Tag Archives: rural transport

Welcome to my day: 20 February 2023 – a transport of delight and a birthday greeting…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 20th February 2023 - 10:57 am

For those of you who don’t have the joy of living in the countryside, you will be aware of the existence of large boxes on wheels which pass up and down roads near you, stopping regularly to pick up and drop off complete strangers. Buses are relatively rare in my neck of the woods, however, so journeys need to be planned more thoroughly.

And that’s how I spent my Saturday, using the temporary £2 fare to travel from Bury St Edmunds to Lincoln, using five buses and travelling via Thetford, Kings Lynn, Spalding and Skegness. And yes, it took more than …

Lib Dems call for fuel duty to be cut in more rural areas

By NewsHound | Mon 13th June 2022 - 9:24 am

Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to reduce fuel duty in rural areas, after analysis found that households in more remote areas paid £114 in transport costs each week in the year to March 2020, almost £40 more than those in urban areas.

The Lib Dems want an expansion of the rural fuel duty relief scheme, which is currently offered in a handful of remote areas of the UK, including Scotland islands and other areas, Scilly, and Hawes.

The proposal is to extend the relief to places where “public transport options are limited and drivers are being disproportionately hit by rising fuel prices”. This would include Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, Shropshire and rural parts of Wales. The Lib Dems also want the relief to be doubled to 10p a litre.

Reported by the Telegraph and the i, rural affairs spokesman Tim Farron said:

The Government must act now to help rural families on the brink, by expanding the fuel duty relief scheme.

Ministers need to also crack down on the petrol profiteers who are cashing in on people’s misery at the pump.

Posted in News | Also tagged fuel duty and tim farron | 27 Comments

Levelling up – all things to all people but nothing for anyone?

By Mark Valladares | Wed 9th February 2022 - 9:23 am

It was, perhaps, indicative of how this administration operates that, on Tuesday night in the House of Lords, the Minister responding on behalf of the Government following the Statement on Levelling Up had managed to find time to carry out a word count on the White Paper but hadn’t actually found time to read the Technical Annex.

It’s that sort of document, sprawling across multiple ministries, proposing all manner of good things but with a lack of precision or, equally importantly, funding, to make any of it realistic. Indeed, in some cases, the dependencies are already in trouble.

I offer three examples;

Mission 3: By 2030, local public transport connectivity across the country will be significantly closer to the standards of London, with improved services, simpler fares and integrated ticketing.

I lived in inner South London for many years, with five bus routes within 400 yards of my front door, connecting me to Central London and the City, with buses running as frequently as every 5-6 minutes during the day and night buses too. I now live in rural Suffolk, where the nearest scheduled bus stop is a forty-five minute walk away, and those buses run half-hourly, Monday to Saturday, ceasing at 6.30 p.m.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged levelling up and public sector | 5 Comments