{"id":6862,"date":"2015-11-19T16:49:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T16:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=6862"},"modified":"2015-11-19T16:49:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T16:49:26","slug":"fare-treatment-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=6862","title":{"rendered":"Fare treatment please"},"content":{"rendered":"
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George Osborne is being warned the impact of looming government cuts to bus services will see the country \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgrind to a halt.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Local bus services \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which account for almost two thirds of public transport journeys in England and Wales \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are vital to all age groups when it comes to getting to work, education and accessing basis amenities.<\/p>\n

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Yet thousands of routes have been closed and funding slashed by \u00c2\u014180m pounds over the past five years, during which time fares have also shot up by 25 per cent.<\/p>\n

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A full range of voices are now clearly telling the Chancellor that further cuts in next week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Comprehensive Spending Review would have leave the bus network in tatters.<\/p>\n

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Bobby Morton, Unite national officer for passenger transport, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf the bus system and indeed the rail systems are cut back through the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imposition of austerity measures then the country will grind to a halt, our members will grind to a halt and the general public grind to a halt.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government are cutting back on local government spending on a regular basis and if this carries on there would be redundancies within the passenger industry.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe local authorities won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to fund the grants that the bus operators receive, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the fault of the government which is holding back the money in the first place,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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Cuts<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The transport secretary \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Patrick McLoughlin \u00e2\u20ac\u201c has already agreed 30 per cent cuts to his total annual budget of \u00c2\u01418.6bn over the next four years, and an extra five hundred million pounds in cuts in 2015\/16 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the biggest in any single Whitehall department.<\/p>\n

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Morton has no doubt the Treasury now intends to target the bus network while continuing to back major projects such as Crossrail and HS2. Mandarins and minsters, he says, are failing to see the bigger transport picture.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government are constantly telling us that there are more and more jobs available. But as Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said these are all poorly paid jobs and the only way that the majority of people, particularly those that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have access to cars, can do these jobs is to travel by bus.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cutback of the buses people won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to get to work.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Stark contrast<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Morton believes cuts to bus funding in the Spending Review would stand in stark contrast to Tory claims to support hardworking people.<\/p>\n

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He also makes the point that the bus crisis is already causing real hardship for millions up and down the land.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI feel sorry mostly for people in rural areas where we have seen Post Offices closed down\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthen on top of that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the threat of the reduction of the bus services. You would have people in the rural areas unable to get out to work.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a crazy situation that the government don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to have thought through.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow transport secretary, Lilian Greenwood, echoed those comments saying \u00e2\u20ac\u015bbuses are especially important for pensioners, young people, job seekers, disabled passengers and those on low incomes. They will all be hit hard by further cuts to bus funding.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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A new report \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Buses in Crisis<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from the Campaign for Better Transport, says the Tories must \u00e2\u20ac\u015brecognise that buses are of national importance\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and \u00e2\u20ac\u015bensure they have the finding they need and ultimately deserve.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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It continues: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bmore people commute to work by bus than by all other public transport combined. Yet buses are still looked upon as a local issue \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they rarely make national headlines\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.yet they matter, to individuals and communities, and to the economy.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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The report has been released at the same time as a broad coalition of charities, NGOs and trade unions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including Unite, The Association of Colleges, NUS, The Ramblers, Independent Age and Greenpeace have\u00c2\u00a0written\u00c2\u00a0to the Chancellor calling on him to protect buses from cuts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems George Osborne has a choice to make next Wednesday: further cuts in bus funding, with all the social and economic damage these will cause, or making it clear he understand the vitally important role buses play every day in the lives of millions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Osborne is being warned the impact of looming government cuts to bus services will see the country \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgrind to a halt.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165   Local bus services \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which account for almost two thirds of public transport journeys in England and Wales \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are vital to all age groups when it comes to getting to work, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[76,202,440,44],"wps_subtitle":"Tories urged to protect funding for buses","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6866,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions\/6866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}