Missed opportunity to improve bus services

LEICESTER Green Party were disappointed but not surprised to learn that Leicester City Council intends to pursue an Enhanced Bus Partnership (EBP) rather than a franchise model as the vision for our future bus and transport model.

An EBP will still mean private bus companies set fares and routes, but with some limited input from councils.

Franchising gives councils the powers to set fares, routes, plough profits into loss-making routes, and create genuinely integrated transport systems across the city and county.

The city council claims the EBP will “see fares cut and services expanded”, but an Enhanced Bus Partnership does not give councils these powers!

Lack of power is something the city mayor has consistently used as an excuse for our miserable and imploding bus services, blaming bus companies, or the “Tory government” for stripping from councils the powers to run bus services themselves.

Yet when he’s given the chance to introduce franchising, he doesn’t.

An EBP is still defined by competition law, gives councils no powers to set fares or restore essential lines, no control over future income or cross subsidising for essential but unprofitable routes, and actually undermines integrated transport services.

However, the most alarming issue is that there is little evidence of the city and county working together: An EBP for the city alone, or one for the county alone, make absolutely no sense, yet assistant city mayor Councillor Adam Clarke does not even mention the county in his press release, and the county’s bus survey does not mention the city once!

People travel across city boundaries every day and consistently say bus services need to cater for people wanting to go around the suburbs and county, not only in and out of the city centre.

The city and county councils seem to have decided to go for schemes which are in danger of being very little more than window dressing, especially if their Bus Services Improvement plans are not even integrated.

We encourage everyone to write to their councillors and fill in the county survey on the website below, before this opportunity to improve buses is lost. Bus services need to be cheap, fast frequent, and be genuinely integrated across city and county. It will take more than shiny shelters and the odd grass roof to save our buses.