Better Buses for Greater Manchester

Better Buses for Greater Manchester – a new phase of the campaign begins

SUAA keenly supported the Better Buses for Greater Manchester (BB4GM) campaign, which used imaginative methods, together with many hours of traditional leafletting and meetings, in winning overwhelming public support in two consultations carried out by Transport for Greater Manchester, for re-regulation of bus services in the region. The new ‘franchising system’ – to be called the ‘Bee Network’ – will give power to set fares, timetables and routes to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority under Mayor, Andy Burnham.

Bus services slashed

Not only are good bus services vital for the community, they are also crucial to reducing air pollution and tackling the climate emergency, to which carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles are a major contributing cause.

Yet bus services continue to be subject to vicious cuts, as this article in the Guardian has shown ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/06/bus-neglect-national-failure-public-policy-motorists ). In 2010 there were 17,394 registered bus routes in England but this has fallen to 8,781. The North West bus registrations have fallen by 52% during this time. What is more, the reductions to bus travel have gathered pace. Since 2021 England has lost at least 1,500 bus routes, and many routes have been curtailed.

This happened recently with the 375 Stockport to Mellor service. After complete withdrawal of the service was threatened in 2020, a vigorous community campaign, which SUAA supported, led to a rethink and to a promise from Andy Burnham to reinstate the original service. But, 3 years on, after the service operator, Little Gem Buses, went into liquidation, the service has been replaced on a truncated route by the 385, which no longer serves the Hospital and big estates in Offerton and Hazel Grove.

When bus companies go bust

Little Gem is not the only bus company to have gone bust during the time we have been campaigning. In 2020, the ‘not for profit’ Manchester Community Transport, which had a garage on Crossley Road, went bust with the drivers and other workers being made redundant. The company had been seriously hurt by Stockport Council’s closure of our no 300 Metroshuttle free bus in April 2019, despite overwhelming opposition in the public consultation, which SUAA had helped to achieve.

The law currently prohibits Councils from setting up new bus companies but a question for Andy Burnham for instance, is : why don’t you buy companies that go into liquidation, thus saving services, stopping redundancies and giving a start to publicly owned companies?

Bee network ‘D’ Day, 24^th September

The new franchising system, the Bee Network, is to be rolled out in Wigan and Bolton on 24 September 2023 and to the rest of the region by January 2025 and it will no doubt introduce many much needed improvements to services.

But, a new phase of the campaign for better buses now opens. BB4GM is committing to press for improvements – to include publicly owned operators; direct public participation in overseeing services; and better buses for bus workers too, with contractual requirements for improvements to pay and conditions.

SUAA will be with BB4GM on 24^th September, in celebrating the success and also in handing over the additional demands to Andy Burnham’s office on the day of the roll out. We will update our website with details of the day’s activities as soon as they are finalised.

Re-instate the Metroshuttle bus

Meanwhile we are campaigning for Stockport Council to put its money where its mouth is, on better bus services, tackling traffic congestion, carbon emissions and air pollution by reinstating the much missed no. 300 Metroshuttle bus. We were very pleased to learn that the Borough’s 3 Green Party councillors made manifesto commitments to fight for reinstatement of the Metroshuttle and we will be meeting them soon to discuss this objective. Please support this campaign by signing and sharing the petition ( https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/reinstate-the-stockport-metroshuttle-bus-and-other-withdrawn-bus-services ).