Our shrinking bus network

I READ with interest the recent reply from the Chief Executive of ‘Onebus’ in respect of bus reform in Greater Manchester (M.E.N, February 8).

It would be very easy to be cynical of the private bus operators in Greater Manchester, and their newfound desire to co-ordinate everything from bus liveries, ticketing arrangements, network planning and integration with other public transport, if these weren’t the very same private bus operators who have avoided precisely every one of these aims from the earliest days of bus deregulation in 1986 to the present day.

And ‘Onebus’ is, after all, a new lobbying group of these same private bus operators.

Now perhaps their change of heart is entirely philanthropic towards the long-suffering travelling public and has nothing to do with the possibility of the Mayor committing to reform the broken bus market.

But in my own constituency, across both Tameside and Stockport, I’ve witnessed bus companies ‘play the system’ over the years; withdrawing (just) commercially viable bus services and then offering up a ‘replacement’ service for taxpayer funding.

We now spend close to £30m on subsidising a shrinking network. And the result of all this?

Well there’s been a fall of 32 million passenger journeys in Greater Manchester since 2010.

I’m left in no doubt – after 33-years, the bus deregulation scam has to end.

Andrew Gwynne, MP