A new £180,000-per-year bus route crossing the Island from East to West was a longstanding ambition for the Environment Minister – but questions have been raised as to whether it was money well spent.
The number 10 route runs from Jersey Zoo, across Trinity, St John, St Mary, St Peter and to Red Houses.
Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan said in July that the route would “[link] northern parish communities directly with the west of the Island” and that it would allow Islanders “to access public services and visit the various hospitality, retail and tourist attractions along the route”.
The route was made a permanent fixture in July.
The number 10 bus is funded by the Climate Emergency Fund for around £180,000 per year – a fund that is only allowed to be used to support the Carbon Neutral Roadmap.
However, Comptroller and Auditor General Lynn Pamment said she hadn’t seen “any evaluation criteria which could be used to demonstrate, or at least to monitor, whether using the Climate Emergency Fund for the piloting of the East to West bus service supports its aims and represents value for money”.
In her report on critical infrastructure resilience focusing on transport links, Ms Pamment said creating the route had been “a long-standing political ambition” for the minister – but that he had been advised that most bus travel and traffic focuses on going in and out of St Helier.
There had been “doubts”, she added, about whether the route was “economically or commercially viable”. It was eventually created through a Ministerial Decision and buses started operating in May.
In 2020, the government promised that they would publish a Bus Service Development Plan in 2021, which would analyse the bus routes and how they could be improved.
This plan, which would support the Island’s sustainability strategies, has not been published, Ms Pamment said.
