As Bus Routes in Cheshire East continue to decline in our more rural parishes, Cllr Kate Parkinson (High Legh Ward) reports back on the latest meeting with TfGM:
“This morning I had a meeting with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), Trafford Councillors serving on Transport Committees, Cheshire East Council’s Head of Transport, and the Vice Chair of the Cheshire East Transport Committee”.
“For nearly 2 and a half years, I have had meetings with various GM, Trafford and CEC officers and Chairs, regarding the lack of rural bus services in the Parishes of High Legh, Little Bollington and Agden. The nearest town (or service centre) to these Parishes is Altrincham, across the border in the Borough of Trafford.”
“You will find many of my residents shop here and use amenities because it is convenient with a wide range of affordable shops to chose from, Altrincham is more local to them than Warrington or Knutsford and the topography of the town is easier for the elderly to navigate than the steep roads of Knutsford town centre. Children attend schools in Altrincham and generally people enjoy the area because of its ever-popular restaurants and night life”.
“However, the same funding issues seem to arise everytime we speak, regarding Cross Border subsidies of and for shared services. TfGM currently have £30m in their budget for transport, around £8m for school services and around £21m for the main stream services, which apparently doesn't go too far when running bus services every 30 minutes in the main parts of Manchester.”
This is in “comparison to CEC, where the budget is around the £4m mark and significantly more subsidies are paid to bus companies than the 20/80% split TfGM pay. CEC is of course a much smaller Borough in population than GM and Trafford. But it doesn't mean we should have be starved of a bus service that could connect those in isolated, rural locations with a service centre just across the borough boundary, that offers residents what they want”.
Cllr Kate Parkinson (16.02.2022)
Picture - A56, part of the bus service route which used to run between Altrincham to Lymm before it was removed.
