Agenda item - Items referred from Council

To consider items referred from the last meeting of Full Council held on 30 March 2023

(A)          Petitions

(1)           Improve the Bus Service to Bevendean

12.1      The Committee considered a petition referred from Full Council requesting improved bus services to the Bevendean area.

12.2      The Chair provided the following response:

The 48 bus is a commercial bus service operated by Brighton and Hove Buses (BHB) and as such the Council has no direct control over its frequency or operations, however we work with all local bus operators as part of a successful Enhanced Bus Partnership to improve bus services in the city.  I requested officers to contact Brighton & Hove Buses and they have given the following response to our enquiry.

“Like most bus operators across the UK, we have been suffering with a shortage of drivers which has unfortunately affected the service provided. We apologise for this. The situation has improved recently following a successful recruitment campaign and the service operation has been much better over the past few months with over 99% of the scheduled journeys on route 48 operating. We will continue to monitor usage on route 48 and will review the frequency if the demand can justify it and we can resource it. There would be no point in increasing the frequency of the timetable if we were unable to operate the additional journeys. Our current priority is to ensure a high quality of operation of the current level of service. We had planned to replace the oldest vehicles on this route and others in the city back in 2021 but the disruption and uncertainty caused by Covid unfortunately meant that new bus orders had to be delayed. We now have new buses on order which will enable the oldest buses in our fleet to be retired very early next year.”

12.3      Resolved- That the Committee note the petition.