Regions 'deserve a London-style transport system', MPs told

Areas outside London “deserve a London-style transport system” MPs have been told, as a call was made to overhaul the funding of public transport outside the capital.

Speaking at the Commons Transport Select Committee today, three of England’s metro mayors appealed to MPs to make the case for Government grants for bus services to be “properly devolved” to transport bodies in England’s combined authority areas.

But the move would be just one part of creating a system by which the Government could fulfill its levelling up agenda, MPs head.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham told the committee: “Levelling up, obviously, has to come back with a vengeance out of this because it’s going to be the poorest parts of the country that are hit hardest by the economic crisis as they have already been hardest by the health crisis.

A person wearing a face mask rides a bus on Piccadilly, London, following the introduction of measures to bring England out of lockdown. Photo: PAA person wearing a face mask rides a bus on Piccadilly, London, following the introduction of measures to bring England out of lockdown. Photo: PA
A person wearing a face mask rides a bus on Piccadilly, London, following the introduction of measures to bring England out of lockdown. Photo: PA

“The leveling up really has to come back on the agenda very quickly, but leveling up has to be much more than about long-term infrastructure, that’s often how it’s spoken about. It has to become about everyday transport, the cost of everyday transport, the reliability of everyday transport, integrating it across different systems, we all deserve a London-style transport system.”

Tim Bowles, West of England mayor, said major reform of bus funding is required as operators are unable to meet demand on some routes.

He said: “We are the people who know what routes need supporting and we can act at pace, and we can be flexible, as opposed to directly paying operators to continue delivering in the old manner and in the old normal,” he said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We’ve got to start using this as an opportunity to change the way we work.”

And Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram added: “There's only London that could really ensure that the routes that they want to run do run, because they are the only regulated service in the country.

“And for me, the difficulty with Government passing money straight through to bus operating companies has meant that one of the sticks that we could have, or one of the carrots that we could have really, to work with our bus operating companies to ensure that they don’t cherry pick, is being taken away from us, and I think future funding tranches should come through transport authorities or combined authorities where they exist.”

Mr Burnham told the committee that public transport capacity will be constrained “for as long as we don’t have a vaccine, there’s no question about that”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He added: “This is a unique opportunity now to reform public transport outside of London, because we have public subsidy going into rail, into bus, into light rail, and we're really looking to the committee I guess, to give us more control over the system so that we can do more.”

He added: “This is a moment I think, for the Government to put real meaning behind levelling up in saying that it is going to treat the other cities in the same way that it treats London and put that money in so that we can build an integrated system across the modes, at the city regional level.”