Thirty-one counties, city regions and unitary authorities have
been chosen for funding to level up their local bus services in
the latest awards from the government’s bus transformation
programme.
Including earlier awards, just under two-thirds of England’s
population outside London will benefit from new investment to
make their buses more frequent, more reliable, easier to
understand and use, cheaper, or greener. Improvements will also
include integrated ticketing and more bus lanes to speed up
journeys.
The successful areas have been chosen because of their ambition
to repeat the success achieved in London – which drove up bus
usage and made the bus a natural choice for everyone, not just
those without cars.
As the government stated in last year’s national bus
strategy, Bus Back Better, areas
not showing sufficient ambition, including for improvements to
bus priority, would not be funded.
In the meantime, a further £150 million is being provided across
England to maintain service levels as patronage continues to
recover after the pandemic.
Areas among those set to receive funding today (4 April 2022) to
help deliver on their Bus Service Improvement
Plans (BSIP) include:
- Portsmouth
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Greater Manchester
- West Yorkshire
- West Midlands
- Liverpool City Region
- North East and North of Tyne Combined Authorities
- Reading
- Norfolk
- Luton
- York
- Warrington
Mayoral combined authorities will also receive money for buses
from the £5.7 billion City Region
Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS),
which are also confirmed today.
Improvements in the pilot area, Cornwall, will start next week,
funded by £23.5 million from the government.
From 10 April, most bus fares in the county will be slashed, with
short hop fares down by 20%, longer journeys costing up to 40%
less and some bus passes cut by almost 50%.
Passes for unlimited bus travel across Cornwall will cost just £5
per day (down from £9 now) or £20 per week. Town zones offer
great value travel for just £2.50 per day or £10 for a week. For
commuters travelling 5 days a week, that works out at just £2 a
day or £1 per journey.
All tickets will be available on all operators’ services and in
the summer contactless tap-on and tap-off payments will be
introduced and buses will connect easily with the main rail line
at stations across the county.
Transport Secretary said:
Buses are the most popular way of getting around in this country
– but for too long people outside of London have had a raw deal.
The investment we’re making today to ramp up the bus revolution
will drive down fares at a time when people’s finances are tight
and help connect communities across England.
Today’s funding follows the announcement last week
of £200 million for almost
1,000 new electric or hydrogen buses, bringing the total
funded in England under this government to 2,000.
A further 600 green buses have been funded in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland from the block grant to the devolved
administrations, putting the UK on target to meet its commitment
of 4,000 zero-emission buses.
The government is today also confirming £5.7 billion in funding
to level up local bus, tram, rail, walking and cycling networks
in England’s 8 city regions.
The CRSTS,
first announced in the autumn statement, give the mayors of our
largest cities long-term certainty to plan and deliver
transformational improvements to their local transport systems.
The money will help deliver, among other things, a new mass
transit network in West Yorkshire, improvements to rail services
in the Tees Valley, a flat fare on buses in Greater Manchester
and bus rapid transit corridors in the West Midlands. Letters
have been sent to the metro mayors outlining the funding.
Today’s announcements, along with the funding of zero-emission
buses and the bus elements of the increased CRSTS,
form part of the £3 billion for bus transformation announced in
2020. Around £2 billion has also been paid to support bus and
light rail services during the pandemic.
The government is also today confirming that tram and light rail
operators across the Midlands and the North will also benefit
from over £37 million of government support including:
- Manchester (£20.5 million)
- the North East Nexus (£7.3 million)
- the West Midlands (£2.7 million)
- Sheffield (£4 million)
- Nottingham (£3.3 million)
All will receive a share of the government’s multimillion-pound
pandemic recovery package.
This money will be used to ensure light rail services continue to
run and millions of passengers can continue to get around as the
country emerges from the pandemic.
Today’s confirmed light rail recovery funding allocations come
from the wider £150 million package announced by government to
support vital bus and light rail services across the country.
