New Secretary of State for Transport

Lord Andrew Adonis, the Minister for State at the Department for Transport, has been promoted to be Secretary of State for Transport – Lord Adonis is the fifth Secretary of State for Transport since the May 2005 general election. Sadiq Khan, the Labour member of parliament for Tooting in South London, succeeds Lord Adonis as the Minister of State. Jim Fitzpatrick, the former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, has been promoted to be Minister of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – Chris Mole, the Labour member of parliament for Ipswich, succeeds Jim Fitzpatrick. Paul Clark, who is a keynote speaker at the TravelWatch SouthWest general meeting on Saturday 3 October, remains as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.

Department for Transport to review specific grant allocations for concessionary fares

The Department for Transport (DfT) is to review the special grant allocations paid to local authorities in the South West of England for the additional costs of the national concessionary fares scheme. The DfT made available over two hundred million pounds to cover the cost of the all-England concessionary fares scheme, with the additional funding allocated to travel concession authorities (district and unitary councils) via a formula-based grant. Several authorities in the South West of England (e.g. Bath and North East Somerset, Exeter and Torbay) have complained that their share of the additional monies was insufficient to meet the extra costs. The DfT considers that it is providing adequate funding overall, but has now agreed to review the special grant allocations for the financial year from 1 April 2010.

Festival attendees need travel incentives

Improved partnership working between event promoters, public transport operators and local authorities is required if carbon dioxide emissions generated by attendees at music festivals is to be reduced – a new report states that approximately seventy-five per cent of all audiences travel to and from these events by car. Researchers found that there was considerable scope for more promotion of non-car travel options and the provision of specific incentives for the use of public transport.

New bus station opens in Bath

A new bus station, costing thirteen million pounds, has opened in Bath as part of the Southgate development been built by Multi – the new bus station, which is located adjacent to the city’s railway station, has sixteen bays with remote-controlled doors and has been designed to maximise energy efficiency. The new bus station includes a controversial rotunda building with an information desk/ticket office and customer toilets on the ground floor – the remaining floors have a canteen, offices and a locker room for First staff. It is hoped that a café will also be provided at the new bus station.

Rotala moves into profit

Rotala, which owns the Bristol and South Gloucestershire bus operator, Wessex Connect, has broken into profit for the first time according to the company’s accounts for the year ended 30 November 2008 – the turnover of the company increased by eighty-four per cent to over thirty-five million pounds resulting in a profit before tax of one million and two hundred thousand pounds (compared with a pre-tax loss of seven hundred thousand pounds for the year ended 30 November 2007).

And finally,

Transdev Yellow Buses has announced that the company will not be operating open-top vehicles during the summer school holidays this year – the company states that the decision has been made due to declining customer useage in previous summers.