Big blow to fares
Page 5
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HIGHER bus fares — perhaps as much as 20 per cent — will result from a reduction of £30 million in the Government's Transport Supplementary Grant to Local Authorities for 1977/78, announced this week.
In contrast to the E285m, approved in November last year, for 1975/76, next year's grant will amount only to £255m based on an estimated expenditure of £873m.
Affected already by inflation and by the withholding of the grant for new vehicles, local authority bus undertakings will have no alternative to asking the Traffic Commissioners for even greater fares increases.
Not all the reduced grant is available for the support of bus services, however. Finance for local road schemes is also included and these, too, will suffer.