Rising costs threaten some Dorset bus services.

The senior council officer responsible says he is worried about the level of public transport provision in the county over the next two years – after the council failed to win extra Government support for local bus services.

In April neighbours Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council won £8.9million under the Government’s Bus Service Improvement Plan scheme – which aims to reverse the shift in journeys away from public transport and encourage passengers back onto buses. Dorset Council received nothing despite what was considered to be an equally deserving bid.

Matthew Piles, the corporate director for highways and transport, told councillors on Monday that changes were needed to ensure rural Dorset services remained viable.

The council has already been forced to pay more for some services after some contractors threatened to pull out of routes, unless their additional fuel and wage costs were met.

Mr Piles told an audit committee meeting that with hundreds of different contracts it was now often the case that the commercial market was more able to dictate its prices, with the council stepping in with its own drivers and vehicles, where it had to.

He said that many services, especially for special education needs transport, had already been reviewed as the authority sought to make savings where it could.

“We need to change the way we work because the system is broken…we are talking to all heads (teachers) at special education needs schools to say how can we do this differently?…We cannot continue in the way that we provide the service at the moment,” said Mr Piles.

He said supporting public transport over the next 18 months to two years, was his biggest challenge, with many bus services not recovering passenger numbers since Covid.

“Public transport needs to change and we need to look at how we will support our rural areas better…the biggest risk will be to public routes this year which will be re-tendered.

“I don’t know what the market will be but we can already see what is happening elsewhere in the country. It would not be a good day is we lost our public transport routes in Dorset and that’s my main focus at the moment,” he said.

The senior officer told councillor that despite the uncertain outlook there had been successes with the temporary recent £2 fare cap, introduced by the Government, attracting additional bus users. He said there had also been some growth in services in the Weymouth and Portland area, but he said that more thought, and discussions, needed to be held over improving the use of the Weymouth park and ride.

Mr Piles said that the council currently spends around £1.2million a year to subsidise commercial bus services with school transport costing £10million and almost £13million being spent each year on getting Dorset children with additional needs to school, including 1,200 out of the county.

A further £26million is spent by the authority each year on adult services transport, including services for people with a learning difficulty.