Liberal Democrats claim there is inequality in bus services in Bedfordshire

In Bedford, the number of miles covered by local busses has expanded from 2.5 million miles in 2013/14 to 3.4 million miles in 2017/18 (latest available statistics from www.gov.uk).

In Central Bedfordshire, services have been reduced from 4.1 million miles to 3.3 million miles.

For subsidised services, typically covering rural areas, they have increased from 0.3 million miles to 0.5 million miles in Bedford, and in Central Bedfordshire they have been reduced from 1.3 million miles to 0.5 million miles.

Bus services are now roughly the same in both authorities, despite Central Bedfordshire being one and a half times larger than Bedford, in both population and land area.

Daniel Norton, parliamentary candidate for North East Bedfordshire, which straddles both local authority areas, said: “I’m shocked to see the difference between bus services in Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire.

"Rural services are a lifeline for people in North East Bedfordshire, and I know the Liberal Democrats, led by Mayor Dave Hodgson, have worked hard to protect services against government funding cuts.

“I knew services had been cut in Central Bedfordshire but until I saw this research, I hadn’t realised quite how badly Central Bedfordshire’s Conservatives had let down their local residents.

“The Liberal Democrats pledge to look after our rural communities – increasing funding for buses, enabling local authorities to restore old routes and open new ones and accelerating the transition to electric buses.

"This is part of a packages of measures for rural communities, including greater access to fibre broadband and mobile data infrastructure and reforming planning to make sure developers provide essential local infrastructure.”