfully in the private sector.
The other point is that they keep talking about households, but so many people are
now not the nuclear family. An awful lot of people live on their own and do not want their
little garden and are very happy to live in an apartment. We believe that regeneration of the
brownfield sites in the city centre is very important. However, put yourself in the planner’s
position. Assembling a site in the city centre is difficult, and poses him all sorts of problems,
whereas releasing 100 acres for new houses at Crumlin is easy. The developer and everybody
else is happy. But what gets left out of the equation when you build all these houses out at
Crumlin is the fact that you then have to provide them with all the services — schools,
sewerage, water, and so on. If we were to make Belfast a better place to live in, we would
make better use of existing services, and it would greatly strengthen the public-transport
aspect.
Mr McBride: I agree completely. Brownfield building is absolutely essential. In
Belfast they have given permission to build this new millennium structure, which is frankly a
waste of money, on what was probably our best large urban site. Of course, they need all that
space for car parking.
I am concerned about what you were saying about the ageing bus fleet. That has a lot
of long-term implications, if we are not even able to keep up with the reinvestment to maintain
it.
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Mr Hesketh: There is some degree of comfort in that part of the reason the
reinvestment was held up was due to the private finance initiative. As you know, everything
had to be tested against PFI. That was one of the factors that held up the purchase of new
buses — only one of them, mind you, but at least that has moved a bit further forward.
Rev William McCrea: Forgive me, but I thought we were to talk mainly about rural
areas. I thought we were going to deal with the problems outside of Belfast. It is good when
you are close to the M1 where there are bus lanes, but most of the province has no motorway
or railway system. We are talking about a situation where none of these wonderful things are
in place outside of a place like Belfast and its suburbs. I am only standing in for someone this
morning, but I am really glad to be doing so because the west of the province has now got a
representative at this table. I am the only one from the west, yet we are talking about rural
Northern Ireland and that the area which is least well-served.
Translink had a conference recently at which people were invited to hear your thoughts
about transport planning, development and public transport provision. That all sounds great,
but what does it mean? The vast part of the country area west of the province does not have
a proper bus service network. People hardly ever see a bus. There is a new hospital at
Antrim. You can get to it via the M2, but you cannot get back from it without having to
travel around the countryside. It is like these shopping centres sitting out in the countryside
— for example, Sprucefield. We have got a hospital located away from the towns, away from
the people. How do people get to and from these places? Services have been concentrated in
an area hospital, away from people in vast areas of the countryside, but there is no proper
transport system to it. With the greatest of respect to everyone, you are all talking about
encouraging rural transport and encouraging people to get out of their cars. But what are
they to get into? It is certainly not a bus.
Mr Watt: You mentioned the Antrim Hospital and Sprucefield. Before these projects
were up and running we were very closely involved with both developers. At Sprucefield we
had every bus service coming from the west of the province and a significant network of
services from Belfast and the Sprucefield area. A lot of those have had to be withdrawn
because people did not use them. We even got abuse from regular passengers on other buses
if they called at Sprucefield.
Likewise, we introduced and promoted a number of services to the Antrim Hospital
from the Larne area — areas that we had identified in conjunction with local people. Those
were the people who would have to go to the Antrim Hospital because that was the area it
served. Again, we had to withdraw those services after two or three years because nobody
travelled on them. That is our dilemma. We will try these services. I could list you numerous
services that we operated throughout Fermanagh, but again they had to be withdrawn because
people did not use them for whatever reason.
Rev William McCrea: How do you get the people out of their cars and onto buses?
The Government have told you that fares are to be kept down in order to get people onto
buses. So, with the greatest of respect, you do not have the choice between raising fares or
cutting services.
The Chairman: Just to add to that, are you saying that it is not feasible to have a rail
network in the west of the province?
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Mr Hesketh: The permanent secretary made it clear to all and sundry at a conference
last February that there was no prospect of the existing rail network being extended. The
people who felt sorest about that were people like the residents of Armagh, for example, who
felt that the line was only 10 miles long, most of it was still there and that it could be
reinstated.
Just so that everybody understands, our priority as a railway company is to complete
the relay of the Belfast/Lisburn track. That started on 3 March, it will be finished on
7 December, and it will cost £12 million. Our second priority is reopen the Antrim line, which
is a £14 million project. In spite of all the Government announcements we have not actually
got approval to go ahead with that yet. However, I hope that that is on its way and that work
will start on it later this year.
Rev William McCrea: Again, not a penny of that to the west of the province.
Mr Hesketh: I accept that, but it does actually benefit the west of the province
because we do run trains to Derry and places like that and people do get a benefit from it.
However, we have to live with the existing network, and I want to get it into proper order and
to make the best use of it. That is my starting point. But there is no money within the current
Government’s framework for any extension of the rail network.
Rev William McCrea: You have your commitments and I appreciate that. But how
many years has it been since Magherafelt’s bus depot was blown out of existence by the IRA?
How many years have you had the money for its repair, yet it is one of only two town centre
buildings that have not been repaired? How do you expect to get people onto public transport
when they are standing out under the heavens getting soaked? You have got the money from
the Government to replace it, yet not a brick has been laid. With the greatest of respect, that
is disgraceful, and it will not be accepted any longer.
Mr Hesketh: The position is that our premises which fronted on to Broad Street in
Magherafelt were bombed. A decision was taken not to replace those existing premises
because the buses caused a lot of congestion in Broad Street, which is the main street through
the town. Mr McCrea was familiar with those problems — more familiar than most people —
and he was most helpful to the bus service and supported the relocation of the bus station to
another site. But that in itself brought its own problems because we were effectively taking
over part of a DOE car park, and part of the deal was that we had to buy replacement car
parking. That was eventually done to everybody’s satisfaction. I have been as frustrated as
Mr McCrea about this. It has taken an inordinate amount of time, but that is a fact of life. I
can assure the Committee that there is no lack of willingness on our part to get it built.
Rev William McCrea: When is it going to be done?
Mr Hesketh: We have to go through approval processes like everybody else these
days and there is an appraisal with Mr Watt at the minute. It is almost there, but it is one of
those things. It has taken a long time.
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Rev William McCrea: I want to get this clarified because it is important. We have
been most helpful. We got a Department that was initially totally opposed to it, to help and
assist. We took the side of the bus depot and the bus company against the Department. We
encouraged them, we teased them, we squeezed them and we got them to agree to it. Now,
when you say it is with someone for their approval, who is it with? Is a Department holding it
up? We are certainly most desirous that any impediment is removed.
Mr Hesketh: There is no impediment at this point. There have been various
impediments along the way — for instance, planning, getting the replacement car park, getting
the existing entrance redesigned to accommodate the buses going in and out. All that has now
been done. Unfortunately, all of that has taken time.
Rev William McCrea: When will it be starting? That is the bottom line.
Mr Hesketh: The official answer is that it is in the programme for the next financial
year.
The Vice-Chairperson (Mrs Steele) took the chair.
The Vice-chairperson: The last time you were here you talked about extending the
rail network to the airport. Is there anything further on that? Secondly, is it feasible for the
rail network to carry freight?
Mr Hesketh: I will deal with Belfast International airport first. There is a rail line that
goes very close to it and a spur-off would seem attractive. The problem is that people coming
off a plane do not want to wait half an hour or an hour for public transport. If a vehicle is not
there within 20 minutes or half an hour, forget it. We would be able to operate four, five, six
or seven services on that rail line each day, but that would not provide the level of frequency
which an airport customer wants.
I have met with the new owners of the airport to discuss all of this. They have very
ambitious plans, of course, for developing the airport facility, and we have discussed how
together we could improve the bus service in the first instance. It may be that the rail option
could come into play at a later stage if they ever got the Taiwanese car factory or whatever.
If they landed a “biggie”, I think we would want to be in there with a rail network. We have
provided them with drawings to show the best alignment for a rail spur, and we have asked
them to protect that in case it is needed in the future.
Secondly, the island of Ireland is relatively small and rail freight tends to get beaten by
the cost of putting it on and off. Techniques are being developed on the continent — a
railway equivalent of roll-on roll-off — and if that ever comes about it would certainly lead to
greater development of rail freight. I keep in touch with leading private sector companies like
Montgomery Transport which have a real interest in getting stuff on to trains. They would
like to take goods right through to the continent by rail if possible.
The railway runs quite close to Belfast Harbour, and there is to be a European Union
funded study to examine ways of achieving rail access to the harbour. Unfortunately, the M2
gets in the way, but apart from that there seems to be no reason why we should not have rail
29
access to the province’s premier port. That is going to be looked at in a joint study between
Translink and the Belfast Harbour Commissioners.
The Vice-Chairperson: I am conscious of what Mr McCrea said about discussing
rural transport, but I want to ask about the school buses. You said there are 700 school
buses.
Mr Watt: They are owned by the education and library boards.
The Vice-Chairperson: And the Western Education and Library Board owns about
285 of them. Do they cover the same routes that you cover? Are you and they sending buses
to the same schools? Is there duplication of provision?
Mr Watt: No; in some instances both services do operate to the same schools, but
they do so on different routes. In many cases a minibus owned and operated by the education
and library board connects children with the main bus route, and the Ulsterbus service
completes the journey to school. However, we work very closely with the education and
library boards.
The Vice-Chairman: I am glad to hear that that is happening, but is it possible to use
those buses for fare-paying passengers during the day? That would be very helpful to rural
communities. I live in a rural area, and I know the problems faced by people there with
regard to public transport.
Mr Watt: The education board buses, like our own, are probably available from
about 9.30 until about 2.30. I have no doubt that we could come to some arrangement if they
wanted to operate a joint service or feed into our main network.
The Vice-Chairperson: I am glad that you have that co-operation because it is
terrible to think of all those buses sitting there, or of two buses going to the same school — it
is stupid.
Mr Hesketh: There is no wasteful duplication. We work very closely with the
boards, but there is a lot of hardware sitting idle for much of the day. For the greater good of
Northern Ireland we will have to try to find some way of making better use of our resources.
The Chairman took the chair.
Mr Clarke: The cost of fuel was increased in the Budget. How will that affect you?
Will there be any benefits, or will the effects all be negative?
Mr Hesketh: The effects are not all negative. One positive thing was the £50 million
rural grant. I understand that Northern Ireland’s share will be something like £1·3 million, but
that has still to be confirmed.
Mr Clarke: Will the increase in fuel tax affect you?
30
Mr Hesketh: We understand that the increase in fuel duty is not going to be passed
on to bus companies this time, and if that is the case, it is good news. We are waiting for that
to be confirmed because these details did not come out in the Chancellor’s statement.
The Chairman: Thank you for your time. You have helped us by giving us an
update. If we need to check anything, Mr Clements will write to you. When our report is
completed we will send you a copy.
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