Bus companies will start slashing hundreds of services in 10 days unless ministers provide funding guarantees, Labour warned today.
The Government’s Bus Recovery Grant is set to expire at the end of March – and operators must give six weeks’ notice of plans to cancel or change routes.
Labour’s analysis, based on figures by the Confederation of Passenger Transport released today, reveals more than 1,600 routes could be cut this spring – leaving England with fewer than 10,000 routes for the first time since records began.
Over 1,100 routes have been axed in the last year alone.
Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: “The Conservatives are asleep at the wheel, risking the future of services millions of passengers depend on.”
“They have 10 days to act, or services could plunge to a record low.”
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Operators must give 42 days’ notice to the Traffic Commissioner to register changes to or withdrawals of routes.
With current funding set to expire from the end of March, the last date for companies to announce cancellations will be February 17 – unless they get certainty from the Government.
Buses are the most used mode of public transport in England – with 2.8 billion passenger journeys in 2021/22.
But the CPT has warned that up to 15% of bus services in England are at risk unless the Bus Recovery Grant is renewed.
Labour said a15% cut would see services fall from 10,941 to 9,300 – a fall of 1,641.
It would be the first time they fell below 10,000 since the Traffic Commissioner watchdog began reporting figures.
Last April, ministers announced that 31 areas in England, including Liverpool, Norfolk and Cornwall, had been chosen to receive funding from a £1.08bn pot of cash to boost bus services.
In March 2021, the Government unveiled its £3bn bus “revolution”, promising “more frequent, reliable, easier to use and cheaper bus services”.
The-then Prime Minister Boris Johnson trumpeted the “Bus Back Better” plan, saying: “Buses are lifelines and liberators, connecting people to jobs they couldn’t otherwise take, driving pensioners and young people to see their friends, sustaining town centres and protecting the environment.
“As we build back from the pandemic, better buses will be one of our first acts of levelling-up.”
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Labour today called on the Government to “give bus operators, communities and local leaders the certainty they need on the future of the Bus Recovery Grant”.
The party also urged ministers to “come clean on wider long-term funding for the Bus Back Better strategy”.
It said: “Over half of communities are seeing no funding whatsoever from the strategy, leaving the Government’s pledge to transform bus services in tatters.”
Ms Haigh added: “After 13 years of the Conservatives, the bus services communities depend on are stumbling from one crisis to the next.”
“Labour will reform the broken bus system, giving communities control of their own bus routes and fares, delivering the better bus services that passengers need.”
The Department for Transport was contacted for comment.
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