Speaking ahead of Friday's meeting of the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority at which members will discuss the potential impact of budget cuts, Metro Chairman Cllr Chris Greaves said,

"At Friday's meeting we will see examples of the huge potential impact that sweeping budget cuts could have on our transport network.

"We have started to get used to senior Government figures in London talking in terms of 40% budget reductions but the report at Friday's meeting really brings home what they could mean for people in West Yorkshire."

The ITA report explains that although Metro receives funding through a number of specific grants from the Government, the most significant part of its income comes through a transport levy from the five West Yorkshire district councils.

It also reminds ITA members that around 50% of Metro's spending is in mandatory areas over which it has no control, such as concessions for people aged over-60, which mean that in real terms, cuts in areas of discretionary spending have an even greater impact.

Alarming

"It is alarming when you see, written in black and white, that the cuts we might be asked to make could be the equivalent of wiping out the Hebden Bridger minibus network, the Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield FreeCity buses and MetroLocal services connecting Kirklees communities with nearby shops and services, or closing smaller bus stations like those in Cleckheaton or Pontefract."

"Or put another way they could mean the reductions in the AccessBus service or withdrawal of as much as 25% of the essential tendered, early-morning, late-night and Sunday bus services that Metro currently subsidises because the bus companies don't consider them profitable enough. We may have to re-consider concessionary fares for young people.

"These are not projects which have not yet been started, but services which people rely upon every day to get to work, shops and vital services such as doctors' surgeries or hospital appointments.

Lifeline

"I am sure my colleagues on the ITA, and national and local politicians across the county, will know that while these services go un-remarked when they are running, as soon as they are threatened, we are inundated at surgeries and in our post bags by those people for whom they are a lifeline.

"We fully realise that cuts will have to be made in all areas of the public sector including Metro, and I am pleased to see in the same report, the high levels of efficiency that the PTE is already delivering and the measures it is taking to achieve further savings.

"We will however need to look very closely at the impact of on the individuals and communities where real cuts to services fall."

Link to the Report 'Spending Cuts - Implications for Metro (pdf : 32k)