PUT THE BUS BACK

It's not a bold solution. This is the chief obstacle to its adoption.

Imagine a rural bus that runs at roughly the same times every day. Early enough for someone to reach work or college. Late enough to get home. A timetable you could print on one side of A4, stick to the fridge and gradually come to trust. Imagine it has an actual connection with the train rather than depositing you at the station three minutes after the Exeter service leaves. Imagine you can buy a ticket with money.

There would, naturally, be objections. It wouldn't be innovative. There'd be no opportunity to unveil a bespoke digital platform, brand it with a name ending in ‘Go!’ and photograph a councillor standing next to an electric van. It might even require paying drivers properly and accepting that some journeys would contain three passengers, a shopping trolley and a fairly elderly dog.

But look at what a dependable service buys. A teenager can get to further education without requiring a parent to abandon their own morning. Someone who has lost the ability to drive can take a job. A pensioner can attend an appointment without spending half their pension on a taxi. A person can get to the pub and, scandalously, come home without operating a car. And a village starts acting a little more like part of a county rather than a picturesque holding pen.

For Buckland Brewer, the experiment needn't be a fantasy network with seven colours of route. Restore a useful early outward service, a sensible evening return and everyday availability. Make sure the onward connection through Bideford to Barnstaple works. Tell people the schedule will be maintained long enough for them to make plans around it. Then measure not just how many tickets were sold, but what journeys became possible.

Transport planners like demand. Fair enough. The trouble is that suppressed demand is difficult to detect from a bus that doesn't exist. You cannot stand at an empty stop at 7.40 on a Tuesday, note the lack of passengers, and declare victory. The students are already at home. The worker never applied. The doctor’s appointment was cancelled last week.

Sometimes the cleverest thing government can do is put an ordinary service back and leave it alone long enough to become useful.