With less buses running in Kent, could Devolution save the service?

Bus companies blame rising costs and fewer passengers, while councils say they can't afford to subsidise every route.  Gabriel Morris reports.

Transcript

00:00It's just gone 11 a.m. on the Queensway estate in Sheerness.

00:04These pensioners waiting for the 362 to take them into town for shopping. They all rely on the bus.

00:11Because of the means of transport, I don't drive and I can't walk because I've got bad legs.

00:16So it's just I have to catch the bus, but yeah, you're restricted.

00:21The last service into town is at 1.20 in the afternoon.

00:25Sylvia, in her 90s, takes the bus once a week. It drops her at Tesco.

00:31By the time she's finished shopping in town, there's no bus home and she has to take a taxi.

00:39Nothing's helping people on the island. It's just going downhill.

00:45And they're not looking after what the people want, you know.

00:50With fears growing that services could worsen in the coming years, is there any hope for public transport?

00:57Devolution will happen at some point.

01:01The Promise is a TFL for Kent. The Promise is an integrated transport service that isn't just about, you know,

01:09there is a bus company that can deal with this small part of a county where you don't get economies of scale,

01:14where you're essentially allowing private companies to call the shots.

01:17Instead, you can have a system controlled by the democratically elected representatives who do the franchising,

01:24who choose the routes, and then just find a contractor to carry it out, just as happens in London.

01:29The bus operators are sceptical that copying the Transport for London model in Kent will work.

01:35And when you get politicians controlling something, sometimes the commerciality can be taken out of situations.

01:42I don't believe that the TFL model is financially sustainable above all.

01:49Yet there is broad agreement that local government reorganisation could lead to better coordination when it comes to buses.

01:57I think devolution could unlock lots of current logjams in the bus system.

02:03The big thing with all of this, now or in the future, is going to be funding.

02:07It's going to be difficult without seed funding, without some subsidies in places, to actually really transform our public transport network.

02:14But I think devolution does that, both in the immediate term with having a mayor right at the top table,

02:19being able to bang the drum for these improvements.

02:21With no quick fix in sight, the question does remain.

02:25Can Kent keep its buses running long enough for devolution to make any difference?