Bus Funding Reduction

Update November 2022

Following a meeting of KCC’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee at the end of August, the decision to withdraw the subsidy for 38 bus contracts was referred back to Full Council on 20 October for further consideration. After a debate, councillors voted in favour of supporting the withdrawal with the exception of Kent Karrier services, the 208 East Peckham, Tonbridge to Pembury and the S4 Wrotham to Sevenoaks schools. Services and journeys relating to the 38 contracts being withdrawn are expected to cease from 12 February 2023.

However, in recognition of the importance local communities have placed on bus services, we have significantly boosted the money available for local community organisations to set up or expand their own community transport schemes, increasing the fund this year from £100,000 to £450,000. The decision to find the funding to protect the Kent Karriers also acknowledged the role that these services play particularly when other bus services are struggling to survive and in some instances are being withdrawn or reduced by operators.

We also made a commitment to work collaboratively across political parties to develop our future bus policy.

Our decision to withdraw bus funding from 38 bus contracts is entirely separate from many of the proposed cuts to bus services that residents have been concerned about, particularly those affecting journeys to and from school. These cuts, affecting more than 100 services, were announced by private bus operators who, like many other bus operators in the country, have been struggling to operate under the weight of continuing financial pressures.

In recognition of the impact these bus operator cuts would have on pupils and their families, we worked closely with them during the summer to protect as many of these services as possible or provide a range of different measures to enable as many pupils as possible to get to school at least for the rest of the current school year. This work resulted in a much better position for passengers than was thought possible earlier in the summer.

The Council is facing serious financial challenges this year. However, we continue to support residents by subsidising more than 80 bus routes at a cost of almost £4 million and spend £6 million subsidising the costs of bus travel for students through the Kent Travel Saver and 16+ schemes.


We are proposing to make savings by reducing the money we spend on providing some bus services that private bus companies cannot afford to run, and which are no longer cost effective. We are carrying out this consultation to listen to your feedback.

KCC currently spends about £6m per year to contract services which are not profitable for bus companies but which the Council thinks are important. These are often the services running in more rural areas, in the evenings and at weekends and includes our Kent Karrier (Dial-a-Ride) services.

We have worked hard to protect this funding, but the financial pressures placed on KCC’s budget mean that the Council faces an intensely challenging period ahead, where tough decisions will need to be taken. The impact of this does unfortunately mean that the Council is having to consider savings across a whole range of services.

To meet the financial challenge being posed by this year’s budget, KCC’s Public Transport team has been asked to reduce planned spending on this funding by £2.2m. To achieve this reduction, we would need to end 48 contracts with a total value of £3m which would affect around 55 supported bus services from Summer 2022.

The consultation document provides more information and details on the proposed changes to services. Timetables for the journeys that are affected, and a full list of all subsidised services are also available from the Consultation documents section on this page.

Have your say

Before any decisions are made, we want to hear your views on:

  • how the proposed bus service withdrawals could impact you
  • the assumptions we have made in the draft Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA)
  • any additional information that you think we need to consider about our approach and the proposals identified in the consultation document.

Please let us know your views by completing the questionnaire below.

Alternatively, complete the Word questionnaire starting on page 16 of the consultation document and return by email or by post for free.

The responses to the consultation will be analysed and presented in a consultation report. This report will be published and presented, along with an updated EqIA, to KCC Members of the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee in May. Following the meeting, we will publish the decision on this page.

Any changes to bus routes resulting from decisions made by Council Members would most likely take effect in Summer 2022.

Update November 2022

Following a meeting of KCC’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee at the end of August, the decision to withdraw the subsidy for 38 bus contracts was referred back to Full Council on 20 October for further consideration. After a debate, councillors voted in favour of supporting the withdrawal with the exception of Kent Karrier services, the 208 East Peckham, Tonbridge to Pembury and the S4 Wrotham to Sevenoaks schools. Services and journeys relating to the 38 contracts being withdrawn are expected to cease from 12 February 2023.

However, in recognition of the importance local communities have placed on bus services, we have significantly boosted the money available for local community organisations to set up or expand their own community transport schemes, increasing the fund this year from £100,000 to £450,000. The decision to find the funding to protect the Kent Karriers also acknowledged the role that these services play particularly when other bus services are struggling to survive and in some instances are being withdrawn or reduced by operators.

We also made a commitment to work collaboratively across political parties to develop our future bus policy.

Our decision to withdraw bus funding from 38 bus contracts is entirely separate from many of the proposed cuts to bus services that residents have been concerned about, particularly those affecting journeys to and from school. These cuts, affecting more than 100 services, were announced by private bus operators who, like many other bus operators in the country, have been struggling to operate under the weight of continuing financial pressures.

In recognition of the impact these bus operator cuts would have on pupils and their families, we worked closely with them during the summer to protect as many of these services as possible or provide a range of different measures to enable as many pupils as possible to get to school at least for the rest of the current school year. This work resulted in a much better position for passengers than was thought possible earlier in the summer.

The Council is facing serious financial challenges this year. However, we continue to support residents by subsidising more than 80 bus routes at a cost of almost £4 million and spend £6 million subsidising the costs of bus travel for students through the Kent Travel Saver and 16+ schemes.


We are proposing to make savings by reducing the money we spend on providing some bus services that private bus companies cannot afford to run, and which are no longer cost effective. We are carrying out this consultation to listen to your feedback.

KCC currently spends about £6m per year to contract services which are not profitable for bus companies but which the Council thinks are important. These are often the services running in more rural areas, in the evenings and at weekends and includes our Kent Karrier (Dial-a-Ride) services.

We have worked hard to protect this funding, but the financial pressures placed on KCC’s budget mean that the Council faces an intensely challenging period ahead, where tough decisions will need to be taken. The impact of this does unfortunately mean that the Council is having to consider savings across a whole range of services.

To meet the financial challenge being posed by this year’s budget, KCC’s Public Transport team has been asked to reduce planned spending on this funding by £2.2m. To achieve this reduction, we would need to end 48 contracts with a total value of £3m which would affect around 55 supported bus services from Summer 2022.

The consultation document provides more information and details on the proposed changes to services. Timetables for the journeys that are affected, and a full list of all subsidised services are also available from the Consultation documents section on this page.

Have your say

Before any decisions are made, we want to hear your views on:

  • how the proposed bus service withdrawals could impact you
  • the assumptions we have made in the draft Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA)
  • any additional information that you think we need to consider about our approach and the proposals identified in the consultation document.

Please let us know your views by completing the questionnaire below.

Alternatively, complete the Word questionnaire starting on page 16 of the consultation document and return by email or by post for free.

The responses to the consultation will be analysed and presented in a consultation report. This report will be published and presented, along with an updated EqIA, to KCC Members of the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee in May. Following the meeting, we will publish the decision on this page.

Any changes to bus routes resulting from decisions made by Council Members would most likely take effect in Summer 2022.

  • Update September 2022

    Following a meeting of KCC’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee at the end of August, the decision to remove the subsidy for 38 bus contracts has been referred back to Full Council for further consideration on 16 September. A decision regarding the contracts being considered for potential withdrawal is expected following this meeting.

  • Update 11 July 2022

    Following the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee meeting on 6 July the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport decided to proceed with many of the proposed savings from KCC’s Supported Bus budget.

    However, the following services are not currently proposed for withdrawal following consideration of consultation responses, equality impacts and other factors that have changed since the consultation process started:

    • Kent Karrier Services – more acute equalities impacts have been identified relating to the withdrawal of these services which are heavily used by elderly and disabled customers. In addition, the retention of these services helps to mitigate the impact on some passengers affected from other service withdrawals.
    • Service 208 East Peckham, Tonbridge to Pembury – was only considered for withdrawal owing to the presence of an alternative (208A) service. However, the private operator of this bus has since indicated their intention to cancel it and so the considerations have changed and therefore it is not currently appropriate to consider this for withdrawal at the current time.
    • Service S4 Wrotham to Sevenoaks schools – an error was identified in how this service was represented in the consultation document. At the current time therefore it is not appropriate to consider this service for withdrawal.

    Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, David Brazier, said: “As a council we are seeing a dramatic rise in the need for services across all areas of the authority and an increase in the cost of running them. We must make sure that we can produce a balanced budget and prioritise the services that we are obliged by law to provide to the people of Kent.

    “While central Government has provisionally allocated £35.1 million to KCC for our Bus Service Improvement Plan, the Department for Transport (DfT) has been clear that this money cannot be used to support existing services.

    “We know people value local buses and will be concerned about this decision so going forward KCC will use this DfT funding to improve bus services for the residents of Kent that cater for the needs of individual communities.”

    The changes are planned to come into effect October 2022.

  • Update 29 June 2022

    The Consultation Report is now available from the 'Documents' section on this webpage.

    The report and recommendations are being discussed at the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee on the 6 July. This webpage will be updated following the Cabinet Committee meeting.

  • Update 12 May 2022

    Thank you to everyone who took part in this consultation. Your feedback is being analysed and will be presented in a consultation report, which will be published on this webpage.

    An update report, highlighting initial outcomes from the consultation, is being presented to the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee on the 19 May. This report is available to view in the Consultation documents section on this page. The committee meeting will be webcast live.