Alan Whitehouse and Veronica Hardstaff reply to a letter from the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK, and Rosemary Howorth , Michael Gold and John Ainsworth respond to articles by Lynsey Hanley and Anna Bawden

Just as some sections of the railway industry believe that privatisation ushered in an era of passenger growth, so Pauline Gaunt of the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK claims that privatised buses have stemmed the decline in bus use (Deregulation and Britain’s bus services, Letters, 12 July).

Both are wrong. We do not know why more people are using trains any more than we know why fewer people are using buses, because no one has done the research to tell us. But we can make a few educated guesses.

One reason the decline in bus use has become less severe is that large numbers of pensioners travel free. Although they pay no fare, their journey is recorded as they board and counted as a ticket sold, with the cost reclaimed from their hapless local authority. A huge, hidden subsidy, without which there would be far more empty seats on our buses.

At various times the private bus industry has benefited from government grants for new buses, fuel subsidies, and road improvements paid for by local councils and transport authorities.

And the suggestion that when local authorities get involved fares rise and the service is somehow worse is plain offensive. The last bus company to fail in North Yorkshire was a victim of cuts to unprofitable routes that had been supported by local authorities, something that more and more of them cannot afford.

The plain truth is that the 1987 bus privatisation and deregulation was, like the other Thatcher/Major populist privatisations, targeted at making a few people very rich while the rest of us picked up the tab.

Alan Whitehouse

Thornton le Dale, North Yorkshire

• Between 1972, when cheap bus fares were introduced in Sheffield, and extended to the whole of South Yorkshire from 1974, and 1986 when our buses were privatised, we had an excellent and very well used bus service. Pauline Gaunt’s claim that bus use was declining before deregulation and privatisation is a travesty as far as this part of the UK is concerned.

Yes, the buses were subsidised, but all the fare money went into providing frequent, reliable and affordable services, not into the pockets of private companies, and our electors voted year after year to pay the extra rates for a service they valued.

Now there are constant grumbles as services are reduced or eliminated entirely because they “don’t make a profit”, with rural areas, previously cross-subsidised by profitable urban routes, suffering most acutely.

Veronica Hardstaff

Sheffield

• Thank you for Lynsey Hanley’s article about the calamitous effects of the privatisation of bus services (It’s not only Londoners who rely on buses and trains, Journal, 11 July). When the changes were announced, my mother and I watched the minister of transport on TV. Asked “If these changes lead to the cancellation of rural bus services, what will old people living in villages do?” he serenely replied: “Either they will drive, or they will stay at home.”

Rosemary Howorth

Derby

• Prior to privatisation the profitable routes subsidised the unprofitable routes, but now the profits of the profitable routes go to Hanley’s “four huge companies”, and local councils are left to pick up the bill. Increasingly, councils cannot afford to pick up the bill and bus services will be run down and, eventually, many more routes will disappear.

The principle of cross-subsidy not only applied to bus services but to many nationalised industries such as railways, post, gas, electricity, water, telecommunications and even council housing.

This principle is adhered to by two of the “four huge companies”. Arriva is “a DB company”, ie part of the Deutsche Bahn Group, the German railways, owned by the German government. Abellio is part of Nederlandse Spoorwagen, the Dutch railways group owned by the Dutch government. Both Arriva and Abellio also have large rail franchises, and the profits they make in the UK subsidise the excellent affordable public transport in Germany and Holland.

The time has come to reverse the mass privatisation started by that economic and financial illiterate Margaret Thatcher.

Michael Gold

Romford, London

• Lynsley Hanley and Anna Bawden (‘There used to be a bus every hour. Now we hardly leave the house’, 11 July) both describe powerfully the decimation of bus services across the country outside London, which affect predominantly those without cars, including students, the elderly and many with disabilities, as well as those like me who choose not to drive.

Local authorities receive not inconsiderable income from car parking fees and though in non-unitary authorities, such as here in Somerset, parking and subsidies for bus services are the responsibilty of different authorities, surely the government could seek to legislate that income from parking is used to support public transport to an acceptable level? That may well mean an increase in parking fees but would send out a strong message that the effects on carbon emissions and air pollution demand a reduction in the use of private cars and that public transport is the preferred mode of travel (with a few exceptions)?

Of course it will not be popular but bold measures need to be enacted to deal with the culture of convenience that is having such a deleterious effect on our environment.

John Ainsworth

Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset

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