Go North East

[eezypeazy]

RE: Go North East
Greg,

You can read an Executive Summary of the quality contract proposal within the papers for the ITAs meeting this coming Thursday, published on http://www.twita.gov.uk

In the section headed 'Network' it says that a number of services and fare options will extend into County Durham and Northumberland. Although it doesn't go into detail, it's reasonable to assume that these will be the busy routes to/from the south east Northumberland towns, Durham City and Seaham. In other words, the QCS will 'grab' the revenue from these busy corridors - presumably Nexus will send the counties the bill for concessionary travel, too. And if any profits are made on these routes, they'll be used to cross-subsidise buses inside Tyne and Wear. If Nexus gets its way on this, it will effectively stop Northumberland and Durham for going for 'Better Bus Area' status, robbing them of the chance of the extra funding that goes with BBAs - and the government has said there'll be no extra money for QCs.

If this goes ahead, we'll all be well and truly stuffed...