Budget cuts could leave the free city centre bus service facing the axe - alongside early morning, late night and Sunday bus services in Leeds, a transport chief has warned.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow's meeting of the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority at which members will discuss the potential impact of budget cuts, Metro chairman Chris Greaves said he expected to see examples of the 'huge impact' that sweeping budget cuts could have on the region's transport network.
He said:
"We have started to get used to senior Government figures in London talking in terms of 40% budget reductions, but the report at tomorrow's meeting really brings home what they could mean for people.
"It is alarming when you see, written in black and white, that the cuts we might be asked to make could be the equivalent of wiping out the Hebden Bridger minibus network or the Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield FreeCity buses.
"Or put another way they could mean the reductions in the AccessBus service or withdrawal of as much as 25% of the essential tendered, early-morning, late-night and Sunday bus services that Metro currently subsidises because the bus companies don't consider them profitable enough.
"We may have to re-consider concessionary fares for young people.
"These are not projects which have not yet been started, but services which people rely upon every day to get to work, shops and vital services such as doctors' surgeries or hospital appointments.
"I am sure national and local politicians across the county, will know that while these services go un-remarked when they are running, as soon as they are threatened, we are inundated at surgeries and in our post bags by those people for whom they are a lifeline."
A report to be considered highlights a 2.5 per cent reduction in staffing levels and other cost-cutting initiatives.
Greaves added:
"We fully realise that cuts will have to be made in all areas of the public sector including Metro, and I am pleased to see in the same report, the high levels of efficiency that the PTE is already delivering and the measures it is taking to achieve further savings."We will however need to look very closely at the impact of on the individuals and communities where real cuts to services fall."
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