Rural Bus Services

HC Deb 22 November 2001 vol 375 cc429-30W

Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what proportion of rural bus services ran over the weekend in(a) 1996, (b) 1997, (c) 1998, (d) 1999, (e) 2000 and (f) 2001. [16540]

Alun Michael

The following information is available from the Countryside Agency's rural services survey:

Percentage of parishes with a bus service
	1997	2000
A 6 days a week bus service	35	31
A 7 days a week bus service	25	36
6/7 day service	60	67

Note:

Data not available for 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2001

Percentage of settlements with a bus service
	2000
A 6 days a week bus service	27
A 7 days a week bus service	24
6/7 day service	51

Note:

Data not available for 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2001

Source:

RDC and Countryside Agency

The data come from the rural services survey series which is undertaken triennially. For 2000 data were collected on both a parish basis (historical administrative boundaries) and settlement basis (areas where people live) where the sample size increased from around 6,000 to 14,000.