A great opportunity to renew and improve bus services in Bracknell may be lost if expected cuts go ahead this week.
£1m in funding for enhancing bus facilities and services in Bracknell, Crowthorne and Sandhurst is likely to be lost.
Bracknell has been forced to cut services to balance a £10.1m deficit by the end of the quarter. The cuts to services 151/151A, 299 and the 598 in Sandhurst, which is rarely used, have been earmarked for weeks and their removal was expected to be rubber stamped at Wednesday, February 25’s full council meeting.
That would mean missing out on £400,000 in capital funding to invest in electronic displays, warm bus shelters or in the buses themselves, and £600,000 in revenue to put into new services or more frequent services. To get the new money, the condition is that Bracknell cannot reduce the current bus funding – the base bus budget must not go down.
The potential loss of bus funding might become a huge story coming out of that council meeting, depending on whether the administration make a last-minute amendment to try to save the grant.
The leader responsible for buses in Bracknell is Cabinet Member for Planning, Transport and Countryside Guy Gillbe. According to sources, Cllr Gillbe was first informed of the availability of the bus funding, and its likely forfeiture, on Thursday February 19. Councillor Gillbe is said to have received the correct advice only yesterday, February 23, when the key officer came back from annual leave.
The leader of the Lib Dems in Bracknell, Mike Forster (Sandhurst) said: "To be really clear, if that’s the case, we need to go back and have a re-think.
"Are they going to do something about it? They’ll have to do it quickly because we’re running out of time. We have to have a balanced budget by the end of the quarter.
"If it means there are grants we can’t claim, we need to understand the impact of what it means to our communities.
"If there’s a change, they need to make an amendment now. They’ll have to put their hand up and say they didn’t understand the landscape."
Cllr Guy Gillbe said: "The Department for Transport’s revised funding arrangements were announced in December and include a new Local Authority Bus Grant which will commence from 1 April 2026, for 3 years.
"The DfT expects stable bus funding from all sources during the grant period and the council is supportive of this.
"The current proposed bus network changes follow a value for money assessment and align with the DfT’s approach to stabilised funding and viable bus growth from 2026/27 onwards."
Ted O'Neill, Local Democracy Reporter
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