New councillors asked about Raglan buses

Our new councillors on the Waikato Regional Council, Jenny Hayman and Fred Lichtwark, have been asked to ensure Raglan’s needs are considered before a new bus contract is signed up.

Local bus champion John Lawson has emailed them asking, “As our new Regional Councillors, are you able to help the community board achieve the robust consultation they requested, before another long, unsuitable bus contract is set in place please? The current contract has produced 22 overcrowded buses in the last year (page 18 of http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/PageFiles/19539 “

A check of WRC data shows that only the WRC’s very popular Hamilton Orbiter and Northern Connector exceed the Raglan 23 bus service in terms of peak utilisation (65%). The Raglan 23 service also exceeds the Government target for farebox recovery, indicating that more spending on the route with better buses and more services are justified to bring the farebox recovery down to the target.

Back in February 2016,  after announcing big increases in usage of the Raglan bus, the Regional Council said it was going to “be in touch with the [Raglan] community board in coming weeks” about bus improvements. However, they don’t seem to have followed up on this. The “robust community consultation moving forward hasn’t happened. The public workshop (at a time suitable to the majority of bus users) requested by the Raglan Community Board hasn’t happened. (See https://www.raglan23.co.nz/2016/bus-meeting-told-about-big-increase-in-passenger-numbers/). The board’s request followed a survey which put bus improvements in the top 5 of priorities for Raglan. A poorly attended public meeting followed. In a Facebook comment WRC said  that, “We’ve taken on board resident and passenger feedback when planning for the new contracts”.

So they don’t appear to be going to keep the promise made to the Raglan community back in February.