Almost 1,100 people call on South Yorkshire mayor to speed up taking control of buses

The group called Better Buses for South Yorkshire has handed in 1,065 signatures on their open letter at the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority headquarters to urge Oliver Coppard to deliver the final stage of the pre-franchising — a public consultation on public control — in May.

Public control, also known as franchising, would mean private operators could only run services on terms set by the mayor, including fares, routes, timetables, and standards.

Fran Postlethwaite, of Better Buses for South Yorkshire, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they had launched the open letter last Friday (February 23) and people were very supportive of the cause.

She said: “What we are concerned about is that there have been quite a lot of delays in the last six months or so and the time for various processes leading to public control is slipping. So we are very concerned that doesn’t continue to happen.

“On March 12, there is a mayoral meeting which is going to approve – or at least we’ve been led to believe – the next stage of public control proceedings.”

She added this would result in it going to audit with a business case formulated. She said it could take two or three months.

However, Ms Postlethwaite added: “The difficulty with that is it will possibly finish in May, we hope if it’s just a couple of months.

“Now, the concern we’ve got is that there is a mayoral election which puts local government in purdah – so no meetings taking place from Easter to early May.”

She said they had concerns that the next key stage – public consultation – would be delayed as a result.

Ms Postlethwaite said the open letter was supporting what Oliver Coppard was doing but it was also showing the level of public concern “that we don’t get any more slippage”.

She said people were desperate to see a change as soon as possible.