Bus campaigners call for South Yorkshire Mayor to speed up public control plan

Supporters of the campaign Better Buses for South Yorkshire will be taking their temporary bus stop to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority office on Broad Street West in Sheffield city centre from noon today, Tuesday (January 9). The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Board meets at 1pm.

The protest was called after one council leader indicated they are supporting the “fastest rate” of progress towards the policy of any region. Campaigners are calling for a clear timetable.

Bus franchising would see the final decisions on fares, routes, and standards made by the local authority, not private bus companies.

The campaign points out that the system is used in London and Manchester to integrate services and reinvest profits, with private operators only allowed to run services if they win a contract from the mayor.

South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard pledged to introduce public control and has been working through a government-mandated process to legally decide on where to introduce franchising.

Progress

A report last year claimed that a decision on progress to the next stage, originally due last autumn, which announces the conclusion of the mayor’s assessment and passes it to an auditor, will now take place in early 2024.

In December, 500 South Yorkshire residents emailed the region’s council leaders and mayor asking for them to commit to move forward on this.

In response, Coun Sir Stephen Houghton, leader of Barnsley Council, emailed activists to say: “We are taking forward the Bus Franchising Assessment Process at the fastest rate of any combined authority to date.”

However, the decision has not appeared on the agenda at the January meeting, say campaigners.

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Jenny Carpenter, a member of the South Yorkshire Climate Alliance, has submitted a question to tomorrow’s authority meeting.

Her question states: “Bus services in South Yorkshire continue to deteriorate. Reliability is appalling – it is no joke waiting for buses that don’t materialise on cold, wet winter days.

Hopeful

“As a member of Better Buses for South Yorkshire, I voice our concern at the slow progress of the franchising process. Please will you disclose the timetable for the stages involved?”

Campaigners say they are hopeful that the extraordinary combined authority meeting recently scheduled for February 13 will reveal that public control has been selected as the preferred option and agree to move to the next stage.

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Matthew Topham, a campaigner at Better Buses for South Yorkshire, said: “The mayor promised to take our buses into public control in his manifesto in 2022. With an early mayoral election announced for May of this year, it’s essential that as much progress is made as possible before that point.

“The leaders’ commitment to move towards franchising in the fast lane is welcome but with local people forced to move home in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis because they can’t rely on buses to get them to work, our region needs them to hit the accelerator again.”

Both Mayor Coppard and Sheffield City Council leader Coun Tom Hunt have pledged action on bus services. More than 40 per cent of bus routes in South Yorkshire have been lost in the past decade.

The mayoral authority says that bus services in the last 10 years had fallen by September from 588 services to 338. That equates to 9.3 million miles of the region’s bus services lost.