Guided busway U-turn - Tories refuse to renew promise

6.22.36pm GMT Thu 28th Jan 2010

Kilian Bourke

A leading Tory has refused publicly to renew the Conservative's promise not to hive off taxpayers' cash to pay for the guided bus.

Cambridgeshire County Council Cabinet member, Roy Pegram refused to back an earlier commitment given by three of his colleagues when he was interviewed this morning (Thursday) on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

His blatant U-turn on the Tory promise that the guided bus would not be financed by taxpayers' money has angered Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats.

It comes on the back of publication of this year's county council budget papers which show that the Conservatives have withdrawn £1 million of funding for local projects while reallocating exactly the same amount for the disaster-hit guided bus.

Lib Dem County Councillor Kilian Bourke said: "With this U-turn the Conservatives have broken yet another promise to local people. They no longer pretend that the busway will be 'on-time, on spec, and on budget'; but until now they had maintained that not a penny of local taxpayers' money would be spent on it.

"The budget shows clearly for the first time that services are being slashed to pay for it. £1 million has been top-sliced from specific community transport projects, including safety schemes, improvements to ordinary buses and enhancing access for isolated rural communities. That same £1 million has been reallocated to the guided busway on the very same page of the document.

"I find it incredible that the Tories are accusing us of spin on this: we are simply quoting from their budget!"

Lib Dem leader David Jenkins said: "Local services should not be cut to compensate for the overspend on the busway. That is what taxpayers were promised, and what they can reasonably expect. But this Conservative administration does not trouble itself about such petty trivialities as keeping promises made to the public."

Local projects cut to cover the busway overspend include:

• Safety Schemes, cut from £1m to £0.8m - (20 per cent)

• Cambridge Access Strategy, cut from £0.6m to £447,000 - (25 per cent)

• Community Transport (rural demand responsive buses), cut from £0.2m to £50,000 - (75 per cent)

• Market Town Strategy Schemes, cut from £1.575m to £1.4m - (11 per cent)

Local bus Infrastructure in Cambridge and Huntingdon, cut from £0.975m to £0.68m - (30 per cent)