Unions back plans to bring West Midlands buses back under public control

At a West Midlands Combined Authority board meeting on Friday, members agreed an audit to be carried out on the Full Franchising Assessment as well as the establishment of a Bus Reform Panel.

If the model is implemented, the public will have control over bus fares, routes and timetables.

It will also see an end to the current subsidising model which has been in place since deregulation and sees millions of pounds provided to operators to help sustain routes.

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said franchising was 'key for building a successful bus operation in the West Midlands' and this has been backed by a union.

At the meeting, Rob Johnson, from the Trade Union Congress said: "We warmly welcome this.

"We’ve been saying for a number of years we need to move to franchise and this nettle needed to be grasped.

"Franchising gives an opportunity to bring this region together to get investment and control to ensure people from working class backgrounds can get to work and school and finally compete.

"I think it’s quite clear that we haven’t punched our weight and we keep talking about Manchester being a step ahead of us and it’s about time we moved at pace and were ambitious."

Wolverhampton Council leader Steve Simkins added: "We need to get to grips with this because the perception out there is that public transport is public. And it’s actually in the hands of private ownership under our guide.

"I’m advocating this but we need to be robust and confident moving forward we can achieve what we set out to achieve.

"We need to make sure we have a sustainable transport network not just for now but for the future. It’s important for us to be confident about it – it’s the key economic driver we’ve got in the region."

And the proposal was also backed by Coventry City Council boss George Duggins.

He said: "The present arrangement is projecting a possibility of losing 30 per cent of the network that’s on top of the 12 per cent already gone since Covid.

"With this model, we would bring more operators into the equation which, at the moment of course, is 95 per cent in respect to one operator. That one operator is dictating. So I think this is a way forward."

But Solihull councillors Bob Sleigh and leader Ian Courts said while they supported the audit and diligence work on the franchise model, they weren’t sure it was the best option and would not endorse it until further work was carried out.

Councillor Courts said: "I don’t think there is any difference between any of us that we want a better system and that the current system doesn’t work.

"But the point is the jury is very much out and I think it needs further work."

Once the audit is completed, it will then be decided whether to move to the consultation phase, expected to be in November this year at the earliest.

A decision on adopting the franchise model will be made no earlier than March next year after which it will take another two years to come into effect.