To not understand why the fuel situation is so bad in the SE when they have better public transport than the rest of the country and shorter distances

[3dame]

Where we live public transport is woefully bad, non existent in many places and expensive.Bigger county too than most SE counties.

A friend queued for 3 hours yesterday, she was on the fuel light. The bloke in front put in £7. That’s why there’s such a issue (in part). Utterly ridiculous. I’m dreading trying to get petrol tomorrow.

I’m in Kent. I haven’t needed fuel this week but from what I hear most garages around here are getting deliveries daily but selling it very quick. It’s definitely down to dense population and poor public transport. I’m WFH fortunately but to get to my office in a town 16 miles away I’d have to change trains twice or get a bus which takes me around the houses. Both options take 1.5-2 hours, driving around 45 mins. We can get to London easily but moving around Kent is hard without a car!

Lol. No.
I'm probably in one of the "richest" counties and our public transport is absolutely fucking dire.
Add to that it also takes a good half an hour to get to the local town just by the car. Rural area.

P. S. We're not all tory voters down here.

Even south london isn't well served by the tube. Its buses and national rail and most dont get you where you need to go without multiple changes.

Its been a massive gripe for decades why South London has lacked tube investment!

Nevertheless the South East is more than South London and public transport in general isnt that great in many area.s

Also, when dd gets buses sometimes she has to wait an hour for a bus to get room as it’s inevitably full. Four buses could pass before she gets on.
Don’t think the streets are paved with gold in the SE, it’s more likely to be paved with dog shit.

I would vote for any political party that would reopen all the hundreds of small local train stations closed under Beeching cuts in the 1960s. We shouldn’t all be forced to be so dependent on cars. It’s madness. This government are so staggeringly incompetent the shortage of drivers is happening right across the economy, a completely predictable effect of Brexit that they have done nothing to mitigate until now when they are scrabbling around for short term ideas to help.

Genuine question, if you live in a place that is reliant on petrol to get your kids to school or to get to work or visit people, has this fuel crisis made you think about moving or changing anything?

@starpatch

Well I do wonder why it is such a crisis when the buses are still empty? I only recently got a car and managed before that with a child on the bus. (I am in the south east). So I think OP has a point.

The buses are definitely not empty where I am in the SE

People in the SE who commute by car have the longest average commute length in the U.K.

Yes, as a percentage slightly less people use their car to commute. But population density is much higher.

House prices push people out of being able to live near to the large towns, which are expensive because higher earners can commute to London on train from them. But these towns still need nurses for the hospitals and retail workers for the shops, so people drive in from the more affordable areas far outside the towns.

www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/car-and-the-commute-web-version.pdf

The situation here is still pretty dire, even £30 limits on fuel haven't made a difference. Today all 4 petrol stations in my town were complete out of fuel.

I’m baffled that you think the entire south east has good public transport. I live in a town with two bus routes (one comes twice a day), no train station, two sub standard small supermarkets, no other shops and a few take aways. I drive my son to school every day, about five miles each way. I drive my other children to their schools/nurseries which aren’t so far but not within walking distance.

@RoyalMush

I would vote for any political party that would reopen all the hundreds of small local train stations closed under Beeching cuts in the 1960s. We shouldn’t all be forced to be so dependent on cars. It’s madness. This government are so staggeringly incompetent the shortage of drivers is happening right across the economy, a completely predictable effect of Brexit that they have done nothing to mitigate until now when they are scrabbling around for short term ideas to help.

Sadly it can’t happen for many as railway tracks have been turned into walking paths/housing etc. Such a travesty and so short sighted of them.

Too expensive, too slow, inconvenient.

@Macncheeseballs

Genuine question, if you live in a place that is reliant on petrol to get your kids to school or to get to work or visit people, has this fuel crisis made you think about moving or changing anything?

My rural commute( school) is 10 miles so some do bike in despite the massive hill ( irrelevant in a car). But in my very expensive, well respected posh town all the “jobs” are NMW. Everyone actually is a rich freelancer for dome niche profession or goes to London.

I was frequently pissed off at the patents that drove their private school kids to school despite living within a mile. But actually once the kids had a musical instrument, PE kit, after school hockey/rugby and all their books the kids couldn’t the actually carry the stuff required. Completely nuts.

Because the sheer number of people in the SE means more cars and more demand - and only so much capacity on an already creaking and overcrowded public transport system.

And, London and the south east exists outside of central London zones 1-3. Public transport is variable outside of central London, and particularly so in rural south east England.

Also like pp have pointed out, lots of jobs that rely on cars. Plus people who can't easily get about on public transport - elderly, disabled, their carers, those attending hospital appointments, etc.

reopen all the hundreds of small local train stations closed under Beeching cuts in the 1960s.

Yes as many as possible should be reopened. (Sadly some have been built over).

I'd say that Insulate Britain blocking the M25 day after day has contributed towards the problem too.

I wish the public transport was as fantastic as you think it is, I wouldn't use the car of it was. My family live 15 miles away, it takes 3 buses and a 2 mile walk - about 3 and a half hours. Or, 30 minutes down the a11 🤷‍♀️ oh, and the buses from mine are hourly and stop at 5pm.

Loads of people work where there isn't a public transport option. Some routes are well catered for but others aren't.

I agree with PP that public transport is built around delivering commuters to the towns and cities. Other than that it's pensioner type bus services that stop running at 3pm.

The problem is public transport is private so there is no central system to try to distribute it evenly or lobby for good services to link people to places like hospitals and shopping centres.

I can easily manage without my car in London, until I need to care for vulnerable family members in a transport free area.

London runs on Ubers, deliveries, needs trades people like everywhere else, emergency service vehicles, etc. There are disabled people who rely on vehicles, school transport buses for SEN children. And what fuels our good bus service?

Can you see the issue if there is actually NO fuel in any stations? Or tanker deliveries?

It's probably all been said but you also need to bear in mind that most public transport services are still running "special covid services", much reduced. There are journeys I would usually be able to do by train but the routes have been cut substantially (and my guess is they're never coming back).

It's very rural too in places. My ds thinks it's all the 4x4s but I'm wondering how the Tesla's are negating them. 😉

You couldn't live in my village without a car. Well you could if you could tolerate the 2 hourly bus into town to buy your food. Or if you had food delivered. It's two miles to a corner shop!

Youre kidding, right I'm in Kent...

It takes me well over an hour to travel 7 miles to my DMs by bus. Buses are about 6 a day at totally random times.

The queues for fuel have meant the congestion is so bad its taking 2.5hrs+.

A friend of mine lives two miles from my city and a bus comes once a day. Once. Its a NL road with no pavement or street lights so can't walk it.

I also read the other day that my hometown is the worst affected in the whole country by the fuel crisis - due to the rapidly expanding population yet comparatively few fuel stations.

@3dame

Same as any other area which often don’t have the excellent public transport links the SE enjoys linking rural/ city/town.

I'm in the SE *see my name!

If you want to go along the coast, it's great, wonderful bus links, however I live near newhaven (20 min walk)
My office is in Uckfield (about 10 mins) so just getting to the office/home is another hour a day, then if we look at getting the train, thats about 4 hours with changes etc

Bus would be around 2 hours (plus walking to bus stop etc

And of course the cost!

I would love to use public transport, I loved the time to sit and read when I commuted to Brighton

I live in London Zone 3. No tubes here and a very unreliable train service. All the buses are heading into town, so if you want to go from one place to another you have to change in the city centre or take a bus to a certain point going towards Zone 1 then take another bus coming back out. If you live beyond Zone 6, forget the buses...there may be one along in an hour. Many friends who live in outer boroughs drive or cycle because it's quicker.

My journey to work which is about 8 miles in a straight line takes an hour by public transport. In my home county this distance would take 20 minutes.

You also have to factor in many people working in London don't live there. I have colleagues in Faversham, Slough, Huntingdon and Milton Keynes. When the trains are stopped at weekends for engineering works, it's just quicker and easier to fet in the car and drive to the nearest tube station.

When I was a child and we moved from the Midlands to Sussex, I remember my mum sobbing because there weren't buses available all the time. We'd moved to a large seaside town. She had no choice other than to learn to drive so she could get about. The SE is not all it's cracked up to be.