Legal warning on buses bid

A report by MPs on the Commons Transport select committee says a legal challenge mounted by a bus company against such the proposed Quality Contracts could delay the proposal for years, even if it was unlikely to succeed.

They also raised fears that a bus company which loses out on a contract deal could stop running services before the handover of the routes to a new firm.

They suggest measures including giving local authorities “compulsory purchase powers" to seize bus depots and as a ”last resort” the power to run the services themselves.

They want the law to be strengthened to ensure that any legal challenge to a quality contract scheme would fail.