Volunteers aiming to create an affordable transport system to and around the North York Moors has had its appeal for a lifeline grant rejected after it was agreed to focus spending a windfall on “more sustainable” ways to boost visits to the area.
A meeting of the North York Moors National Park Authority’s finance committee heard £15,000 of £440,000 which had become available following extra Government funding would be spent on helping Moorsbus secure its services despite a last-ditch appeal from the community interest company.
In March a meeting of the authority had heard Moorsbus was facing a cash crisis and was running a “very minimal timetable”.
Directors of Moorbus said they held a “crisis meeting” after realising with just £18,000 in its account for the coming year it would only be able to run a skeleton service over a restricted number of months partly due to inflationary pressures and difficulty fundraising during the cost of living crisis.
In a letter to members, Helen Gundry, of Moorbus, said targeted transport would be “really good for introducing minority groups to the national park” and that Moorsbus “is the way to allow those people the authority has introduced to keep coming back, and bring friends and family too”.
She said: “This will enable the park authority targeted transport to reach out to more new people with special trips.”
The meeting heard members had agreed the funding should be focused on boosting the authority’s priorities set out in its business plan and actions which would increase the financial sustainability of the park.
Members were told £15,000 would be invested in a “targeted transport review”, while more of the surplus would be spent revamping visitor centre facilities, particularly as visits to its Danby base had remained at just over half the number there were before the pandemic.
The authority’s chief executive, Tom Hind, said the transport review would examine how public transport could be improved in the protected area.
He said it appeared Moorsbus needed help with its strategic direction.
The meeting heard much of the funding was to be used to refresh signs in car parks, while more of the surplus would help introduce electric vehicle and bike charging points and also increase car parking capacity.
Other proposals to spend the surplus included £50,000 for monitoring equipment at a landslip in Levisham, which members heard could put the North Yorkshire Moors heritage railway attraction at risk.
Member John Ritchie urged the authority to work in partnership with Moorsbus to ensure the future of its services.
He said he believed the authority might have found room in its budget to support Moorbus in some capacity, especially as its core purposes were similar to those of the park authority, such as reducing carbon emissions, attracting business to the park and engaging in public health problems.
The authority’s chairman Jim Bailey said its objectives had moved away from running a bus service to having targeted transport provision for people who could not otherwise get to the park, which might mean Moorbus needing to change its business model.
He added: “I must say, with a heavy heart, I don’t think just as a one-off we should be giving a chunk of money to without running a process to see how it ties in with the current objectives that we have.”
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