That principle of capital funding to the Torbay Community Development Trust (CDT) to enable them to be commissioned by the Council to run community buses for services 60, 65 and 67 in accordance with the exempt submitted business case to be funded from the Transport Capital Funding be agreed, subject to the final detailed Heads of Terms to be agreed by the Executive Head of Assets and Business Services and the CDT, in consultation with the Head of Financial Services.

To secure the future of the Number 60, 65 and 67 community bus services.

None

This decision will come into force immediately.

In September 2017 the Council approved a series of business cases which provisionally allocated the remainder of the funding from the Local Transport Plan Capital Programme into categories following completion of Strategic Business Cases.

One of the approved Strategic Business Cases covered ‘Rail and Bus Infrastructure’.  Whilst that business case did not discount the opportunity for a funding application to be made for a community bus service, it did not explicitly reference it either.  As such, during the Council meeting, it was proposed that the “…Rail and Bus Infrastructure Strategic Business Case be amended to allow voluntary groups from the local community to place bids for capital purchase of public service vehicles to facilitate bus services where there are identified shortfalls in provision…”. 

Following that decision, on 5 October 2017, a business case proposal was submitted to the Council by the Torbay Community Development Trust (TDCT).  This submission followed around 12 months of discussions and work by the community to bring forward a proposal to reinstate services that were lost when Local Link ceased operation. 

In April 2017 the TCDT implemented a replacement to the service 60.  However, without further external investment it has not been possible for them to provide a replacement for the service 65 or 67 – two other routes that were impacted by the ceasing of Local Link.

The submitted exempt business case proposed capital up-front investment to operate and sustain a service for the 60, 65 and 67 community bus routes. 

The Head of Financial Services and the Elected Mayor have been consulted on the proposals and support the proposals subject to appropriate safeguards being put in place to ensure that the funding is spent on agreed outcomes to be set out in the final Heads of Terms.

None