People power restores bus service in Heeley

The number 10 and 10a and the M17 bus which connected residents to the hospitals and neighbouring communities, from next month will once again deliver a service to passengers.

The service was cut earlier and communities, alongside Labour Councillors and Louise Haigh MP have been campaigning hard to restore these much-needed lifelines for many.

Mayor Oliver Coppard will fund these services and a number of others across South Yorkshire via his Mayoral budget.

Louise Haigh MP for Sheffield Heeley, said:“This is a good day for people power, and I’m pleased that Mayor Oliver Coppard has decided to use more than £2milliion of his budget to restore these vital services and many others across South Yorkshire.

“But this is not a situation we should be in. We should not be beholden to private companies and allow them to cut routes and services, leaving passengers cut off and stranded.

“A Labour government will reform our bus networks for passengers.

"We will end the broken system and hand power and control to local communities. This will be the first step in the biggest reform to the bus sector in a generation and put communities firmly back in control of services they depend on.”

She adds Labour’s bus reform plan would do three things:

· Allow communities to Take Back Control of Bus Services: Labour would give all local transport authorities the power to Take Back Control of bus services, extending the opportunity to franchise services to every community, currently only available to metro mayors.

· Streamline the process to take back control with a presumption in favour of franchising, ending the costly and time-consuming hurdles which delay much-needed reform by years, and prevent communities from having a say in how their bus services are run. Smaller local transport authorities will be offered expert advice and support in order to assist with the path towards taking back control of services, with the bus directorate in the Department for Transport delivering support to local transport authorities.

· Lift the legal ban on municipal bus ownership introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 following intensive lobbying by vested interests. This would allow communities to establish their own municipal bus network, building on the success of areas like award-winning Nottingham which have amongst the highest satisfaction ratings and passenger numbers per head in the country.