Azara Blog: Cambridgeshire guided bus scheme given money by central government

Date published: 2006/06/30

The Government has agreed to fund Cambridgeshire's 21st Century guided bus scheme with a £92.5 million grant.
The Department for Transport will hand over the cash to get the project up and running.
And developers building homes which will be served by the buses are being asked to stump up the remaining £23.7 million, making a total of £116.2 million.
Passengers could be hopping aboard the futuristic network, the longest of its kind in the world, by the end of 2008.
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Bob Menzies, head of delivery for the project, told the News: "It's great news. It means we can now push ahead, and we expect that construction will start at the beginning of next year."
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In 2002, the estimate was £73 million, but this had increased to £86 million just 18 months later.
The overall price tag now, £116.2 million, is the result of general inflation and rising construction costs, Mr Menzies said. "In addition, we have added to the original scheme to make it more efficient and more environmentfriendly," he said.
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Mr Menzies added: "It's important for people to realise that the money we are getting from the Government is a 100 per cent grant.
With the additional money that developers will be contributing, it means that none of the costs will be coming out of people's Council Tax.
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THE County Council says the guided bus passenger figures could be as high as 20,000 a day within eight years of it starting.

Time will tell whether this is a complete white elephant or not. In particular, the upfront costs (equating to 6000 pounds per the alleged daily passenger total) are being completely subsidised, and the question is whether the operational costs will also be subsidised. Menzies is being disingenous in claiming that "none of the costs will be coming out of people's Council Tax", since the fact that a large chunk of the money is coming from developers means less money from them for other projects, which means (potentially) higher council tax, even ignoring that the council tax payer might have to subsidise the operational costs. And the old railway line is currently a wildlife haven (since it is completely neglected) so the guided bus will wreck that. If the A14 was properly widened (which allegedly some day it will be) then having this alternate parallel route, which only one mode of transport can use, is not a brilliant concept.

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