Buses MP urges metro mayor to take back control
BUSES in Bristol are in “a mess” and a “shambles” and should be brought back under local authority control, the South Bristol MP Karin Smyth has said.
She has called on West of England metro mayor Dan Norris to start to use the powers he has available to take back control of the public transport system in the Bristol area and run the buses under a franchise system.
Mrs Smyth said she had been deluged with letters from constituents across south Bristol complaining about the state of the bus services, both before and after First announced it was cutting 1,450 timetabled bus journeys a week across the city.
The firm said the move was to make the timetable a more realistic match with the reality at the depots, where it is suffering a shortage of 150 drivers.
In a letter to constituents who had written to her, the Labour MP said: “Buses in our city are in a mess.”
She added: “It is incredibly frustrating that there was an improving public transport success story leading up to the start of the pandemic, with council investment in infrastructure and First Bus investing in cleaner vehicles.
“It was far from perfect, but in the year to March 2019 more than 42.8 million local bus journeys were taken, up from 27.5 million in 2013. However, a combination of the pandemic, a chronic shortage of drivers and a very poor regulatory environment has led us very quickly to the current shambles.”
Mrs Smyth called for a franchise system to be attempted by Mr Norris – something he has so far resisted.
“It remains my position that the West of England mayor should use the powers available to him, bringing decisions about routes, service levels and fares back under local democratic control,” she said, acknowledging that this would not be easy.
“This would reverse the deregulation of the 1980s,” she said. “The process for doing so is cumbersome and time-consuming.”
She said Greater Manchester metro mayor Andy Burnham announced a similar move in 2021 but it would not be completed until 2025.
She said Mr Norris had recently announced new money to support buses from next April, including a franchise to run new services from Hartcliffe. She said she was waiting for full details of other measures.
“Be assured,” she told constituents, “I will continue to press those responsible on this issue.”
Mrs Smyth is the first MP in the city to call for a franchise system this year. It comes as a new campaign builds calling for control of public transport in the city to be brought back under local authority control.
The campaign will officially launch on December 14 at a demonstration on Kingswood High Street outside the civic centre from 6.15pm.
In response to the imminent launch of that campaign, a spokesperson for First West of England said: “In early October we implemented service changes designed to balance customer demand with available resource to deliver reliable services for our customers. The changes were a result of changing post-pandemic demand, which has seen passenger numbers fall by around 25 per cent compared to pre-Covid figures. The effects of this have been further impacted by driver shortages, which are being felt by the rest of the industry but are particularly acute in our region.”