Project Overview

East Sussex
Rural Transport Partnership

The Role of the Rural Transport Partnership

The East Sussex Rural Transport Partnership (ESRTP) was formed in 1999 to take a joint strategic view of the transport needs of local rural communities in East Sussex. The partnership is already well represented with partners from national and local authorities, the voluntary and community transport (CT) sector, user groups, regional charitable bodies and community associations. It is changing its structure to encompass the whole spectrum of rural transport, firstly by the establishment of a Community Rail Partnership for the County, then moving on into taxi and car sharing, mopeds (Wheels2Work) and cycles.

The long-term objective is to establish a broad base of public transport resource and service information that can be used to inform Local Strategic Partnerships throughout the County. The partnership will continue to consider how existing transport services might be enhanced or whether new and innovative public transport solutions are required to meet needs identified in the Local Strategic Partnerships and then take action to implement these improvements. It will also seek to provide operators with up to date technical and legal advice on best practice within each public transport sector, in order to enhance quality standards.

The Countryside Agency is willing to consider funding the ESRTP until March 2005 with in-kind match funding coming from other partners. Alternative sources of funding for the longer term are being investigated.

Partnership Structure

The Partnership has been structured to allow each operational sector within the public transport industry (rail, conventional bus, community transport, shared taxi, shared/voluntary car, scooter and cycle) to have an interest group where information on up to date practices and procedures can be explained, debated and exchanged. This is in order that each Partnership member can have the best possible information with which to operate his fleet/service. It is also designed to ensure that high standards of service delivery are achieved. Each of these groups is represented on the policy-making Partnership Board that provides strategic direction to the Partnership's work. Local authorities, government departments and user groups are also represented, both in the interest groups and on the main Board.

Partnership Objectives

Our Interest Groups
Community Transport
Social Inclusion - clients and service users tend to be those people unable to use conventional public transport for a variety of reasons. The County Council's Public Transport Strategy seeks "To achieve increased use of public transport services and to provide access to economic, social and leisure facilities by developing the transport system to meet the needs of the community, including children, older people, people with disabilities and people without ready access to private transport." The CT sector within the Partnership is striving to fulfil this objective.

Development of new schemes - our Resource and Co-ordination Centre has been established with the aim of providing legal, operational and technical support and advice, development and co-ordination skills for voluntary and community based transport projects across East Sussex. We encourage voluntary groups, parish councils and other interested groups to develop community based transport schemes and are keen to assist those bodies with whatever advice, information and support we can.

Training - whilst small CT schemes are aware of the need to provide training for their staff, the logistics of providing such training often prove too difficult to resolve in isolation. The co-ordination of training across several schemes, organised at the centre, allows for regular training programmes to be set up which can be accessed by all. The Centre works closely with training agencies, including the Community Transport Association, to provide a wide range of training appropriate to the needs of the individual schemes. Driver (MiDAS) and escort (PATS) training, Health and Safety, First Aid, disability issues etc., are seen as priorities in an attempt to raise the standard of minibus operation to a uniform high level.

All Partnership operator members now use the MiDAS training scheme for their own drivers and volunteers, and the wider acceptance of MiDAS by all providers of not-for-profit public transport is actively encouraged. Each Partner has at least one qualified MiDAS trainer whose services can be provided to any outside organisation interested.

Driver resource - lack of volunteer drivers has had a major impact on the effectiveness of the smaller community based schemes. Those schemes which have been able to do so, often through the winning of County Council contracts, have employed paid drivers. Sometimes, this is neither an option nor desirable. We have qualified drivers available, sometimes even at short notice, and could help your group to cover extra journeys that cannot be covered from within your own resources.

Co-ordination of vehicles - the Partnership has access to both voluntary sector and local authority vehicles. We are often able to help find a suitable vehicle with, or sometimes without, a driver in your area at a time when you need one! Utilisation of existing vehicles is seen as a major priority. If you already have a vehicle, and would like to improve its utilisation by making it available to other groups when you don't need it, give us a call! We can even manage the vehicle on your behalf, including licencing, insurance and maintenance to meet all legal requirements.

Transport integration - the Partnership is actively progressing work with other sectors of the public passenger transport industry, in order to provide integration between modes. The aim is to make public transport generally as accessible as possible throughout rural East Sussex by combining modes together. For the majority of the public, transport is the means to an end, or a destination. Our job is to provide that journey, by whatever sector of public transport is/are most appropriate for the journey in question, and to provide it in a comfortable, friendly and effective way - in short, to be 'user friendly'.
Links with the Community Rail Partnership will be particularly important in this respect.

Vehicle resource - three coaches are operated on behalf of the East Sussex Disability Association (ESDA) and these coaches are available for hire by many outside groups. Our Co-ordination Centre also has access to the vehicles of many sizes, usually with tail-lifts or ramps, and drivers of all Partnership members, who are keen to look after your Hire needs. Give our Co-ordination Centre a call for a quote - there is no obligation to book, but we hope you will like our prices!

Community Rail Partnership
Plans our afoot to change our rural railways for the better. A recent article published in TR&IN, published jointly by the Association of Community-Rail Partnerships and TR&IN, focused on the need for radical solutions to develop rural railways reducing running costs and driving up use. Improvements to rail networks in East Sussex would benefit local residents, businesses and visitors. Train services and stations could be made safer, secure and accessible to all. The railways could encourage regeneration, sustainable development and social inclusion along the corridors served by the train lines.

The UK-wide network of community-rail partnerships has achieved many successes. In East Anglia, the stations covered by community rails partnerships are welcoming and tidy and the train lines themselves benefit from having their own special identities. East Sussex is working towards setting up its own community-rail partnership. Plans are to initially focus on the route between Oxted and Uckfield and then turn its attention along the Lewes to Eastbourne/Seaford and Eastbourne-Hastings-Ashford lines.

The aim of the partnership is to work with the train company to provide small-scale improvements to the quality of service, on trains, at stations and in the local communities serviced by the line. A steering group will likely comprise of county, district and parish councils, local train companies, Network Rail, British Transport Police and the Countryside Agency, while a stakeholder group would seek a broader membership from interested individuals, bodies and businesses. An inaugural meeting of the prospective Partnership was held on 11th April 2003. Updating information about progress of the Partnership will be placed here.

Wheels2Work
This scooter based scheme is designed to help young unemployed people living in rural areas to find work, and provide a means of transport for them. A pilot scheme will be progressed as soon as time and funding permits.

Car Sharing
This sector will be reviewed later in 2003.

Community Transport Directory
A Community Transport Directory for East Sussex is now in its second edition, and work is starting on the third. The Directory will be expanded as more public transport sectors are covered, and its range expanded. E-mail, phone or write to us for your copy, or to include your details!

Project Funding

Since March 1998, the Government has provided new funding for rural public transport, administered by the statutory body of the Countryside Agency. Communities in East Sussex are already benefiting from these principal funding schemes:

The Rural Bus Subsidy Grant
Rural Bus Subsidy Grant is administered locally by East Sussex County Council. There is a total of £32.5 million to spend in England per annum on:

Rural Bus Challenge Fund
Rural Bus Challenge funding is administered by the Department for Transport. Funds are held centrally and grants are paid to local authorities through an annual bidding process for schemes that are for cost-effective innovation in the provision or promotion of rural bus services. During 2001, £20 million was available, together with any carry over from an under-spend in the allocation of Rural Bus Subsidy Grant.

A Rural Bus Challenge project in East Sussex has secured a total of £776,820 to 5 community transport operators in East Sussex. The project is running for 3 years and aims to reduce private car usage by people who are making journeys to work, to railway stations, to schools and for weekend leisure activities. North Rother/North Weald, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Lewes and Rye and its surrounding villages are benefiting from a variety of Dial-a-Ride, commuter, school and leisure trips using new £53,000 16-seat, low floor minibuses.

Urban Bus Challenge Fund
Urban Bus Challenge funding is also administered by the Department for Transport. Funds are paid to local transport authorities through an annual bidding process for projects helping set up innovative new bus schemes to tackle urban deprivation and social exclusion across England. £46 million is available over the period 2001/02 to 2003/04.

Rural Transport Partnership Fund
Rural Transport Partnership funding has proved to be a very popular scheme. It is administered by the Countryside Agency and comprises a total of £32 million between the years 2001-2004. Funds are being spent on reducing the social exclusion of rural people by giving them good accessibility to jobs, services and social activity and by long term improvements to public transport services.

Parish Transport Grant Fund
The Parish Transport Grant scheme has a total of £15 million available over the three years to March 2004. The Fund is administered by the Countryside Agency and is designed to enable rural communities, through their parish councils, to implement a wide range of small scale, local solutions to meet their local transport needs.

Delegated Fund
We have a small fund of £10,000 per year from the Countryside Agency, which we award every three months for eligible schemes in East Sussex.
Voluntary groups, parish councils, day and care centres, car and Dial-a-Ride schemes, regeneration partnerships and community transport providers have all received funds from the ESRTP Delegated Fund.

For more information on any of these funding sources that might be applicable to your own community's needs, click here


There is a lot of exciting work going on in an attempt to make not-for-profit public transport work for rural journeys. We want to put these ideas into practice wherever possible throughout East Sussex. We do not aim to compete with established operators, or contracted services of any kind, but we might suggest ways in which services could be better attuned to the needs of the public as expressed through the Local Strategic Partnerships.

Any group, operator, company or authority interested in any aspect of public passenger transport in East Sussex is welcome to join the Partnership. Our aim is to provide residents of and visitors to East Sussex with a variety of public transport solutions to the needs that they have expressed through local Partnership working. If this is of interest to you, then I look forward to hearing from you.

Philip Ayers
Project Leader
East Sussex Rural Transport Partnership - March 2003

"Aiming at the public transport solution to suit you!"

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