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.