Around 50 jobs are to be axed at the top transport authority in south Yorkshire after local leaders agreed on a 10% cut to its budget next year.
The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE) has to slash £7.6m from its spending for 2015-16 – this comes on top of the 25% of savings already delivered since 2010 and will reduce the total workforce to almost half of 2010/11 levels.
The decision was made by Sheffield City Region (SCR) Combined Authority leaders at their meeting on 5 January with the planned savings to be made through cutting cleaning services and the closure of transport information centres at Sheffield, Meadowhall, Barnsley, Doncaster and the Rotherham Interchange.
Removal of Travel Choices public transport support for schools and businesses will also be part of the cuts package.
Combined authority chair, Cllr Sir Steve Houghton CBE, said: 'Reductions to local government budgets inevitably affects the level of public transport funding available. We realise that this means some customers may need to change the way they find information about bus, tram and train times, and how they buy tickets and apply for passes, and equality impact assessments have been carefully worked through as part of these plans.’
The authority stressed it has retained the discretionary concessions for older and disabled people, while the 70p child fare and rural, evening and Sunday bus services funded by SYPTE have also been protected.
The news comes as SYPTE earmarked £235,000 for a detailed study of new station options for HS2, in addition to around £50,000 for a PR campaign around the controversial project.
