Scrutiny report puts Southend’s buses back on the council’s map

Southend, a town of 160,000 people, has had no subsidised bus services since the local council’s financial problems led to the abandonment of bus service funding in 2004. Mark Smulian examines how a scrutiny committee is trying to give fresh impetus to improving the town’s bus services

By Mark Smulian

30 October 2008

Operators want more bus priority

Places such as Brighton and Hove have few subsidised services because a successful commercial network penetrates almost every corner of the city. In Southend, however, complaints from the public about ‘absent’ buses have grown sufficiently loud that councillors decided to use their scrutiny powers to have senior staff from bus operators appear before them. Southend is one of few councils to have conducted such an in-depth examination of local bus services and the scrutiny...